Pedagogy of hizmet in Germany – non-formal educational practices and biographical views of its participants

ABSTRACT

The Gülen Movement, a global network and religious community revolving the Turkish Islamic preacher Fethullah Gülen, has become a topic of political discourses in worldwide media since the coup attempt in Turkey in 2016. Earlier, it was particularly known for its worldwide education activities. The article discusses first results of a reconstructive analysis of practices and biographies in a context of a weekly religious sohbet (conversation circle) for male university students within the DFG-financed project Pedagogy of the ‘Gülen Movement’ (2016–2019). The Islamic culture of education inside the sohbet can be understood in the context of ongoing educational inequalities of Turkish-Muslim students in the German migration-society. Against this background, in Germany, Gülen Movement’s idea of education hizmet comes along with certain religious practices and subjectifications, which aim to enable young Turkish Muslims taking a recognised standing in society.

KEYWORDS:

• Islam
• education
• Germany
• Gülen Movement
• hizmet

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Magnus Frank http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8398-0491

Notes

1 In our project we translate hizmet field-specifically as ‘Serving the people for the cause of God’.

2 On the spectrum of Islamic movements, the Gülen Movement could be considered hanafi-sunni, as well as sufistic. Sufism is known as a mystical and spiritual interpretation of Islam (Schimmel 2014).

3 Due to our praxeological approach (cf. chapter 2), we choose iman as spelling for the originally Arabic word إِيمَان . In doing so, we illustrate the research field’s non-formal usage of the word, which we observe during oral conversations and messages sent via instant messengers or published on social media. However, the linguistically transliteration of إِيمَان to the Latin alphabet is deemed to be ` īmān. Nursi himself, later referring to modern Turkish spelling rules for Ottoman language pronunciation, uses the spelling îmân. The circumflex shows the longer intonation of the letters i and a, which complies with the Ottoman/Arabic pronunciation of the word, but not the modern Turkish language. Referring to the Arabic origin of words within the usage of the Turkish language seems to mostly come along with connotations of Qur’an or Islamic religiosity. Thus, even the decision about how to spell leads us into a discussion on our perception and representation of modern faith.

4 Nursi’s concept of Medrese-Tüz-Zehra (Ottoman for ‘School of Brightness’), a school combining religious and scientific education, which has actually never been founded, roots in this effort (Şahinöz 2009).

5 From this perspective, theses of a (de-)secularisation of society (Berger 1973, 1999) and of secularism as an imagined self-characterisation of modernity (Asad 2003) present the wider religious-sociological context of our project.

6 For a long time, journalists (such as Ahmet Şık since 2010), who mostly support a strict separation of religion and politics, report critically on the Turkish networks success in forming an intellectual Islamic elite which acquired influential positions within police, military and jurisprudence (Arslan and Bozay 2012).

7 For the significance of the network within the US-American charter school system, refer to the documentation of director Mark Hall in 2015 ‘Killing Ed - Charter Schools, Corruption, and the Gülen Movement in America’.

8 Researcher speak about an ethnicized social structure in Germany, which is also the result of long-run discussions about how to handle ‘Guest-worker’-migration and its consequences in a political, social and legal way (Gomolla and Radtke 2002; Hormel 2011; Radtke 2013; Geier 2016). In terms of educational success the lack is traced back to the migrant and his supposed deficient culture, and not to the school system and its practices itself. This proves to be functional to the system. Its credo is: ‘you, the student, have to change so that everything can remain as it is.’ (Geier 2014, 350).

9 For the limits of ethnographical research cf. Diehm, Kuhn, and Machold 2013.

10 ‘Bildung’ in this case is no equivalent of ‘education’, respectively it is not translatable without loss of meaning. The term ‘(to) build’ is etymologically close, since ‘Bildung’ refers to formation. For the borders in translation rf.: Bachmann-Medick 2009.

