The Predicaments of Muslims in the Philippines: An Exposition of Said Nursi’s Hypothesis vis-à-vis Hizmet Movement Approach

The complexities of interdependent predicaments experienced by Muslims propel their pessimism on the prospect of reform in the Philippines. This pessimism has made the apathy of Muslims towards the corrupt system in the country. Consequently, this condition drives the weakening of altruism and increases apathetic social identifiers. These predicaments continue until the current day due to the lack of inclusive and effective remedies for improving the rudiments of people's living in contemporary society. By using analysis of documents and in-depth interviews, the writers examine the root causes of Muslim-Filipinos’ interdependent predicaments according to Said Nursi’s hypothesis vis-à-vis Hizmet Movement approach. The study finds that Said Nursi’s “triumvirate quandaries hypothesis” resembles, to a greater extent, the interdependent predicaments of Muslims in the Philippines. Thus, inclusive remedies concurrent to the approaches of the Hizmet Movement that are known to have effectively addressed the triumvirate quandaries need to be contextualized in the Muslim-Filipino society within the context of the Philippines secular state.

The Hizmet Movement: Negating Radicalism and Countering Extremism

If the relationship between education and conflict is taken into account it can be said that education has a great potential to make a profound contribution to preventing violent conflicts. There is an increasing recognition on the fact that civil society plays a significant role in conflict management and peace-building by participating, engaging and educating the grass roots. As a civic society, the Hizmet movement utilizes social capital in order to alleviate ethno-religious divisions in heterogeneous multi-ethnic communities around the world, and strives to provide the basic pre-conditions for a peace-oriented society to emerge from those communities. This study argues that the Hizmet movement’s educational and social activities in conflict zones have been helpful in minimizing ethno-religious conflicts in order to prevent violence in conflict-ridden zones of the globe.