An ambitious new documentary examines Fethullah Gülen through the eyes of international scholars, religious leaders, and educators, challenging the reduction of his legacy to Turkey’s political conflicts while raising fundamental questions about the future of the Hizmet movement.
On October 17, 2026, just three days before the second anniversary of Fethullah Gülen’s death, a 90-minute documentary titled GULEN: Devoted to Education & Dialogue premiered on YouTube.
Featuring 35 interviewees from 14 countries, the documentary attempts something that has become increasingly difficult in the polarized political environment surrounding modern Turkey: examining Fethullah Gülen as an intellectual and religious figure independently of the political controversies that dominated the final decade of his life.
Its central argument is straightforward but historically consequential. Gülen’s significance cannot be adequately understood through his confrontation with President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the accusations surrounding the July 2016 coup attempt, or the Turkish government’s subsequent campaign against the Hizmet movement.
Instead, the documentary invites viewers to consider a broader legacy encompassing education, scientific inquiry, religious pluralism, interfaith dialogue, nonviolence, and transnational civil society.
What distinguishes the production from conventional biographical documentaries is its reliance on international testimony. Scholars from different religious traditions, academics who have studied Gülen’s thought, and individuals whose lives were shaped by Hizmet-inspired educational institutions offer interpretations that frequently transcend the Turkish political context.
Among the participants are Georgetown University’s Ori Z. Soltes, Scott C. Alexander of the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago, Lawrence Edward Carter Sr. of Morehouse College, Reuven Firestone of Hebrew Union College, Paul Weller, sociologist Vincent N. Parrillo, and philosopher Abdusalam Guseynov.
Their participation is significant not because academic titles automatically validate a religious leader’s legacy, but because their perspectives demonstrate that Gülen’s ideas generated serious intellectual interest beyond the boundaries of his own community.
The documentary’s greatest achievement is precisely this internationalization of the historical conversation.
Yet its broader significance lies in another question: What happens to an intellectual and moral movement when its founder dies, its institutions are subjected to political repression, and its followers must reconstruct their identities across multiple continents?
The film offers an optimistic answer, although not without revealing tensions and unresolved questions.
Gülen as a Global Moral Figure
One of the documentary’s most striking features is the way international scholars interpret Gülen through intellectual traditions that extend beyond Islam.
Several participants draw comparisons with Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., and Nelson Mandela. These comparisons are not presented primarily as claims of historical equivalence, but as attempts to identify a shared moral vocabulary centered on service, nonviolence, human dignity, and social responsibility.
The presence of Dr. Lawrence Edward Carter Sr., associated with Morehouse College and the intellectual legacy of Martin Luther King Jr., is particularly noteworthy.
Carter’s reflections suggest that Gülen’s influence could operate across religious boundaries without requiring theological agreement.
His observation that Gülen helped him become a better Christian is perhaps one of the most revealing statements associated with the documentary.
It captures a dimension of religious dialogue that is often overlooked: genuine encounters between faith traditions need not weaken religious identity. They can deepen an individual’s understanding of their own spiritual commitments.
This is an important distinction.
Much of the contemporary political discourse surrounding religion assumes that religious traditions exist in permanent competition. Dialogue is consequently interpreted either as a strategy for conversion or as a compromise of doctrinal conviction.
The documentary presents Gülen’s approach differently.
It suggests that religious identity becomes more meaningful when translated into ethical responsibility toward people who do not share one’s beliefs.
This interpretation is reinforced by the testimony of Prof. Scott C. Alexander.
Recalling his personal encounter with Gülen, Alexander describes meeting a modest and gentle elderly man rather than the distant religious authority he might have expected.
The significance of this observation is not merely biographical.
It connects the public language of humility and service with the personal conduct of the individual whose teachings inspired a global movement.
Prof. Ori Z. Soltes similarly recalls a personal encounter in which Gülen touched his shoulders after Soltes expressed a wish to ease the burden he was carrying.
Such memories do not constitute a complete historical assessment of Gülen. Personal impressions, however sincere, cannot substitute for institutional or political analysis.
But they reveal something important about the documentary’s purpose.
Its contributors are attempting to explain why Gülen made a lasting impression on individuals who were neither his followers nor members of his religious tradition.
Science, Faith, and the Search for a Modern Islamic Identity
The documentary’s treatment of science and faith is among its most intellectually substantial contributions.
