[ibupronec]

@Mr. Wigon: Perhaps you would be interested in the Gulen Movement.

It's funny that you mention the Gulen movement. I have worked with them for the past 10 years and count them as some of my best friends. They're very good people. I am actually on the board of a charter school that was founded by members of the Gulen movement. (Because of this I have been accused of being an Islamist. lol) Overall, I think that they are probably some of the most awe-inspiring Muslims that I've ever met as most of them put their faith into practice helping to build their communities no matter where they live. They also do, I think, an excellent job of representing Muslims. However... Gulen's particular teachings of Tasawuuf are not exactly mainstream Islam. I like his teachings, but I don't really see him as on the same level of other well-established islamic scholars. To me, a true scholar is one who can trace his lineage through hundreds of years of scholars through an established Madhhab. He also, in my opinion, should be someone who has studied other Madhhabs and understands in great depth the science of analyzing the Ahadith so as to have strong knowledge regarding the strength or weakness of particular hadiths as well as the history of writings by other famous Islamic scholars all throughout Islamic history. That is one reason why I tend to like Hamza Yussuf as he goes into a lot of very deep detail and doesn't give simplistic mickey-mouse answers. In other words he backs up his answers with many different examples and even questions his own views on certain issues and admits when he may be wrong or is not sure about a certain issue. Humility to me is the sign of a very good spiritual teacher who has mastery over his own ego (which to me is probably the most important teaching of Tasawuuf and why it's important to spiritual development)