Muhammed Fethullah Gülen (27 April 1941 – 20 October 2024) was a Turkish Muslim scholar, preacher, and leader of the Gülen movement, which as of 2010 had 8-10 million of followers globally and had established a network of over 2,000 STEM focused schools in more than 150 countries. Gülen was an influential neo-Ottomanist, Anatolian panethnicist, Islamic poet, writer, social critic, and activist–dissident developing a Nursian theological perspective that embraces democratic modernity. Gülen was a local state imam from 1959 to 1981 and he was a citizen of Turkey until his denaturalization by the Turkish government in 2017. Over the years, Gülen became a centrist political figure in Turkey prior to his being there as a fugitive. From 21 March 1999 until his death on 20 October 2024, Gülen lived in self-exile in the United States near Saylorsburg, Pennsylvania. Gülen's body was buried inside the Chestnut Retreat Center in Pennsylvania, where he had been residing for the last 25 years. 15,000 attended his funeral in a stadium in New Jersey.
Gülen said his social criticisms are focused upon individuals' faith and morality and a lesser extent toward political ends, and self described as rejecting an Islamist political philosophy, advocating instead for full participation within professions, society, and political life by religious and secular individuals who profess high moral or ethical principles and who wholly support secular rule, within Muslim-majority countries and elsewhere. Gülen was described in the English-language media as an imam "who promoted a tolerant Islam which emphasises altruism, hard work, and education" and as "one of the world's most important Muslim figures". He encouraged his followers to establish secular schools, charities, interest-free banks, and organizations across all areas of society. In 2016, when Erdoğan government began openly targeting the movement, they seized assets worth over $12 billion, including 1,043 private schools, 1,229 charities and foundations, 19 trade unions, 15 universities, and 35 medical institutions linked to the movement. Total number of schools opened by Gulen followers globally exceeded 2000 by the same year.
In 2003, a number of Gülen movement participants allied with Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's right wing Justice and Development Party (AKP), providing the AKP political and sorely-needed administrative support. According to some research, the cooperation between AKP and the Gulen movement was a shallow, tactical alliance that got stronger in 2007 due to perceived threats of a coup, which both groups believed would harm their interests. This political alliance worked together to weaken left-of-center Kemalist factions, but fractured in 2011. In 2013 Gulen criticized Erdogan's harsh response to the Gezi Park protestors. Later in the year a major corruption scandal erupted which led to resignation of 4 ministers from Erdogan cabinet. Turkish prosecutors accused Gülen of attempts to overthrow the government by allegedly directing politically motivated corruption investigations by Gülen-linked investigators then in the judiciary, who wiretapped the executive office of the Turkish president . The leaked conversation between Erdogan and his son, which triggered the corruption scandal was viewed by 3 million people in 24 hours on YouTube. Erdogan later accused Gülen to be the mastermind of the 2016 Turkish coup attempt, Gülen denied the accusations, and called for an international commission to investigate it, saying he'd accept its findings if found guilty.
A Turkish criminal court issued an arrest warrant for Gülen in 2016, and Turkey demanded his extradition from the United States. U.S. government officials did not believe he was associated with any terrorist activity, and requested evidence to be provided by the Turkish government to substantiate the allegations in the warrant requesting extradition, frequently rejecting Turkish calls for his extradition.
Gülen was designated as a terrorist leader in Turkey and Pakistan, and some politically aligned organisations like the OIC and GCC. However, neither Gulen nor the Gulen movement is recognized as a terrorist organization by the European Union, the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand due to lack of credible evidence. Between 2016 and 2024 an estimated 3,000,000 citizens of Turkey were tried for terrorism charges and 511,000 arrested for alleged links to the Gülen movement.
Muhammed Fethullah Gülen was born in the village of Korucuk, near Erzurum, to Ramiz and Refia Gülen, There is some dispute over his date of birth. According to some accounts, usually older ones, he was born on 10 November 1938, while others state his birth was on 27 April 1941. State documents support the 1941 date, which is now the accepted date, used on Gülen's English website. (Some commentators note that 10 November 1938 was the date of the death of the founder of modern Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, and suggest that the date was chosen for its political significance. An alternative explanation for the discrepancy offered by one of Gülen's close students, and biographer, was that his parents waited three years to register his birth.)
Gülen's father was an imam. His mother taught the Qur'an in their village, despite such informal religious instruction being banned by the Kemalist government. Gülen's secular formal education ended when his family moved to another village. He took part in Islamic education in some Erzurum madrasas and was influenced by the ideas of Kurdish scholar Said Nursi. He gave his first sermon as a licensed state preacher in 1958, when he was in his teens.
Gülen was appointed an assistant imam at Üç Şerefeli Mosque in Edirne, 6 August 1959, and thus joined in the Turkish civil service where he served until he retired from formal preaching duties in 1981.
While Gülen was teaching at the Kestanepazari Qur'anic School in İzmir in March 1971, the Turkish military seized control of the government in an attempt to quell domestic political violence. During its aftermath, Gülen was arrested for organizing a clandestine religious group based on his teachings and was imprisoned for seven months.
Gülen's influence in civil society and number of followers grew steadily during the 1980s and 1990s. From 1988 to 1991 he gave a series of sermons in popular mosques of major cities. He stressed importance of studying Science together with Islam, following Nursi's vision. He encouraged his followers to establish STEM-focused schools, forming a global educational network of 2,000 schools across 160 countries by 2014. In 1994, he helped found the Journalists and Writers Foundation, which started dialogue among Muslims, secularists, traditionalists, atheists, Christians, leftists and modernists to discuss and debate common positions on key contemporary issues. He was later given the title of honorary president by the foundation. He avoided getting involved in politics and reportedly avoided making any comments about the forced closures of the Islamist Welfare Party in 1998 or the Virtue Party in 2001, or meeting with the leaders of political Islamist parties, although he did meet with some other politicians from both the left and the right like Turgut Özal, Tansu Çiller, Bülent Ecevit.
In March 1999, Gülen relocated to the United States for medical treatment, and remained there until his death. According to the Kemalist Turkish law of the time, intending to ensure modernity and secularism, non-state sanctioned religious endeavors were outlawed and Gülen was under investigation for subverting the government, especially over remarks (aired after he immigrated to U.S.) which seemed to favor an Islamic state. In June 1999, after Gülen had left Turkey, videotapes were sent to some Turkish television stations with recordings of Gülen saying,
The existing system is still in power. Our friends who have positions in legislative and administrative bodies should learn its details and be vigilant all the time so that they can transform it and be more fruitful on behalf of Islam in order to carry out a nationwide restoration. However, they should wait until the conditions become more favorable. In other words, they should not come out too early.