Gülen’s religious philosophy emerged within a Turkish historical context characterized by a persistent tension between state-sponsored secular modernization and traditional religious identity.
Throughout much of the twentieth century, Turkish public discourse frequently presented science and religion as competing sources of authority.
Gülen challenged this dichotomy.
He argued that scientific knowledge, technological advancement, religious belief, and ethical responsibility could coexist within a coherent understanding of human development.
The documentary presents this approach not simply as an abstract theological proposition, but as a practical philosophy that influenced the establishment of educational institutions around the world.
One particularly revealing testimony comes from Dr. Luihi de Salvia.
De Salvia recalls that some religious environments encountered during his youth created the impression that science, art, democracy, and Islam were fundamentally incompatible.
His encounter with Gülen’s thought offered an alternative understanding.
He discovered a religious perspective in which scientific inquiry and artistic expression did not threaten faith, and in which commitment to Islam could coexist with democratic values and an inclusive understanding of humanity.
This observation illuminates an important dimension of Gülen’s intellectual influence.
For Muslims confronting the pressures of modernization, the question was not simply whether they should become more religious or more secular.
The deeper question concerned whether religious commitment could provide a constructive foundation for participation in modern civilization.
Gülen’s answer was affirmative.
His educational philosophy emphasized that scientific and professional excellence should be accompanied by moral responsibility.
The ideal physician, engineer, scientist, or teacher was not merely someone who possessed advanced technical knowledge, but someone who understood the ethical consequences of using that knowledge.
In this sense, Gülen’s approach represented an attempt to reconcile modernity with moral purpose.
It also challenged the assumption that Islamic revival necessarily required political Islam.
The documentary repeatedly portrays Gülen as more interested in cultivating individuals and strengthening civil society than in constructing a religious state.
That distinction is essential for understanding both his international appeal and his eventual conflict with Turkish political power.
Education: From Religious Inspiration to Global Civil Society
If one theme dominates the documentary, it is education.
The film presents educational activity as the most visible institutional expression of Gülen’s thought.
Yet the testimonies suggest that the movement’s educational philosophy cannot be understood simply through the establishment of schools.
Its central concern was the relationship between knowledge, character, and responsibility.
One of the documentary’s most memorable stories comes from Scott C. Alexander’s visit to a school in South Africa.
Alexander recalls learning that most of the students were Catholic, despite the institution having been established by Turkish Muslim educators.
The experience deeply affected him.
Why would Muslim teachers travel thousands of miles to educate Christian children in a country with which they had no obvious personal or religious connection?
For Alexander, the answer was found in the ethical concept of service.
The educators were not primarily attempting to expand a religious community. They were responding to a perceived responsibility toward other human beings.
This testimony is important because it transforms an abstract religious ideal into a concrete social practice.
It also challenges the widespread assumption that faith-based educational institutions necessarily function as instruments of religious exclusivity.
The documentary reinforces this argument through the experiences of former students.
Maryam Nazar, who attended a Turkish-Afghan school during the 1990s, summarizes her educational experience through the concept of humanity.
Her testimony suggests that the most lasting impact of the school was not confined to academic instruction.
It involved the cultivation of empathy, responsibility, and respect for others.
Similarly, Rabia Muhammed Idris recalls studying in an environment where Muslim, Christian, and nonreligious students participated in shared educational and social activities.
These experiences illustrate how schools can become laboratories of peaceful coexistence.
Students do not merely learn about diversity as an abstract concept. They encounter it in their daily relationships.
The documentary also highlights the unusually close bonds that developed between teachers and students.
Former students describe educators who acted as mentors, guides, and sometimes almost as members of an extended family.
Such relationships reflect a conception of education in which the teacher’s moral example is as important as the information delivered in the classroom.
The distinction between teaching and educating is central to Gülen’s philosophy.
Teaching transmits knowledge.
Education, in the broader sense presented by the documentary, develops human character.
From a sociological perspective, the significance of this model extends beyond individual schools.
Hizmet-inspired educational institutions created networks of trust, professional cooperation, cultural exchange, and international mobility.
These networks contributed to the emergence of a transnational civil society movement whose participants increasingly operated outside the cultural and political boundaries of Turkey.
The documentary convincingly demonstrates the human impact of this process.
Nevertheless, a more comprehensive historical assessment would also examine institutional governance, educational outcomes, financial structures, and the experiences of students or educators who may have developed critical perspectives.
The film’s overwhelmingly positive testimonies illuminate important achievements, but they do not eliminate the need for independent evaluation.
