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| Fethullah Gulen discussed in 60 Minutes |
AB: "Fethullah Gulen is one of our columnists, he explains his point of view, especially about how to interpret Islam in modern age."
In Istanbul, we met Abdulhamit Bilici, one of the top editors of the "Gulen media". He says, Gulen's embrace of Western values and global trade helped Turkey develop into a prosperous Islamic democracy: "Until early 90s, the Islamic movements had a problem with the concept of secularism, with the concept of democracy, and with the other universal concepts. Gulen was one of the pioneers in the sense that, in the early 90s he said that 'Turkey will not turn back from democracy, and democracy and Islam are of course compatible'."
And today, his ideas are spreading through Arab Spring countries:
LS: Does his message have resonance anywhere else?
AB: Now there are, weekly, number of visitors coming from Arab nations to see what is this Gulen movement about.
LS: They are coming here to investigate this?
AB: They are investigating, making study tours.
LS: Like from where?
AB: From Tunisia to Egypt, from Jordan to Morocco. Many social movements or Islamic movements started to put all the blame on the West, on occupiers, or outside factors. But what makes Gulen different is that he started to put some of the blame on us. And he said that 'our number one enemy is ignorance, and the number one cure is education.'
LS: When you hear all of this, it sounds so wonderful. Some people say, 'Oh it's too good to be true, it can't be true, I don't believe it, I'm very suspicious.' You've heard these, I'm sure?
AB: Yes, of course. I mean, this is the fate of good people sometimes that they are treated that way in many cases.
LS: Treated with suspicion.
AB: Unfortunately.
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