“Love Is a Verb” is about a worldwide social movement of Sufi-inspired Muslims called Hizmet – Turkish word for “service.” It is also called the Gulen Movement, after its leader, Fethullah Gulen, who Time magazine named one of the most influential leaders in the world in 2013.  Gulen has lived in Pennsylvania since 1999, but has recently become a controversial figure, as Turkey’s current strong man, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, wants him extradited to face charges of masterminding the failed 2016 coup.

Among the people profiled in the movie are teachers who crawled through a tunnel to open a school in Sarajevo during the war, a Sufi conductor of an orchestra of children whose parents were once at war with each other, and Turkish doctors in Somalia who are putting their lives at risk in a place other relief organizations have deemed too dangerous.

“This movement is not about individual enlightenment; [it] is about making the world a better place. But while making the world a better place . . . this altruism is also transformative.” (Marcia Hermansen, Director of Islamic World Studies, Loyola University of Chicago)