Interfaith Dialogue as an Alternative to Civilizational Conflict
Another major contribution of the documentary is its treatment of interfaith dialogue.
The subject is particularly important in light of the ideological debates that followed the end of the Cold War.
Samuel Huntington’s influential thesis about a clash of civilizations suggested that cultural and religious identities would become increasingly important sources of global conflict.
Gülen advanced a substantially different understanding of international relations.
He argued that civilizational differences did not necessarily lead to confrontation.
Indeed, the belief that conflict was inevitable could itself contribute to the creation of hostility.
The documentary presents dialogue as a practical alternative to this pessimistic interpretation of cultural difference.
Its participants emphasize that dialogue does not require religious communities to abandon their convictions.
Rather, it requires them to recognize the dignity of others and establish relationships based on mutual respect.
The participation of scholars such as Ori Z. Soltes and Reuven Firestone is particularly meaningful within this framework.
Their presence demonstrates that Gülen’s ideas became part of an ongoing conversation involving Jewish, Christian, and Muslim intellectual traditions.
The documentary also revisits Gülen’s historic meeting with Pope John Paul II.
The encounter represented more than a symbolic gesture between religious figures.
According to the film, Gülen proposed educational exchanges that would allow students of different theological traditions to study one another’s religious institutions and intellectual traditions.
The idea was significant because it moved beyond ceremonial dialogue toward sustained academic cooperation.
The documentary also discusses initiatives such as Berlin’s House of One project, which seeks to create a shared space involving Jewish, Christian, and Muslim communities.
These examples demonstrate the possibility of building institutional relationships across religious boundaries without eliminating theological differences.
One of the most useful concepts introduced in the film is that of pluralism based on equality.
Under this approach, participants do not enter dialogue as representatives of superior and inferior traditions.
They engage as equal partners whose differences deserve recognition.
This principle carries obvious implications beyond religion.
It also applies to democratic citizenship, ethnic coexistence, cultural diversity, and international cooperation.
In a world increasingly shaped by religious nationalism and identity-based political polarization, the documentary’s emphasis on dialogue remains highly relevant.
Nonviolence as an Ethical Commitment
The documentary devotes considerable attention to Gülen’s rejection of terrorism and political violence.
His condemnation of violence carried out in the name of Islam is presented as a consistent feature of his religious thought.
The contributors emphasize his interpretation of spiritual struggle as a process of moral self-transformation.
Under this understanding, the central challenge facing a believer is not the conquest of others, but the overcoming of selfishness, hatred, arrogance, and destructive impulses.
This perspective places personal ethical development at the center of religious life.
The film also introduces the concept of positive peace.
Unlike a narrow understanding of peace as the absence of war, positive peace refers to the social conditions that make peaceful coexistence sustainable.
These conditions include education, justice, social trust, cooperation, and opportunities for human development.
The documentary interprets Hizmet’s educational and humanitarian activities as practical contributions to these foundations of peace.
This connection is especially persuasive.
Schools, dialogue platforms, and humanitarian organizations may appear less dramatic than political negotiations or international peace agreements.
Yet their long-term influence can be profound because they shape the relationships and social expectations through which communities understand one another.
The documentary also examines whether the movement’s commitment to nonviolence survived the experience of political persecution.
Several participants express admiration for the restraint shown by Hizmet volunteers in the face of arrests, dismissals, confiscations, and forced exile.
Rather than responding through organized violence, the movement’s public response has largely emphasized legal advocacy, international communication, and peaceful civic activity.
The documentary interprets this as evidence that nonviolence was more than a rhetorical commitment.
It was a principle tested under extraordinarily difficult circumstances.
Women, Education, and the Limits of Institutional Reform
One of the documentary’s most valuable sections concerns the position of women.
The film highlights Gülen’s support for women’s education and participation in social life.
It also presents accounts of educational institutions that expanded opportunities for girls in countries where access to schooling was restricted by poverty, instability, or cultural expectations.
These achievements are important.
However, the documentary becomes particularly interesting when it moves beyond celebrating educational access and begins examining women’s institutional authority.
Prof. Tom Gage raises a crucial question.
The significance of Gülen’s statements about women, he argues, ultimately depends on how those statements are interpreted and implemented by the movement’s participants.
In other words, a movement’s commitment to equality cannot be measured exclusively through the declarations of its founder.
It must also be evaluated through institutional practices.
