Erdoğan’s enemy number one, Fethullah Gülen, the face of Turkish Islam, is dead
The Islamic preacher died yesterday at the age of 83 in his US exile after years of poor health. For decades, he was one of Turkey’s most influential figures before taking refuge in the United States and being charged with orchestrating Turkey’s failed coup in 2016. His movement built a network of hundreds of schools at home and abroad. A supporter of interfaith dialogue, in 1998 he met Saint John Paul II in Rome.
Istanbul (AsiaNews) – Turkish Islamic preacher and scholar Fethullah Gülen died yesterday at the age of 83 in exile in Pennsylvania (United States); for decades, he was one of the country's most influential figures, an early supporter of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s rise to power, until he became the president’s number one enemy.
The rift between the two grew ever larger, and in the summer of 2016 Turkish authorities accused Gülen of orchestrating a coup d'état that saw the Erdoğan’s hold on power falter, casting a long shadow on the future of the country and its leader.
Following the putschists’ failure, Erdoğan and his party reasserted their rule, imposing a harsh crackdown with mass arrests and a purge that involved tens of thousands of military officers, government officials, and judges on charges of "being Gulenists".
Since then, the Islamic preacher has repeatedly rejected the accusations, denying any involvement.
So far, the Turkish authorities have not yet officially reacted to the news of Gülen’s death; the political and religious leader had been afflicted by health problems for some time.
Before ending up in the crosshairs of President Erdoğan, accused of masterminding the failed coup of July 2016, Gülen had been one of his closest allies as well as a symbol of the revival of religion in the life of the country.
His political approach upended the secular turn impressed on modern Turkey by its founder, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, and the social order guaranteed for decades by the secularism of the military, resulting in the rise of the religiously oriented Justice and Development Party (AKP), which is currently in power.
Experts view Gülen as one of the most influential figures in recent decades in Turkish society and interfaith dialogue, as well as one of the most important modern Islamic theologians and political leaders given his relationship with President Erdoğan and his decision to go into exile.
Born in 1941 in Erzurum, in the north-east of the country, the son of an imam, Gülen was a great disciple of Said Nursi, a mystic of Kurdish origin who died in 1960. While supporting orthodox and conservative Islam, he said that since he could not deny modernity, it was necessary to address it.
In the 1970s Gülen organised summer camps in Izmir where the principles of Islam were taught, giving life to the first networks of student hostels, the “light houses”.
At the time, still tolerated by the authorities, he moved to set up the first schools, eventually universities, mass media, groups and associations to create a modern Turkish Islam, merging religion and nationalism.
In 1998 Turkey’s National Security Council charged him with trying to “undermine the secular system” while “camouflag[ing] his methods with a democratic and moderate image.”
He was convicted in absentia after he went into voluntary exile in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to avoid prison, building up a network of over 300 private (Islamic) schools in Turkey, plus another 200 outside his homeland (from Tanzania and Morocco to China and the Philippines, with a strong presence in Turkic-speaking former Soviet republics), a bank, television channels, and newspapers, a website in 12 languages and charities. In all, his financial empire, according to some estimates, runs in the billions of dollars.
The success of the movement he founded (Hizmet: Service in Turkish) is based on the voluntary work of thousands of people, willing to spread education, above all in places that lack facilities and economic possibilities.
Intellectuals and diplomats around the world have promoted Gülen's ideas, viewing him as a promoter of peace and interfaith dialogue.
In the 1950s, Said Nursi preached to Muslims to join Christians in opposing atheism, seeking contacts with both Pope Pius XII and the Ecumenical Orthodox Patriarch Athenagoras of Constantinople.
Following Nursi’s example, Fethullah Gülen came out in favour of interfaith dialogue in Turkey by establishing ties with all the Christian Churches in the country, including Ecumenical Orthodox Patriarch Bartholomew I, and Armenian Patriarch Mesrob Mutafyan.
He also asked for a meeting with Pope John Paul II, which took place in Rome in 1998, and met with the Sephardic Chief Rabbi of Israel, Eliyahu Bakshi-Doron.
Underlying his statements, teachings and over 60 books on Islam and dialogue between faiths was the idea of restoring the links between state and religion as in the Ottoman era, giving Turkey a central role in the Balkans and the Caucasus, with a strongly nationalist perspective.
His organisation, which has been very active even within Turkey’s police, in the judiciary and private education, supported Erdoğan and his AKP in their struggle with Turkey’s secular forces, enabling them to win elections for the first time in 2002.
However, in the following years the relationship between Erdoğan and Gülen soured, reaching a breaking point, which turned the latter into Turkey’s number one enemy.
For more than a decade, the authorities have engaged a witch hunt against the Islamic preacher and his supporters, which intensified in the aftermath of the failed coup, in which 250 people died and Erdoğan's hold on power faltered.
According to some estimates, more than 77,000 people are still in prison awaiting trial, while arrests continue. The authorities have also suspended or fired 150,000 civil servants and members of the military.
Over the years, Ankara has repeatedly asked the United States to extradite the preacher, but Washington always turned down the request, resulting in tensions between the two countries.
Activists and experts have repeatedly criticised the Turkish government for going after tens of thousands of alleged opponents, at home and abroad, be they intellectuals, activists, soldiers, judges, teachers and intellectuals, not to mention ordinary people.
From his US exile, Gülen called the repression and purges “a complete betrayal” of the founding values of modern Turkey.
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26/11/2020 15:53
