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Fethullah Gulen | Reuters
Fethullah Gulen, the US-based Muslim cleric accused by Turkish authorities of orchestrating a failed coup in 2016, has died in exile in the United States at the age of 83, BBC reports.
Gulen, who had lived in Pennsylvania since 1999, was stripped of his Turkish citizenship in 2017 and passed away in a hospital, as reported by Turkish public television.
His personal website, Herkul, which is banned in Turkey, confirmed his death on “October 20.”
Gulen, once an ally of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, fell out of favour after going into exile.
Erdogan’s government labelled Gulen’s Hizmet organisation as a “terrorist” group and accused the cleric of masterminding the 2016 coup attempt, accusations Gulen consistently denied.
Hizmet, meaning “service” in Turkish, is an influential but opaque network of Islamic schools worldwide.
Originally, Gulen had supported Erdogan in elections during the 2000s, but by 2010, tensions between the two surfaced, culminating in a complete breakdown of their relationship.
In 2013, Erdogan’s government faced corruption allegations, which the president claimed were initiated by Gulenists within Turkey’s judiciary.
This led to Erdogan launching a purge of Gulen’s followers, deepening their rift.
After the failed coup in 2016, Erdogan intensified his crackdown. Around 3,000 alleged Gulen followers were sentenced to life imprisonment, and legal action was taken against 700,000 people.
Over 125,000 government employees, including 24,000 soldiers, were dismissed from their posts, while thousands of magistrates were also affected.
Despite these accusations, Gulen denied any involvement, asserting that Erdogan’s government had orchestrated the coup as a pretext for a broad suppression of dissent.
News of Gulen’s death was widely reported by Turkish media, though the Turkish government made no immediate comment.
According to the BBC, the cleric, often described as Turkey’s second most powerful man, had been living in self-imposed exile in the US and died after being admitted to a Pennsylvania hospital.
Gulen was the spiritual leader of the Gulen movement, a global Islamic community with followers in Turkey and beyond.
The movement, also known as Hizmet, first gained prominence by running educational institutions in Turkey and globally.
As its influence grew, Gulen’s followers expanded into business and government roles. However, Erdogan viewed this expansion as a “state within a state” and vowed in 2013 to shut down the movement’s schools and purge Gulenists from the government.
Ally turn foe
Politico further elaborated on Gulen’s fall from grace. Though once aligned with Erdogan, the relationship soured after investigations into alleged corruption within Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AK Party) began in 2015.
Erdogan accused Gulen of meddling in Turkey’s judiciary and vowed to eradicate his influence, referring to him and his followers as a “virus” that needed to be “purged” from society.
In the Times of Israel, it was noted that Gulen had been stripped of his Turkish nationality in 2017.
Despite Erdogan’s repeated requests for the US to extradite Gulen, Washington did not comply, intensifying tensions between the two countries.
Gulen denied the allegations and maintained that Erdogan used the coup as a means to justify widespread repression.
