In 1938, in a newly found secular Turkey, there was a young man named Muhammad Fethullah Gülen, who was born in Anatolia. He comes from a rare family that has maintained all throughout its branches our religious identity. His father Ramiz was an imam of a mosque, and you could say by looking at the things he learned from his father that probably he was influenced by Said Nursi, but it wasn't a popular thing that you want to be known for in Turkey back then.

He was raised in the Sufi orders learning character and the spiritual regimen of the remembrance of God. In his youth he became first directly influenced to the writings of Said Nursi and then studied with prominent scholars on the different Islamic sciences. As he became 30 years old, his mom jumped in and said, “Look Fethullah, you need to tie the knot.” He said, “My beloved mother, I have tied the knot to Hizmet, to the service of Islam.” So that's where this idea of Hizmet started; when he was just a young imam he said “my life is dedicated.” So, like Imam Ibn Taymiyya and Imam Nawawi, he never got married. He wrote books, articles, and inspired and mentored thousands of people. Around that time he began to read about other revivalist movements and he reflects that he very much respected the Muslim Brotherhood movement of Egypt and he respected the Islamic Movement of Maududi in Pakistan and he said “all of their general teachings and their revivalist methodology is in line with what I believe and what I feel that I have learned from Said Nursi.” His only historic objection was that “it seems there's too much goal of a political empowerment rather than just focusing on the civilizational growth” and he felt that having a goal of political empowerment may create problems in the intentions of the people who are involved.

The young imam Gülen was very impressed by Bediuzzaman Said Nursi’s works (aka “the wonder of the age”) and he then began teaching people expounding upon those things and in his sermons he would read articles of what's going on in Turkey and then he would take references from the Light Epistles (Risale-i Nur) of Bediuzzaman and he would talk about things in a relevant way. He used to put out on a Monday a sign on the front of the mosque “this is what we're going to be talking about in the Friday sermon.” People really like that kind of organized expectation.

Imam Gülen said that “the head and the heart should always be in agreement – that spirituality should govern what you're dealing with in your daily interaction; it should be managing what is going on in the real world and that your ability to express religion should have a logical practical application. His teachings were about making the remembrances of God, the spiritual regimen, and belief in the Hereafter a motivation for building society for doing good, and to serve to the best interests of the people.

From 1973 to 1983 he started organizing these small group study circles where they would take Said Nursi’s writings, study them, and talk about how they are relevant in their lives. He also began encouraging his students and followers to start summer camps and to create dormitories and apartments next to colleges to give a place for the young up-and-coming students to have their Islamic identity developed. He encouraged them to create a networking model of entrepreneurship, business empowerment, and building social capital. They bought the Zaman newspaper and then they started to really put a lot of effort and money and spreading a monthly publication throughout Turkey in the religious mindset. Many of his followers became journalists and writers; a large number of them – thousands and thousands of them actually – became schoolteachers, from elementary all the way to the top academics of graduate studies. Hizmet is this civilizational, Islamic grassroots movement started by Fethullah Gülen.

We ask Allah swt to bless us to be able to carry Islam for our generations here in Charlotte in a similar manner.