Gülen: The Ambiguous Politics of Market Islam in Turkey and the World by Joshua D. Hendrick (review)

Based on field research in Turkey and the United States, Joshua Hendrick analyzes the Gülen Movement (GM), by focusing on its activities in education, the media, and business in the context of globalization and neoliberalism. He employs the concept of “strategic ambiguity” to stress the movement’s attempt to leave some issues, such as Fethullah Gülen’s leadership role in the movement, unexplained, at least vague. He warns, “the more GM actors insist on employing strategic ambiguity to explain their collective mobilization, the more they should anticipate criticism for non-transparency and for alleged ulterior motives” (p. 242).

Hendrick emphasizes how religious, social, and financial aspects coexist in the movement’s global activities. The movement’s reading circles (sohbets) “reproduce an alternative public sphere that links individuals in Istanbul and London, Baku and Bangkok, New York and New Delhi … in a shared ritual of reading, socializing, money transfer, and communication exchange” (p. 116). For financial contributions (himmet), the author puts, “those who gave himmet, including myself, did so not because they had to, because they wanted to” (emphasis original; p. 154).

The academic quality of Gülen depends on alternative criteria. If critically interpreting a single case with interviews, contemporary debates, and conceptual discussions is sufficient, then this is a fine work. If the criteria are generalizable results, causal explanations, and theory testing, then this book is below the threshold. In any case, writing with “dispassionate” language is worth appreciation, but not sufficient to declare a book “groundbreaking, path-breaking, and classic,” as the back cover endorsements too generously do.

I have some concerns for even an interpretive single case study. The bibliography incorporates only six Turkish sources. Regarding the literature in English, it includes none of Reçat Kasaba’s publications, only one of Şerif Mardin’s, and only two by Nilüfer Göle. While discussing “center-periphery relations,” for example, the author does not cite Mardin’s article¹ that coined the concept in Turkey (pp. 203–204). Moreover, some pioneering publications on the Gülen movement are omitted (e.g., Elisabeth Özdalga’s two articles²).

There is no need to undermine the existing literature in order to prove one’s originality. The author categorizes Turkish Islam and the Secular State, edited by Hakan Yavuz and John Esposito,³ as one of the books that present Gülen “as a perfect individual who can (and should) be compared to such diverse and remarkable figures as Martin Luther King…,” whereas he implicitly presents “a small number of unaffiliated academic studies” which are not “internally commissioned” as much more reliable, listing his own three publications in addition to some of Bekim Agai, Bayram Balci, Berna Turam, and Hakan Yavuz (p. 70). There are two problems here. First, four “unaffiliated” scholars Hendrick lists were also speakers at the Georgetown conference that produced Turkish Islam and the Secular State, which has been the most-cited work on the Gülen movement (158 citations in Google Scholar). Second, being sympathetic to a group does not automatically undermine an academic’s work on it. First-rate works on feminism, neo-Marxism, Judaism, African-Americans, etc. have been produced by insiders.

Similarly, in order to refute the publications that define Gülen as a kind of Sufi, Hendrick creates a dichotomy of other-worldly Sufis and this-worldly Gülen movement (98–101). This is a problematic dichotomy, because various Sufi groups from Caucasus to Africa have focused on this-worldly activities, and the Gülen movement’s participants practice some Sufi rituals, such as systematic recitation of God’s names.

There are also some problems in the usage of Turkish words. For example, the subsection title “Devam Yol! (Onward!)” should be “Yola Devam!” (p. 54); “Mustafa Sungol” should be “Mustafa Sungur” (p. 69); “saboloncu” should be “sabloncu” (p. 109); and “verabilirsan” should be “verebilirsen” (p. 154).

Overall...