Turkish Islamic preacher - threat or benefactor?

By Alexandra Hudson

ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Nine-year-old Burak says his favorite subject is maths, he loves studying and writing in English, and when he grows up he wants to be a policeman.

Smiling 11-year olds Serra and Liyna, fellow pupils at the $10,000-a-year Fatih College primary school in Istanbul, chime in similarly confident English that their favorite subject is science and they want to be doctors.

This is the 640-pupil school run by followers of Fethullah Gulen -- a Turkish Muslim preacher who advocates a moderate Islam rooted in modern life, and whose teachings have inspired millions of Turks to forge a powerful socio-religious community active in publishing, charity and above all education.

But if the Gulen movement is seen by outsiders as a moderating force in an increasingly fundamentalist Muslim world, it rings alarm bells for some Turks because it encapsulates the tensions between secular state and religious power.

Gulen, 67, has a reputation abroad as a Muslim who preaches tolerance and engagement with other faiths. But many in Turkey's secularist establishment say he has a political agenda and wants to create a religious state and a cadre of people to run it, a charge his followers vigorously deny.

Attitudes to the Gulen movement in Turkey are deeply entrenched and reflect a wider struggle for the country's identity and power base.

The movement has built up a network of some 800 schools around the world, teaching a full curriculum focusing on science and technology, and encouraging pupils to aim high.

In Turkey it follows the national curriculum and teaches only comparative religion according to strict outlines set by the state. However, most teachers adhere to Gulen's views.

"Some parents send their children here because they are religious. Others know the schools are very successful and want their children to go to university, while other parents are scared that if their children go to a government school they will start smoking and drinking," said Ahmet Yalcin, an English teacher at Fatih College's high school.

"Teachers are religious people who don't smoke or drink and act as an example to their students," he added.

RELIGIOUS PROFESSIONALS

Gulen's readiness to interact with other faiths took him to a meeting with Pope John Paul II in Rome in 1998 and he has also met Jewish and Orthodox leaders.

Though predominantly Muslim, Turkey was founded as a fiercely secular state in 1923 and a powerful elite of military, judicial and academic officials acts as custodians of this role.

Now a shift in society is bringing to the fore a rising class of religious professionals, from which Gulen gleans much of his support, to the alarm of the old guard such as the army.

This shift helped sweep the Islamist-rooted AK Party to power in 2002.