Fethullah Gülen and his movement have also been active in the area of interreligious dialogue and peacemaking. Four years ago, Mr. Gülen traveled to Rome where he was met by Pope John Paul II. He has met the Ecumenical Patriarch of the Orthodox Church numerous times. His interreligious activities have gone beyond Muslim-Christian relations to include meetings with Jewish leaders at the national and international level.
However, some scholars consider the movement associated with Gülen as one of the transformations that have occurred as Said Nursi’s thought continues to be reinterpreted and applied anew in evolving historical and geographical situations. One scholar to study the movement Professor Hakan Yavuz, at present a visiting scholar at Notre Dame University in the U.S.A., notes that “Some Turkish Nurcus, such as Yeni Asya of Mehmet Kutlular and the Fethullah Gülen community, reimagined the movement as a ‘Turkish Islam’.” Another scholar, Dr. Ihsan Yilmaz concurs: “Nursi’s discourse ‘has already weathered major economic, political, and educational transformations’… Today, the Gulen movement is a manifestation of this phenomenon.”
