SAYLORSBURG, Pa. – Fethullah Gülen, the US-based Muslim cleric who inspired the global social movement while facing allegations that he masterminded the 2016 coup in his native Turkey, has died.
Abdullah Bozkurt, the former editor of the Today Zaman newspaper linked to Gulen, who is now in exile in Sweden, said on Monday he spoke to Gulen’s nephew, Kemal Gulen, who confirmed his death. Fethullah Gülen was eighty years old and had been ill for a long time.
The state-run Anadolu Agency quoted Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan as saying the death had been confirmed by Turkish intelligence sources.
Gülen spent the last decades of his life in exile, living in a gated community in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania where he continued to wield influence among his millions of followers in Turkey and around the world. He espoused a philosophy that combined Sufism – a mystical form of Islam – with strong advocacy of democracy, education, science and interfaith dialogue.
Gülen started out as an ally of Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan, but became an enemy. He called Erdogan a dictator bent on amassing power and crushing the opposition. Erdogan branded Gülen a terrorist, accusing him of orchestrating a coup on the night of July 15, 2016, when factions within the military used tanks, warplanes and helicopters to try to topple Erdogan’s government.
Heeding the president’s announcement, thousands of people took to the streets to protest the coup attempt. Those who wanted to overthrow the government shot the crowd and bombed the parliament and other government buildings. 251 people died and about 2,200 others were injured. About 35 people are accused of plotting a coup.
Gülen denied any involvement, and his supporters dismissed the charges as ridiculous and politically motivated. Turkey put Gülen on its most wanted list and demanded his extradition, but the United States showed little inclination to take him back, saying it needed more evidence. Gülen has never been charged with a crime in the US, and has always criticized terrorism and coup plotters.
In Turkey, Gülen’s movement – sometimes known as Hizmet, which means “service” in Turkish – came under widespread persecution. The government has arrested tens of thousands of people for alleged links to the coup plot, fired more than 130,000 suspected supporters from public service and more than 23,000 from the military, and closed hundreds of businesses, schools and media organizations tied to Gülen.
Gülen called the attack a witch hunt and denounced Turkish leaders as “tyrants.”
“The past year has saddened me as hundreds of thousands of innocent Turkish citizens were punished simply because the government decided they were somehow ‘connected’ to me or the Hizmet organization and considered that connection a crime,” he said. in one year the coup failed.
Turkish Foreign Minister Fidan said Monday that Gülen’s death “will not make us complacent.” Our nation and state will continue to fight this organization, as they do against all terrorist organizations. “
Fethullah Gülen was born in Erzurum, in eastern Turkey. His official date of birth was April 27, 1941, but that has long been disputed. Y. Alp Aslandogan, who heads a New York-based group that promotes Gülen’s ideas and work, said that Gülen was actually born in 1938.
Trained as an imam, or prayer leader, Gülen was recognized in Turkey about 50 years ago. He preached tolerance and dialogue between religions, and he believed that religion and science could go hand in hand. His belief in combining Islam with Western values and Turkish nationalism resonated with Turks, winning him millions of followers.
Gülen’s acolytes have built a loosely connected global network of charitable foundations, professional organizations, businesses and schools in more than 100 countries, including 150 taxpayer-funded schools across the United States. In Turkey, supporters run universities, hospitals, charities, a bank and a large media empire with newspapers and radio and TV stations.
But Gülen was viewed with suspicion by some in his homeland, a country deeply divided between those loyal to its strict religious tradition and supporters of the Islamic-based party linked to Erdogan who came to power in 2002.
Gülen had long shied away from supporting any political party, but his organization formed an alliance with Erdogan against the country’s hardline guards, who were backed by the military, and Gülen’s media empire threw its weight behind Erdogan’s Islamist government.
The Gülenists helped the ruling party win many elections. But the Erdogan-Gulen alliance began to crumble after the organization criticized government policy and exposed alleged corruption within Erdogan’s inner circle. Erdogan, who has denied the allegations, grew weary of the Gülen movement’s growing influence.
The Turkish leader accused Gülen’s followers of infiltrating the country’s police and courts and installing a parallel regime, and began agitating for Gülen’s extradition to Turkey even before the failed 2016 coup.
The pastor had been living in the United States since 1999, when he came to seek medical treatment.
In 2000, while Gülen was in the US, Turkish authorities charged him with leading an Islamist plot to overthrow the secular state and establish a religious state.
Some of the accusations against him were based on a tape in which Gülen allegedly told followers of the Islamic State to bide their time: “If they get out soon, the world will lose their heads.” Gülen said his comments were taken out of context.
This pastor was tried in absentia and released, but he never returned to his hometown. He won a long legal battle against then-President George W. Bush’s administration to gain permanent residency in the US.
Rarely seen in public, Gülen lived quietly on the grounds of an Islamic center in the Poconos. He lived in a small apartment in a sprawling compound and traveled extensively to see doctors for ailments including heart disease and diabetes, spending much of his time in prayer and meditation and receiving visitors from all over the world.
Gülen never married and never had children. It is not known who, if any, will lead this organization.
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Associate Correspondent Suzan Fraser contributed from Ankara, Turkey.
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