Gandhi and Gulen : Comparing their views for peace building exercises

Abstract

Revered as ‘special person with divine grace’
among their people at popular level, both Gandhi
and Gulen envision a free, peaceful, democratic,
tolerant and non-violent world and have
generated positive public actions to achieve this
goal through legal, peaceful and non-violent
means. Though the world view of both are deeply
grounded in religious philosophy, Gandhi’s world view is primarily constructed through Santan Hindu religious tradition, while Gulen’s world view is primarily filtered through the prism of Sunni orthodox Islamic traditions with a focus on Turkish Islamic history. Gandhi, unlike Gulen,
was not a product of religious seminary or had
undergone any scholastic training. On the other
hand, Gulen, unlike Gandhi, is neither a product
of modern educational system nor a national-
political leader of the masses -fighting for the
political liberation of people. Notwithstanding
the differences in the political context, time-period
and religious traditions and other semantic
differences between the two, both are credited to
have conducted public actions on the basis of their
understanding of ‘religious truth’ in pursuit of a
free, peaceful, democratic, tolerant and non-
violent world through legal, peaceful and non-
violent means