Political Islam and human security

In the wake of the September 11 and subsequent terrorist attacks, the academic and media commentaries on Islam the religion and Islam the basis for political ideology haves received an unprecedented high level of exposure and attention. The acts of political violence by extremist groups and the omnipresent war on terror have added fresh uncertainties to an already complex global order. Just as terrorism and counter-terrorism are locked in a mutually re-enforcing symbiosis, the sense of insecurity felt by Muslims and non-Muslims alike is mutually dependent and has the potential to escalate. This general assessment holds true for Muslims living in the Muslim world and beyond. The pervasive sense of being under attack physically and culturally by the United States and its allies has contributed to a growing unease among Muslims and re-enforced deep-seated mistrust of the ‘West’. Public articulation of such misgivings has in turn, lent credence to Western observers who posit an inherent antipathy between the West and the Muslim world. The subsequent policies that have emerged in this context of fear and mutual distrust have contributed to the vicious cycle of insecurity.

The house of service: the Gulen movement and Islam's third way

David Tittensor offers a groundbreaking new perspective on the Gülen movement, a Turkish Muslim educational activist network that emerged in the 1960s and has grown into a global empire with an estimated worth of $25 billion. Named after its leader Fethullah Gülen, the movement has established more than 1,000 secular educational institutions in over 140 countries, aiming to provide holistic education that incorporates both spirituality and the secular sciences.

Despite the movement's success, little is known about how its schools are run, or how Islam is operationalized. Drawing on thirteen months of ethnographic fieldwork in Turkey, Tittensor explores the movement's ideo-theology and how it is practiced in the schools. His interviews with both teachers and graduates from Africa, Indonesia, Central Asia, and Turkey show that the movement is a missionary organization, but of a singular kind: its goal is not simply widespread religious conversion, but a quest to recoup those Muslims who have apparently lost their way and to show non-Muslims that Muslims can embrace modernity and integrate into the wider community. Tittensor also examines the movement's operational side and shows how the schools represent an example of Mohammad Yunus's social business model: a business with a social cause at its heart.

The House of Service is an insightful exploration of one of the world's largest transnational Muslim associations, and will be invaluable for those seeking to understand how Islam will be perceived and practiced in the future.

Islam and development: exploring the invisible aid economy

The study of Islam since the advent of 9/11 has made a significant resurgence. However, much of the work produced since then has tended to focus on the movements that not only provide aid to their fellow Muslims, but also have political and at times violent agendas. This tendency has led to a dearth of research on the wider Muslim aid and development scene. Focusing on the role and impact of Islam and Islamic FBOs, an arena that has come to be regarded by some as the 'invisible aid economy', Islam and Development considers Islamic theology and its application to development and how Islamic teaching is actualized in case studies of Muslim FBOs. It brings together contributions from the disciplines of theology, sociology, politics and economics, aiming both to raise awareness and to function as a corrective step within the development studies literature.

Conclusion: Invisible aid: Islam, Muslim NGOs and development

This concluding chapter brings together the key themes and emphasises the key points raised by the contributing authors.

Islam's Modern Day Ibn Battutas: Gülen teachers journeying towards the divine

There is a longstanding debate on whether Muslims can be modern. Some argue that they can only be so if they forsake their traditions and embrace rationalism. In this article I argue that the Gülen Movement, a transnational Turkish Muslim educational activist network has found a middle ground by blending religious traditions with modern day realities. Drawing on interviews from the movement's teachers and graduates of its schools, from Turkey, Central Asia, Afghanistan and Pakistan, I explore, through the prism of al-riḥla fī ṭalab al-ʿilm (travel in search of knowledge), their maintenance of the longstanding Islamic ritual of travel as a means of excelling both professionally and religiously. In turn, I demonstrate how the movement, on a number of levels, effectively reconciles the spiritual and the everyday through updating Islamic practices to better integrate themselves and other Muslims into a globalised world.