Islam's trojan horse? Turkish nationalism and the Nakshibendi Sufi order.(Religion)

ON AUGUST 5, 2007, an advertisement appeared in an Istanbul newspaper, Zaman, calling for applications for a newly established Fethullah Gulen Chair of Islamic Studies and Interfaith Dialogue, within a Centre of Inter-Religious Dialogue at the Fitzroy campus of the Australian Catholic University, Melbourne. The position had been advertised in Australia on the website of the Chronicle of Higher Education on June 8. The deadline for applicants was September 7.

The objectives of the Centre are stated to be as follows: "To promote the further development of inter-religious harmony and dialogue in Australia and in the Pacific-Asia region". Its aim is also to "educate future leaders in the humanities, business, health sciences, social sciences and theological sciences in the writings of Islam, as expounded in Fethullah Giilen's writing and in the teachings of Said Nursi".

As this was the first I had heard of such a Centre or Chair (set up, evidently, on August 31, 2006) I could not help but be impressed by its thoroughgoing commitment to promoting a certain kind of Islam through a Catholic university, and filtering it through all the faculties to "future leaders". In addition, and perhaps most importantly, it also offered a base from which the relatively little-known Turkish organisation that negotiated the setting up of the Centre and Chair--the Australian Intercultural Society (AIS)--could have outreach with some credibility throughout Australia, the Pacific and Asia.

I recalled a by-now virtually unobtainable book, Moslems in Europe and America by Ali al-Montasser al-Kattani, published in Iraq in 1976 by Dar Idris. It called for the establishment of chairs of Islamic Studies in universities in Europe, America, the West Indies and other countries, and the setting up of committees of Muslims to select other Muslims to occupy these chairs. At the same time it called for an end to any aid, moral or financial, that might already be being given to established chairs of Islamic Studies held by Christians or Jews.

On November 3, 2006, Archbishop Denis Hart of Melbourne met with the AIS and expressed the wish "that Catholics cooperate with Muslims and therefore with the members of the Intercultural Society in every way possible".

It now appears that the AIS, which is connected to the Fethullah Gulen and Said Nursi group, is also linked to the equally innocuously named but more up-front Turkish Muslim Affinity Intercultural Federation. The Executive Officer of Affinity, Mehmet Ozalp, and its Vice-President, Zuleyha Keskin, are regularly featured as speakers or representatives at ecumenical, interfaith and intercultural/multicultural functions. In 2005 Cardinal George Pell, Archbishop of Sydney, received an award from Affinity for his support of inter-faith activities.

Affinity regularly describes itself as "an organisation founded in 2001 by a group of young Australian Muslims specifically to promote cultural and religious awareness and understanding across the entire Australian community". On occasion it adds that it is a "Muslim Organisation for Religious Education and Interfaith Dialogue".