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The self-exiled Turkish spiritual leader Fethullah Gülen has died in the USA
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The self-exiled Turkish spiritual leader Fethullah Gülen has died in the USA

Fethullah Gülen, a reclusive US-based Islamic cleric who inspired a global social movement while facing unsubstantiated allegations that he masterminded a failed 2016 coup attempt in his native Turkey, has died.

The Alliance for Shared Values, a New York-based group that promotes Gulen’s work in the United States, said he died Sunday night at a hospital near his home in Pennsylvania’s Pocono Mountains. Monroe County Coroner Thomas Yanac Jr. said he had been informed that Gulen, who was in his 80s and had long been in poor health, died of natural causes.

The group called him a “towering figure of faith, wisdom, and intellectual and spiritual leadership” whose “impact will be felt for generations.”

Gülen spent the last decades of his life in exile, living in a fenced compound and exerting influence over his millions of followers. He represented a philosophy that combined Sufism – a mystical form of Islam – with a strong commitment to democracy, education, science and interreligious dialogue.

Gülen had not played an active role in his movement in recent years. According to the Alliance for Shared Values, the work is continued by a group of close friends who have advised him for decades.

The religious leader started as an ally of Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan but then became an enemy. He called Erdogan an authoritarian bent on amassing power and suppressing dissent. Erdogan called Gulen a terrorist and accused him of orchestrating the attempted military coup on July 15, 2016, when factions within the military used tanks, fighter jets and helicopters to try to overthrow the government.

Following a call from the president, thousands took to the streets to resist the takeover attempt. The coup plotters fired on crowds and bombed parliament and other government buildings. A total of 251 people were killed and around 2,200 others were injured. Around 35 suspected coup plotters were killed.

Gülen strongly denied involvement, and his supporters dismissed the allegations as ridiculous and politically motivated. Turkey put Gulen on its wanted list and demanded his extradition, but the United States showed little inclination to send him back, saying it needed more evidence. He was never charged with a crime in the United States and consistently condemned terrorism and coup plotters.

Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said Monday that Gulen’s death “will neither make us complacent nor relaxed.” This organization was a threat that has rarely existed in the history of our country.” He called on Gülen’s followers to turn away from “this treacherous wrong path.”

In Turkey, Gülen’s movement – sometimes known as Hizmet, Turkish for “service” – has faced a widespread crackdown. The government arrested tens of thousands of people for their alleged connection to the coup attempt, fired more than 130,000 suspected supporters from civil service and more than 23,000 from the military, and closed hundreds of Gülen-linked businesses, schools and media organizations.

Gulen called the crackdown a witch hunt and called Turkish leaders “tyrants.”

“The last year has weighed heavily on me as hundreds of thousands of innocent Turkish citizens are being punished simply because the government decides that they are somehow ‘connected’ to me or the Hizmet movement and treats this alleged connection as a crime,” he said on the first anniversary of the failed coup attempt.

Özgur Özel, the leader of the Republican People’s Party, Turkey’s largest opposition party, said Gülen’s vast network remained a threat to Turkey.

“The founder is dead, but the organization remains.” No one should think that this danger is over or has passed. Everyone should beware of this organization,” Ozel said.

On Monday, Turkey’s broadcast regulator warned against content praising Gulen, saying no broadcaster could honor a “terrorist.” Meanwhile, prosecutors in the northwestern province of Bursa opened an investigation into a journalist who may be accused of involvement in terrorist propaganda, state-run Anadolu Agency reported, after saying they hoped he would rest in heaven.

Abdulhamit Bilici, who was editor of the Gülen-affiliated Zaman newspaper when Erdogan closed it in early 2016, said on Monday that Gülen was persecuted in Turkey for decades and that Turkey is the only country to label Gülen’s peaceful Hizmet movement as terrorists Group.

“He was a source of inspiration for millions of people, not only in Turkey but around the world,” Bilici said in an interview at the Pennsylvania retreat center where Gulen lived. “So this is a very sad day and a day of reflection, mourning, reflection and prayer.”

Gülen was born in Erzurum in eastern Turkey. His official date of birth was April 27, 1941, but this has long been disputed. Y. Alp Aslandogan, who leads a New York-based group that promotes Gülen’s ideas and work, said Gülen was actually born sometime in 1938.

Gülen was trained as an imam, or prayer leader, and rose to prominence in Turkey about 50 years ago. He preached tolerance and dialogue between faiths – at a meeting with Pope John Paul II in 1998 – and believed that religion and science could go hand in hand. His belief in the combination of Islam with Western values ​​and Turkish nationalism was well received by Turks and gained him millions of followers.

Gulen’s followers built a loosely connected global network of nonprofit foundations, professional associations, corporations and schools in more than 100 countries, including 150 taxpayer-funded charter schools across the United States. In Turkey, supporters ran universities, hospitals, charities, a bank and a large media empire including newspapers and radio and television stations.

But Gulen was viewed with suspicion by some in his homeland, a deeply polarized country divided between supporters of his strict secular traditions and supporters of the Erdogan-linked Islamist party that came to power in 2002.

Gulen had long refrained from openly supporting any political party, but his movement effectively forged an alliance with Erdogan against the country’s old guard of staunch, military-backed secularists, and Gulen’s media empire threw its full weight behind Erdogan’s Islamic-oriented government.

Gülenists helped the ruling party win several elections. But the Erdogan-Gülen alliance began to crumble after the movement criticized government policies and exposed suspected corruption in Erdogan’s inner circle. Erdogan, who denied the allegations, was tired of the growing influence of Gülen’s movement.

The Turkish leader accused Gülen’s supporters of infiltrating the country’s police and judiciary and establishing a parallel state, and began advocating for Gülen’s extradition to Turkey even before the failed 2016 coup.

The cleric had been living in the United States since 1999, when he came here to seek medical treatment.

In 2000, while Gülen was still in the United States, Turkish authorities accused him of leading an Islamist conspiracy aimed at overthrowing the country’s secular form of government and establishing a religious state.

Some of the allegations against him were based on a tape recording in which Gulen allegedly told Islamic State supporters to wait: “If they come out too soon, the world will crush their heads.” Gulen said his comments were off been taken out of context.

The priest was tried in absentia and acquitted, but never returned to his homeland. He won a lengthy legal battle against the administration of then-President George W. Bush for permanent residency in the United States

Gülen was rarely seen in public and lived quietly on the grounds of the Islamic retreat center in Pennsylvania. He usually only left the country to see a doctor for illnesses such as heart disease and diabetes. He spent much of his time in prayer and meditation and received visitors from all over the world.

Gülen never married and had no children.

Rubinkam writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Suzan Fraser in Ankara, Türkiye, contributed to this report.

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