On Tuesday evening, January 27, 1997, Fethullah Gulen, chairman of the Journalists' and Writers' Foundation, gave a Ramadan dinner. Held in the Hilton Hotel Exhibition Hall, it was more a banquet of tolerance and love than of food.

Even the representatives of Christianity appeared to be very impressed. Their views, which they summarized as "the mosque and the church side by side," were later explained as:

Speaking on behalf of theater artists, Gazanfer ozcan began his speech by saying: "Today is my day of birth." Weeping, he had difficulty completing his talk. This flood of feelings affected people from almost all social segments.

Fethullah Hodja, who suffers from diabetes, did not want to speak due to the effects of fasting and an above-300 sugar count. However, unable to turn away from everyone's insistence, he mounted the podium.

After dinner, a small group of politicians and journalists gathered around him and discussed recent events.