CNN
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Turkish Muslim preacher Fethullah Gülen, a longtime bitter rival of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan who was blamed for a deadly failed coup attempt in 2016, is 83, according to Turkish officials and a media outlet linked to the cleric’s movement died years ago.

The death of the US-based cleric was announced on Monday by Herkul Nagme, a Gülen-affiliated news agency.

“Our religious leader, the great Fethullah Gülen, who dedicated his life to Islam and the service of humanity, has reached the horizon of his spirit,” X said, adding that he was hospitalized for some time.

Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan confirmed Gulen’s death at a news conference in Ankara and vowed to continue the fight against the cleric’s group, which is considered a terrorist organization in Turkey.

“The leader of this dark organization is dead. Our resolve in the fight against terrorism remains. The news of his death will not lead us to complacency,” he said.

State broadcaster TRT announced his death on Monday, calling him “a traitor, an enemy of religion and a terrorist who spent his entire life plotting against the country.”

Born in 1941, Gülen rose through Turkey’s religious bureaucracy to become an influential imam who built a following over decades. However, he went into exile himself in 1999 when he moved to the United States from Turkey and settled in the small, leafy town of Saylorsburg, Pennsylvania.

Supporters described Gülen as a peaceful, moderate cleric who promoted interreligious dialogue. His followers, many of whom were devout lower-middle-class Muslims who were then disenfranchised by Turkey’s staunchly secularist power circles, founded a movement called Hizmet.

Gulen’s movement has founded schools, free tutoring centers, hospitals and aid organizations that are credited with solving some of Turkey’s social problems. Within Turkey, Gülenists also owned television stations, newspapers, gold mines and at least one bank.

The movement also spawned a global network of schools and universities that operated in more than 100 countries.

When Gülen moved to the United States in 1999, his supporters cited medical reasons, while his critics claimed he had escaped control because he was trying to undermine the secular government by establishing a religious government – allegations he denied.

When Erdogan took power in 2002, the Hizmet movement supported the then prime minister – many Gülenists were Erdogan’s allies. In fact, with their help, Erdogan had previously carried out military purges and shady trials of secularist generals and officers.

But the relationship began to deteriorate in the early 2010s, triggered by the government’s attempt to close Gülenist educational centers and because the Gülenists accused senior administration officials of bribery. Soon their rivalry turned openly hostile, with Erdogan issuing veiled warnings about “those supported by dark circles inside and outside the country.”

In a 2014 interview with CNN, a top official from Erdogan’s ruling AKP party described the Gülen movement as a “fifth column” that had infiltrated the Turkish police and judiciary.

The government now classifies the Gülenists as a terrorist organization called FETO.

Then there was the attempted coup in 2016, in which 290 people were killed and more than 1,400 injured. After a wave of violence that saw tanks roll through the city streets, the coup attempt was repelled.

Erdogan quickly pointed the finger at Gulen and a crackdown followed. Thousands of people suspected of having ties to Gülen were arrested or fired from their jobs. Turkey has called on the U.S. to extradite the cleric, and the U.S. refusal to do so has been one of the main points of contention at a time when Turkish-American relations have reached a new low.

Gülen repeatedly rejected the allegations. “For someone who has suffered from multiple military coups over the past five decades, it is particularly insulting to be accused of having any connection to such an attempted coup. I categorically reject such allegations,” he said at the time.