Fethullah Gülen, the Movement and this Book: An Introductory Overview Greg Barton, Paul Weller and Ihsan Yilmaz 1. The global context T his book is a ‘companion’ book to European Muslims, Civility and Public Life: Perspectives on and from the Gülen Movement (Weller and Yilmaz, 2012). It explores the creative contributions of the Gülen movement across the Muslim world. The transitions and openings for democratic development that have emerged for Muslims and Islam in the Middle East through ‘the Arab Spring’ have led to a considerable degree of interest among the public, politicians, scholars and religious leaders in ‘the Turkish model’ of transition from authoritarianism to democracy. Therefore, in contrast to the previous book which focused on a European context in which Muslims are a minority, this book mainly focuses its discussion on how the Gülen movement has positioned itself and sought to contribute within societies – including its home country of Turkey – in which Islam forms a major part of the cultural, religious and historical inheritance and Muslims constitute the majority of their populations. Although the terminologies of ‘the Muslim world’ and ‘the West’ are themselves problematic in many ways, they are established elements of contemporary discourse and thought and as such have become part of social reality. This book seeks to examine the impact of the Gülen movement on the contemporary ‘Muslim world’ in transition and on relations between ‘the West’, ‘the Muslim world’ and Islam in general. As a leading religiously inspired 9781441120878_Intro_Rev_txt_prf.indd 1 9781441120878_Intro_Rev_txt_prf.indd 1 3/13/2002 12:19:06 PM 3/13/2002 12:19:06 PM