Do women participate meaningfully in decision-making?
Do they occupy positions of leadership?
Can they challenge inherited organizational traditions?
And are they able to shape the movement’s future independently of male-dominated structures?
The documentary acknowledges that women within Hizmet have increasingly demanded greater responsibility and influence.
They are not simply waiting for leadership opportunities to be granted.
They are actively working to establish their place within the movement.
This discussion introduces a necessary element of self-criticism.
A movement that promotes education, pluralism, and human dignity must eventually confront the question of whether its internal governance reflects those same principles.
The issue is particularly urgent in the post-Gülen period.
As the movement becomes more international and culturally diverse, women’s leadership may become an important measure of its institutional maturity.
The Gülen-Erdoğan Rupture: Civil Society Versus Political Power
The documentary’s most politically contentious section examines the relationship between Gülen, the Turkish state, and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
The contributors place the conflict within a broader historical framework.
Turkey’s twentieth-century modernization process produced a distinctive model of secularism in which the state frequently sought to regulate religion and restrict independent religious participation in public life.
Hizmet emerged partly within this environment.
Its emphasis on education and professional development offered religiously motivated citizens opportunities to participate in modern society.
The early relationship between Erdoğan’s AKP and the Hizmet movement reflected a period when both appeared to oppose aspects of military tutelage and authoritarian state structures.
Yet their relationship eventually collapsed.
The documentary’s contributors offer an interpretation that extends beyond personal rivalry.
They suggest that the conflict reflected fundamentally different understandings of power.
Erdoğan increasingly pursued political centralization, while Gülen’s movement had developed extensive networks of educational and civic institutions operating beyond direct government control.
From this perspective, the conflict represented a confrontation between an increasingly centralized state and an autonomous civil society movement.
This interpretation is important, although it is not sufficient on its own.
A comprehensive history of the rupture must also examine the movement’s earlier relationships with the judiciary, police, bureaucracy, and political institutions, as well as the controversies surrounding those relationships.
The documentary gives comparatively little attention to these difficult questions.
Its account of the July 2016 coup attempt is particularly controversial.
One participant describes the event as a fabricated coup and draws historical comparisons with authoritarian leaders who exploited political crises to consolidate power.
Such claims remain contested and should be understood as the interviewee’s interpretation rather than as established historical findings.
The Turkish government has accused Gülen and the Hizmet movement of organizing the coup attempt. Gülen repeatedly rejected the allegation and called for an independent international investigation.
The documentary emphasizes his willingness to submit to such an inquiry.
Whatever interpretation one adopts concerning the coup attempt, the subsequent repression of people accused of affiliation with Hizmet raises serious human rights questions.
The documentary discusses arrests, imprisonment, dismissals, confiscation of property, family separation, and forced exile.
It also includes testimony concerning allegations of torture and mistreatment.
The film’s strongest contribution in this section is its attention to the human consequences of political conflict.
The destruction of professional careers, the displacement of families, and the stigmatization of entire communities cannot be adequately understood as mere extensions of a dispute between political leaders.
They constitute a broader social and humanitarian tragedy.
The documentary also raises an important paradox.
A movement that invested heavily in education, professional development, and civic participation eventually found many of those same activities treated by the Turkish authorities as grounds for suspicion.
The implications extend beyond the history of Hizmet.
They concern the vulnerability of independent civil society under increasingly authoritarian political systems.
After Gülen: Can Hizmet Become a Truly Global Movement?
The documentary’s final chapter, Future and Hope, is arguably its most consequential.
Fethullah Gülen’s death in October 2024 marked the end of an era.
For decades, he provided the intellectual, spiritual, and moral reference point around which the movement developed.
His absence creates questions that cannot be resolved through emotional attachment alone.
How will authority be exercised?
How will decisions be made?
Can the movement preserve its ethical commitments while adapting to new political and cultural realities?
Will its international institutions become more autonomous?
And can a movement rooted in Turkish religious and cultural traditions evolve into a genuinely global civic network?
The documentary’s contributors generally express confidence in Hizmet’s future.
They point to the resilience of its volunteers, the international character of its institutions, and the continuing relevance of education and dialogue.
Yet the most significant observations concern the need for adaptation.
Some participants argue that Hizmet must become increasingly localized.
Its institutions in Africa, Europe, Latin America, and Asia should develop identities that reflect the societies in which they operate.
This would represent a major transformation.
The movement would no longer be understood primarily as a Turkish initiative operating internationally.
