Fethullah Gülen, a prominent Islamic cleric and spiritual leader who had been a key adversary of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, passed away in the United States at the age of 83 after a prolonged illness. Gülen, whose global Hizmet movement runs schools and charities, had been living in self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania since 1999, resisting Turkey’s attempts to have him extradited on charges of terrorism and involvement in a failed coup attempt in 2016.
Fethullah Gülen’s life and career were marked by his evolving relationship with Erdoğan. The two men were once allies, united by their shared vision of promoting Islamic values in Turkey. However, their friendship deteriorated as Erdoğan’s political ambitions grew and Gülen’s influence within Turkey’s judiciary and other state institutions became a threat to the president’s consolidation of power.
Born in 1941 in the small village of Korucuk in Turkey’s eastern Anatolia region, Gülen rose to prominence as a cleric and educator. His early career in the 1960s focused on Islamic teachings and community outreach, with a vision of instilling Islamic values through education rather than through political power. This approach appealed to many Turks, especially those disillusioned with the secularist policies of the country’s founding elite.
Gülen founded the Hizmet movement (meaning “service” in Turkish), a loosely affiliated global network of schools, charities, and businesses. Its focus was on education, interfaith dialogue, and humanitarian efforts, with a particular emphasis on promoting Islamic ethics. The movement, which attracted millions of followers both in Turkey and around the world, quickly grew into one of the largest and most influential civil society organizations in Turkey.
The early 2000s marked a period of cooperation between Gülen and Erdoğan, who, at the time, was climbing the political ladder as a rising star in Turkey’s Islamist political movement. As Erdoğan’s AK Party (Justice and Development Party) took power in 2002, many in Turkey saw the two men as natural allies. Both shared a desire to reform Turkey’s strict secularist laws and promote Islamic values in public life. However, Gülen’s preference for achieving this through education and community engagement rather than direct political confrontation was at odds with Erdoğan’s increasingly authoritarian style of governance.
By the mid-2010s, tensions between the two men began to surface. The Gülen movement’s significant presence in Turkey’s judiciary, police, and other state institutions became a point of contention. Erdoğan and his supporters accused the Hizmet movement of building a “parallel state” that sought to undermine the government’s authority from within. This tension culminated in 2013, when prosecutors and police officers with alleged ties to Gülen launched a series of high-profile corruption investigations into Erdoğan’s inner circle. The investigations implicated several senior AK Party officials and even members of Erdoğan’s own family, triggering a bitter feud between the two former allies.
Erdoğan responded by purging Gülen supporters from key positions in the government, judiciary, and police. The Turkish government also moved to shut down schools and media outlets affiliated with the Gülen movement. Gülen, for his part, denied any involvement in the corruption investigations but became increasingly critical of Erdoğan’s authoritarian tendencies.
The rivalry between Erdoğan and Gülen reached its climax on July 15, 2016, when a faction within the Turkish military attempted to overthrow Erdoğan’s government in a violent coup. Tanks rolled through the streets of Ankara and Istanbul, and fighter jets bombed key government installations. For a brief moment, it appeared that the military plotters might succeed in toppling the Turkish president.
However, within hours, Erdoğan emerged defiant. Addressing the nation via a video call on a journalist’s smartphone, he urged his supporters to take to the streets and resist the coup attempt. Thousands of Turks answered the call, confronting the soldiers and tanks in public squares across the country. By dawn, the coup had been quashed, but the fallout would reshape Turkish politics for years to come.
Immediately after regaining control, Erdoğan pointed the finger at Fethullah Gülen, accusing him of being the mastermind behind the coup. He labeled the cleric and his followers as “terrorists” and “traitors” who had infiltrated Turkey’s military and government institutions in a plot to seize power. “They are a virus that must be eradicated from our society,” Erdoğan declared in a televised speech, vowing to “purge” the state of Gülenist influence.
Gülen, speaking from his compound in Pennsylvania, vehemently denied any involvement in the coup attempt, calling the accusations “absurd.” He suggested that the coup had been staged by Erdoğan himself as a pretext for consolidating power and launching a crackdown on dissent. Nonetheless, the Turkish government moved swiftly to arrest thousands of suspected Gülen supporters. Tens of thousands of public sector workers, including judges, teachers, and military officers, were dismissed from their jobs, and more than 20,000 members of the military were expelled.
In the aftermath of the failed coup, Turkey entered a period of intense political repression. Erdoğan declared a state of emergency, granting the government sweeping powers to arrest and detain suspects without trial. Human rights organizations condemned the mass arrests and purges, accusing Erdoğan of using the coup as an excuse to silence his critics and consolidate his authoritarian rule.
For the remainder of his life, Fethullah Gülen lived in self-imposed exile in the United States, where he continued to lead the Hizmet movement from his secluded compound in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania. Despite Erdoğan’s repeated demands that Washington extradite him to Turkey to stand trial for terrorism charges, U.S. officials consistently declined, citing a lack of concrete evidence linking him to the coup attempt.
Gülen’s presence in the U.S. became a major point of contention in U.S.-Turkey relations, with Erdoğan accusing Washington of harboring a terrorist. The cleric’s supporters, however, argued that Gülen had been unfairly targeted by Erdoğan’s regime and praised his decades-long efforts to promote peace, tolerance, and interfaith dialogue.
Outside of Turkey, the Gülen movement continued to expand its network of schools, charities, and interfaith organizations. By the time of Gülen’s death, Hizmet-affiliated institutions operated in more than 160 countries, including the U.S., Africa, Central Asia, and Europe. These institutions, often known for their academic excellence and emphasis on ethical values, provided education to hundreds of thousands of students around the world.
Gülen’s death leaves behind a complex and contested legacy. To his followers, he was a visionary leader who sought to reform Turkish society by promoting Islamic values through education, charity, and dialogue. His efforts to build bridges between different faiths and cultures won him numerous admirers abroad, particularly in the United States and Europe, where his message of tolerance resonated with those concerned about the rise of extremism.
