Book Review: A Dialogue of Civilizations: Gülen’s Islamic Ideals and Humanistic Discourse
Review of Jill Carroll’s A Dialogue of Civilizations: Gulen’s Islamic Ideals and Humanistic Discourse. 2007. Somerset, NJ: The Light, 114pp. US $13.95. ISBN 978 1 59784 110 8.
Renewed interest in civil society movements has inspired many scholars to undertake full-time research on democratic political processes and institutions across the globe. Yet few of them have focused on the role of ideas that bring people together nowadays; even less have attempted to put those ideas in the context of the larger humanities.
Dr. Jill Carroll, in a more critical spirit than was formerly possible, delves into the intellectual world of one of the most influential thinkers of our time and carries on a constructive conversation between him and giants of Western thought. Her book, A Dialogue of Civilizations, aims to explain the points where the ideas of Fethullah Gulen, an influential Turkish intellectual and scholar of Islam, find echo in the texts of Confucius, Plato, Immanuel Kant, John Stuart Mill, and Jean Paul Sartre. This important study advances public knowledge of the cross-cultural religious dialogue in the twenty-first century and highlights opportunities for improved human understanding.
According to Profesor Carroll, dialogue between people with vastly different worldviews is vital in today’s world, where globalization, mass communication, and technology have pushed individuals and groups together in ways never before seen in human history. In her attempt to develop the capacity to dialogue and create relatedness with people whose worldviews are utterly different, she provides an interesting account of how Gulen’s thought on issues of inherent human value and dignity, freedom of thought, education, and taking responsibility for creating society and the world relate to the ideas and work of five seminal and influential thinkers.
Carroll argues that it is appropriate to place Fethullah Gulen, via his texts, “in dialogue” with other thinkers coming from very different perspectives because Gulen has championed dialogue as a necessary commitment and activity in the contemporary world. To support her claim, Carroll offers a compelling theoretical framework that encompasses five themes that are well-known to any students of general humanistic discourse: 1) inherent human value and moral dignity, 2) freedom, 3) ideal humanity, 4) education, and 5) responsibility. Carroll’s aim is to place the ideas of Gulen into the context of general humanities discourse.
Carroll takes enormous care in developing her analysis over the span of five rich chapters. Her first chapter calls reader’s attention to the notion of inherent human value and moral dignity in Kant’s Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals (1785) and monographs of Fethullah Gulen. She argues that both thinkers share the view that human beings, as individuals and as groups, are indispensable to fundamental constituents of existence. Moreover, according to the author, both Kant and Gulen take human value and dignity as the basis for defining legitimate and illegitimate behaviors toward people in society. This leads Carroll to conclude that Gulen echoes the spirit of Kantian analysis despite coming from completely different framework.
In the second chapter Carroll highlights the notion of freedom – the freedom to think, to learn, to express, and to live – as it is reflected in the works of John Stuart Mill and Fethullah Gulen. Author places Mill into a dialogue with Gulen around social and civil liberty. Carroll notes that both thinkers resonate with each other in many respects on the vital role that freedom plays in society. Both Mill and Gulen theorize human freedom in way that locates it within a larger philosophy of human flourishing. Both elaborate freedom as that which provides the ground for the fullest development and expression of the highest and best human capacities. Again, despite their backgrounds in very different social, political, and religious contexts, Mill and Gulen agree on the importance of freedom of thought and expression.
The third chapter extends these propositions and constructs a “trialogue” between Gulen and Confucius and Plato on the issue of human ideal. Carroll sees that all three agree in that society works best when it is governed and constituted by people of moral and intellectual virtue. Gulen, Confucius, and Plato identify the characteristics of ideal human beings, which distinguish them from the common mass of humanity. All three argue in their own way that these ideal individuals must take their place as leaders in society. Thus, according to Carroll, for all three, hope for society lies exclusively in the influence of the “ideal humans” – those who escape perennial temptations of attachment to worldly pleasures, wealth, and private comfort; those who always push further and higher, hungry for new heights of knowledge, virtue, goodness, and truth.
In her fourth chapter, Carroll turns to the role of educations, which is the means by which a society develops from among its members these virtuous individuals that Gulen, Confucius, and Plato describe in their work. All three thinkers, according to Carroll, articulate specific theories of education in their respective worldviews. For all three, rigorous and guided education is the cornerstone of development of the highest human ideal. In other words, education, for them, is the mechanism through which is developed the highest and best of human capacity. Without such individuals at all its levels, society cannot reach its fullest potential and may be lost.
In her last chapter, Carroll focuses on the notion of responsibility. She finds that human responsibility for the world is a constant theme across the centuries of humanism. Carroll has chosen the one who defends more than anyone else the notion of human responsibility for virtually everything – Jean Paul Sartre – as Gulen’s dialogue partner in this chapter. Although atheists and theists commonly denounce each other and, thus, are not interested in dialogue, Carroll identifies that Gulen and Sartre find powerful resonance on the theme of responsibility. Both Sartre and Gulen, according to the author, “give their complete intellectual energies to highlighting the urgent need in life for people to take responsibility for the world, and to reiterating the fact that the world has always been and will continue to be that which we make of it.”
Carroll’s book deserves to become a standard text in cross-cultural studies. Partnering Gulen’s ideas with those of Kant, Plato, Confucius, Mill, and Sartre requires sophisticated analysis and immense knowledge of the subject. Inspired by the engagement of ideas, Carroll skillfully bridges different cultural contexts, time periods, and spiritual traditions.
Nevertheless, several elements could further improve Dr. Carroll’s analysis. Chief among them would be putting the debate in a larger theoretical framework. Besides its academic value, a theoretical framework might help to establish coherence between the otherwise relatively independent chapters. Another element that might need further clarification is Carroll’s tendency to present Gulen as an independent thinker, who paved the way for the Movement. While Gulen’s role in modern Islamic thought is immense, it might also be useful to refer to the teachings of Mawlana Jalal al-Din Rumi or Said Nursi, from whom Gulen has drawn much of his inspiration, and discuss their messages of service to God and love to one another. Finally, the author’s focus on human value, moral dignity, freedom, human ideal, and the notion of responsibility as the defining fault-line within societies can be questioned. Neither Gulen’s nor larger society’s vision is limited to these values. It is possible that people have much more principles in common to unite around.
All of these marginal points, however, fade in light of this study’s contribution. Dr. Carroll provides the most compelling explanatory framework to date for examining the Gulen philosophy, supported by a convincing narrative that sets the bar high for future works on the subject. More importantly, Carroll’s book is a welcome contribution providing a timely toolbox for both academics and policy analysts to examine the ongoing events in the Middle East and beyond.
While a more global academic exchange would be very welcome, scholars interested in understanding Fethullah Gulen and the Gulen Movement today should read this book.
