Encyclopedia of Islam

Further reading: Abd Allah b. Buluggin, The Tibyan: 

Memoirs of Abd Allah b. Buluggin, the Last Zirid Emir of 

Granada. Translated and edited by Amin T. Tibi (Leiden: 

E.J. Brill, 1986); L. P. Harvey, Islamic Spain, 1250 to 1500

(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992); Bernard 

F. Reilly, The Medieval Spains (Cambridge: Cambridge 

University Press, 1993).

Gülen, Fethullah

 

(1941–  )  leading Islamic 

reformist thinker and preacher from Turkey

Born in a farming village near Erzurum in eastern 

t

Urkey

, Fethullah Gülen, affectionately known 

to his followers as Hoja efendi (a Turkish title of 

respect), obtained his early 

edUcation

 at home, at 

primary school, and from religious teachers. He 

regards his mother as his first teacher and credits 

his father, Ramiz Gülen, for teaching him Arabic. 

He is reported to have memorized the q

Uran

 at an 

early age. Although Sufi organizations had been 

banned in Turkey by m

UstaFa

  k

emal

  a

tatUrk

in 1925, his teachers included several who had 

been affiliated with the reformist n

aqshbandi

 s

UFi

o

rder

. He also studied nonreligious subjects such 

as modern 

science

, 

philosophy

, and history.

Gülen began to give sermons in local settings 

when he was 16 and was greatly influenced by the 

teachings of Said Nursi (d. 1960), a prominent 

Muslim modernist thinker of Kurdish heritage 

who was advocating the compatibility of modern 

science and knowledge with Islam in Turkey. 

A pious young man, Gülen received his first 

appointment in 1959 as the 

imam

 at the prominent 

Ucserefeli Mosque in Edirne, western Turkey. He 

served there for two and a half years, then per-

formed his Turkish military service. When he got 

out, he held various positions and gave talks on 

religious and political subjects throughout the 

country, concerned at the time with growing com-

munist influence. Inspired by Said Nursi and the 

Nurcu movement, he favored the development of 

an ideological alternative to the secular Turkish 

nationalism of Ataturk (called Kemalism). His 

tape-recorded sermons gained wide circulation 

and were especially well received by university 

students. After a military coup in 1971, Gülen 

was sentenced to prison for three years for his 

outreach activities. But this did not curtail his 

popularity, and, in 1975, he organized conferences 

dealing with the q

Uran

, science, and Darwin-

ism. It is said that young people from throughout 

Turkey flocked to hear his sermons and lectures. 

During the 1980s, after another military coup, 

Turkish authorities continued to monitor his 

activities, even raiding his home. He was able to 

act more openly in the 1990s because of main-

stream acceptance of religious parties such as the 

r

eFah

 p

arty

 in Turkish politics. Gülen had public 

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