Gülen: The Ambiguous Politics of Market Islam in Turkey and the World Joshua D. Hendrick New York University Press September 2013
https://nyupress.org/books/book-details.aspx?bookId=11498
“In a groundbreaking study, Joshua Hendrick provides us with the first comprehensive and dispassionate analysis of the worldwide Gülen movement. Theoretically sophisticated and brimming with unprecedented empirical insight, this volume will be essential reading for students and researchers in contemporary Islamic Studies as well as those seeking to understand the changing nature of social movements under globalization.”-Peter Mandaville, author of Global Political Islam
“Essential reading for anyone interested in current political, economic, and religious trends in modern Turkey. This work is by far the best study to date of one of the most important and interesting Islamic movements of our times. A fascinating book. -Nancy Gallagher, University of California Santa Barbara
The “Hizmet” (“Service”) Movement of Fethullah Gülen is Turkey’s most influential Islamic identity community. Widely praised throughout the early 2000s as a mild and moderate variation on Islamic political identity, the Gülen Movement has long been a topic of both adulation and conspiracy in Turkey, and has become more controversial as it spreads across the world. In Gülen, Joshua D. Hendrick suggests that when analysed in accordance with its political and economic impact, the Gülen Movement, despite both praise and criticism, should be given credit for playing a significant role in Turkey’s rise to global prominence.
Drawing on 14 months of ethnographic fieldwork in Turkey and the U.S., Hendrick examines the Gülen Movement’s role in Turkey’s recent rise, as well as its strategic relationship with Turkey’s Justice and Development Party-led government. He argues that the movement’s growth and impact both inside and outside Turkey position both its leader and its followers as indicative of a “post political” turn in twenty-first century Islamic political identity in general, and as illustrative of Turkey’s political, economic, and cultural transformation in particular.
Joshua D. Hendrick is Assistant Professor of Sociology and Global Studies at Loyola University Maryland in Baltimore.