September 8, 2011

Core Values of the Gülen Movement: Worship and Servanthood

Thomas Michel

1. Oğuz and Erol, typical members of the Gülen cemaat

Oğuz comes from a casually practicing Muslim family in Malatya, Central Anatolia.1 He first came to know the Gulen movement as a high school student in Ankara and shortly thereafter moved into a yurt, or residence, run by the community. He spent his last two years of high school there as he prepared for the dreaded Öğrenci Seçme Sınavı (ÖSS), the Student Selection Examination. The ÖSS is the college entrance and placement exam taken annually by over 1.5 million students in Turkey, which determines both the universities and programs that a student can enter. Oğuz placed within the top 1% of his examination year and was thus able to enter the Middle East Technical Institute in Ankara, one of the best universities in the country. There he took a bachelor’s and master’s degree in physics and had a scholarship offer from a prestigious university in the United States. However, instead of pursuing this enviable career opportunity, Oğuz took up a job teaching physics in a high school in Kyrgyzstan. There he married a Kirghiz colleague and after eight years they are still living and teaching in that country.