About Gulen

The British opinion journal PROSPECT and the U.S. journal FOREIGN POLICY were recently surprised when a global poll on the world's public intellectuals produced a vote naming Fethullah Gulen, the Turkish Sufi figure, as the number one such personality.

This was a great surprise to PROSPECT and FOREIGN POLICY, neither of which ever before heard of Gulen.

On Sunday, June 29, 2207 GMT, PressTV in Britain will broadcast an interview of Center for Islamic Pluralism Executive Director Stephen Suleyman Schwartz with George Galloway, British MP, on the program "The Real Deal."

In the interview, Schwartz noted that the attempt at a public relations coup by the followers of Gulen had backfired, presenting the group to the West as manipulative and cultish. Schwartz described the background of the Gulen movement in Islamic history and Turkish politics. Galloway evoked the general bafflement of Western observers at this strange incident.

"Fethullah Gulen wished to be thought of as a Muslim Pope or Dalai Lama but appeared after the PROSPECT affair more as a Muslim version of any number of disreputable cultists", Schwartz commented later.

Please Note: The show itself cannot be accessed. CIP is working on archiving all such appearances.

Related Topics: Sufism, Turkish Islam receive the latest by email: subscribe to the free center for islamic pluralism mailing list