At its core, Zambak’s editorial philosophy was a response to a perceived dichotomy in post-Ottoman Turkey. Since the founding of the secular Republic in 1923, Turkish education had been rigidly positivist, often treating religious faith as an antiquated obstacle to scientific progress. Zambak, through series such as Science and Technology , Mathematics , and Biochemistry , sought to dismantle this wall. Their textbooks were unique not for what they added, but for how they framed inquiry. A chapter on cellular biology would conclude not just with a diagram of the mitochondria, but with a reflective paragraph asking students to contemplate the "intelligent design" and "perfect order" of creation. Physics equations were presented as discovering the Sunnatullah —the unchangeable ways of God in nature. This approach positioned science not as a rival to faith, but as a religious act of understanding divine artistry.

Today, Zambak Books exist only as a ghost in the archive—a collector’s item for researchers, former students, and diaspora communities. In Turkey, they are illegal; internationally, they remain a subject of heated debate. Yet their legacy endures in the diaspora schools of the Gülen movement, particularly in the United States, Africa, and the Balkans, where similar educational models continue to thrive. More profoundly, Zambak Books succeeded in posing a question that neither secular fundamentalism nor religious extremism can easily answer: Is it possible to teach evolution as a mechanism while still affirming a divine creator? Can a child learn the periodic table and still believe in prayer?

However, the trajectory of Zambak Books is inseparable from the political fate of the Gülen movement. For decades, the movement’s schools and publishing arms operated with tacit government approval, filling a niche in Turkey’s competitive education market. But following the deterioration of relations between the AKP government and Gülenists, culminating in the failed coup attempt of July 15, 2016, the Turkish state designated the movement as a terrorist organization. The repercussions for Zambak were swift and total. Government authorities seized the company’s assets, shut down its printing presses, and banned its curriculum from all public and private institutions. The once-ubiquitastic textbooks—with their distinctive green and gold covers—vanished from bookstores and classrooms, effectively erased from the national consciousness overnight.