It would become a network of locally rooted institutions connected through shared ethical principles.
Such a transition would also require institutional flexibility.
The documentary contains warnings against organizational rigidity and excessive attachment to inherited structures.
These observations deserve particular attention.
Charismatic religious movements often face difficulties when transitioning from founder-centered authority to sustainable institutional governance.
The challenge is to preserve a movement’s moral identity without freezing its organizational culture.
For Hizmet, this may require greater transparency, broader participation, more inclusive leadership, and stronger mechanisms of internal accountability.
The documentary does not fully explore these institutional questions.
Nevertheless, its willingness to introduce them represents an important step toward a more mature discussion of the movement’s future.
A Documentary of Intellectual Recognition—and Selective Memory
As a documentary, GULEN: Devoted to Education & Dialogue possesses several notable strengths.
First, it broadens the geographical and intellectual framework through which Gülen is examined.
The participation of academics, religious figures, educators, and former students demonstrates that his influence cannot be reduced to Turkish domestic politics.
Second, the documentary connects ideas with lived experience.
Its most persuasive moments are not necessarily those in which scholars praise Gülen’s philosophy.
They are the moments when individuals describe how educational opportunities, encounters across religious boundaries, and personal relationships changed their lives.
Third, the film offers an alternative to the highly polarized narratives that have dominated discussions of Gülen since the breakdown of his relationship with Erdoğan.
It reminds viewers that political controversies, however consequential, do not necessarily exhaust the historical significance of an intellectual movement.
Yet the documentary also has limitations.
Its contributors are overwhelmingly sympathetic toward Gülen and Hizmet.
Their perspectives are legitimate and frequently illuminating, but the absence of sustained engagement with critical interpretations reduces the documentary’s capacity to function as a comprehensive historical investigation.
The film might have benefited from a more systematic examination of the movement’s organizational culture, internal disagreements, political relationships, and governance structures.
It also could have explored the difficult relationship between charismatic religious leadership and democratic institutional accountability.
These questions are particularly important because the movement itself emphasizes critical thinking, dialogue, and intellectual openness.
A genuinely enduring legacy should be capable of withstanding rigorous scrutiny.
Indeed, critical examination may strengthen rather than diminish the historical significance of Gülen’s contribution.
The documentary is therefore best understood as an intellectual portrait and a collection of international testimonies rather than a definitive history.
Its purpose is to illuminate a dimension of Gülen’s life that has often been overshadowed by political conflict.
Within that framework, it makes a substantial contribution.
The Legacy of a Man, the Responsibility of a Movement
The most important question raised by GULEN: Devoted to Education & Dialogue is not whether Fethullah Gülen should be admired or criticized.
It is whether his historical significance can be understood through a framework broader than the political controversies of his final years.
The documentary argues convincingly that such a broader framework is necessary.
The testimony of Scott C. Alexander demonstrates how Muslim educators could inspire Christian observers through service.
The reflections of Lawrence Edward Carter Sr. illustrate how religious dialogue can deepen rather than weaken personal faith.
The observations of Luihi de Salvia illuminate Gülen’s attempt to reconcile Islamic belief with science, art, and democratic values.
The experiences of Maryam Nazar and Rabia Muhammed Idris reveal the personal and social consequences of educational initiatives that crossed national and religious boundaries.
And Tom Gage’s reflections on women’s participation remind viewers that the movement’s future must be judged not only by its ideals, but by its willingness to translate those ideals into institutional practice.
Taken together, these perspectives reveal a religious thinker whose influence reached far beyond the country in which he was born.
But the documentary’s ultimate significance may lie in what it suggests about the future.
The question is no longer simply what Gülen believed, taught, or inspired.
It is what the people influenced by his teachings will choose to build after him.
Will they preserve his legacy as a fixed historical inheritance?
Or will they develop it into a more inclusive, self-critical, transparent, and genuinely international movement?
The distinction is crucial.
Religious and intellectual movements rarely survive through memory alone.
They endure when their principles continue to generate meaningful responses to changing human circumstances.
For Hizmet, the coming years will test whether its commitment to education, dialogue, compassion, and nonviolence can be translated into a new institutional identity.
The documentary offers reasons for optimism.
But it also reminds us, perhaps unintentionally, that the ultimate historical assessment of Gülen’s legacy remains unfinished.
His life established an intellectual and moral vision. The responsibility for its future now belongs to those who inherited it.