11 As our research is interested in education, we are facing the problem, that the Gülen Movement understands itself as an educational movement. Thus, we expose ourselves to the suspicion of speaking out in favour of hizmet; and to adopt their interpretations and narratives, uncritically. Being brought to us, this suspicion is part of a general allegation that the Gülen Movement was hiding their real interest to infiltrate the secular state by operating educationally. In Turkey this link is also known as thesis of a derin devlet, ‘Deep state’.

12 Our experience has shown that we could maintain our field-contact in particular by highlighting our interest in not assessing, but describing and understanding the practices of the sohbetler. The actors too show interest in taking up our research in order to gain insights in own actions from an external perspective.

13 With this term we do not want to only focus on a society with dynamically changing appearances and cultural practices as a result of people moving across national borders. Our aim is to call attention to a paradoxical situation. On the one hand, we find ourselves in a post-national constellation (Habermas 2001) of globalisation, transnational mobility and hybridisation of life plans. On the other hand, a renationalisation can be observed, in which the imaginary concept of national belonging still works (Anderson 1988)

14 In the medial discussion, they are known as ‘light houses’. The term derives from early statements of Gülen. But in the field, the actors speak less empathetic of them as ‘ev’ (Turkish for ‘flat’) or – even if more rarely - refer to them as dershane (‘House of Lesson’), a term shaped by Nursi (Yavuz 2004).

15 Currently we have also been able attend sohbetler for female students in Berlin and Cologne. Their practices, reconstructed in an unpublished master thesis, will be parenthesized in this article.

16 We have conducted a total of 14 biographical interviews with participants. In the following we will exemplify the biographical relevance of the practices in terms of education. Selectively and punctually we will refer to the interviews with Hamit, Metin, Ibrahim, Şafak, Olcay and Doğan. All student’s names’ have been anonymized.

17 As a consequence of the attempted coup it can currently be observed, that only very few interested ‘guests’, who are potential new participants, attend the sohbet.

18 Language use: ağabey in the literature; Abi in colloquial language.

19 In the field, it is spoken of two different types of organisation. Those, who practice rehberlik (guidance) can be regarded as organisers and performers, especially in educational work. İmamlık (imamate) is practiced by those, who make decisions and designate rehber ağabeyler. The sohbetler for students can be regarded as an important task, which can also be performed by ağabeyler who practice imamlık.

20 Ders etymologically traces back to the Arabic root d-r-s for ‘(to) study’.

21 The etymological root of sohbet is the Arabic word ‘suhba’ for ‘companionship’. In the early Sufism (e.g. the religious order of the Naqshibandi, to which Nursi belonged) the term is considered to describe ‘close proximity and communication with the shaykh’ (Knysh 2017).

22 As the word Qur’an also etymologically traces back to the Arabic qur’ān for ‘recitation’, from qara’a for ‘read, recite’. Also the term ‘Islam’ can bee seen as a semantic resource. It is derived from the root verb ‘istaslama’ (استسلاما), which means ‘to submit’ or ‘give in’ or ‘surrender’.

23 Idris’ name has been anonymized.

24 We also attended sohbetler, which were dominantly structured by communications in German language. One specific appreciation of the Turkish language is expressed in all terms, which serve as symbols of a scientific, ‘western’ modernity, and can be found in the daily vocabulary of hizmet (e.g. through naming books, journals, digital media and educational institutions), such as the former TV-Channel ‘Saman Yolu TV’ (‘Milky Way TV’).

25 The ağabeyler themselves seldom refer to the sohbet as ders. The reason for this seems to be their aim to position the programme as a counter part of the ders in the student’s everyday university life (classes, lectures etc.). By some of the students, ders is used as a cipher, which indicates that they seek a career or (like Burak in the first field note) already act as a (young) ağabey.

26 Rf. the Journal ‘TARBIYA: Journal of Education in Muslim Society’. http://journal.uinjkt.ac.id/index.php/tarbiya/index.