Fethullah Gülen’s views on Jihad, Peacemaking and Nonviolence

Asma Afsaruddin *

Fethullah Gülen’s views on jihad and peaceful co-existence of different faith and cultural communities are strongly grounded in Qur’anic and Sunnaic perspectives and represent a mimetic continuity with them. As a practitioner of tasawwuf (Sufism), he emphasizes the importance of the greater internal jihad without disavowing the necessity of the lesser external jihad in specific situations. Thus in his explication of the distinction between these two forms of struggling in the path of God, Gülen says: