SAYLORSBURG, Pa. Fethullah Glen, a reclusive U.S.-based Islamic cleric who inspired a global social movement while facing accusations that he orchestrated a failed 2016 coup in his native Turkey, has died.
Abdullah Bozkurt, the former editor-in-chief of the Gülen-linked Todays Zaman newspaper who is now in exile in Sweden, said on Monday he had spoken to Gülen's nephew Kemal Gülen, who confirmed the death. Fethullah Glen was 80 years old and had been in poor health for a long time.
The official Anadolu agency cited Turkish Foreign Ministry Hakan Fidan as saying the death had been confirmed by Turkish intelligence sources.
Glen spent the last decades of his life in exile, living in a gated compound in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania, from where he continued to exert influence among his millions of followers in Turkey and around the world. He espoused a philosophy that combined Sufism, a mystical form of Islam, with a strong advocate of democracy, education, science and interfaith dialogue.
Glen started out as an ally of Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan, but became an enemy. He characterized Erdogan as an authoritarian bent on accumulating power and crushing dissent. Erdogan called Glen a terrorist, accusing him of orchestrating the attempted military coup on the night of July 15, 2016, when factions within the army used tanks, fighter jets and helicopters in an attempt to overthrow Erdogan's government.
Responding to the president's call, thousands of people took to the streets to oppose the attempted takeover. 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 also killed.
Glen has categorically denied any involvement and his supporters have dismissed the accusations as ridiculous and politically motivated. Turkey placed Glen on its most-wanted list and requested his extradition, but the United States was reluctant to return him, saying it needed more evidence. Glen has never been charged with a crime in the United States and has consistently denounced terrorism and coup plotters.
In Türkiye, the Glens movement, sometimes known as Hizmet in Turkish for its service, has been subjected to widespread repression. The government has arrested tens of thousands of people for their alleged connection to the coup plot, fired more than 130,000 suspected supporters from public office and more than 23,000 military personnel, and closed hundreds of businesses , schools and media organizations linked to Glen.
Glen called the crackdown a witch hunt and denounced Turkey's leaders as tyrants.
The last year has cost me dearly, as hundreds of thousands of innocent Turkish citizens are being punished simply because the government decides that they are somehow linked to me or the Hizmet movement and is treating this alleged connection as a crime, he said at one of the conferences. anniversary of the failed coup.
Turkish Foreign Minister Fidan said on Monday that Glen's death would not cause us to become complacent. Our nation and our state will continue to fight against this organization, as they do against all terrorist organizations.
Fethullah Glen was born in Erzurum, eastern Turkey. His official date of birth was April 27, 1941, but this date has long been controversial. Y. Alp Aslandogan, who heads a New York-based group that promotes Glen's ideas and work, said Glen was actually born in 1938.
Trained as an imam or prayer leader, Glen came to prominence in Türkiye around fifty years ago. He preached tolerance and dialogue between religions and believed that religion and science could go hand in hand. His belief in the fusion of Islam with Western values and Turkish nationalism struck a chord with Turks, earning him millions of followers.
Glens' acolytes have built a global network of charitable foundations, professional associations, businesses 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 vast media empire of newspapers, radio and television stations.
But Glen was viewed with suspicion by some in his homeland, a deeply polarized country divided between those loyal to its fiercely secular traditions and supporters of the Islamic party associated with Erdogan who came to power in 2002.
Glen had long refrained from openly supporting any political party, but his movement forged a de facto alliance with Erdogan against the country's old guard of loyal, military-backed secularists, and Glen's media empire supported Erdogan's Islamic-oriented government.
The Glenists helped the ruling party win several elections. But the Erdogan-Gülen alliance began to crumble after the movement criticized government policies and exposed alleged corruption within Erdogan's inner circle. Erdogan, who has denied the allegations, has grown weary of the growing influence of the Glens movement.
The Turkish leader accused Glens' supporters of infiltrating the country's police and justice system and creating a parallel state, and began campaigning for Glens' extradition to Turkey even before the failure of the 2016 coup.
The cleric had lived in the United States since 1999, when he came for treatment.
In 2000, while Glen was still in the United States, Turkish authorities accused him of leading an Islamist plot to overthrow the country's secular form of government and establish a religious state.
Some of the charges against him were based on a recording in which Glen allegedly told supporters of an Islamic state to bide their time: if they come forward too soon, the world will crush their heads. Glen said his comments were taken out of context.
The cleric was tried in absentia and acquitted, but he never returned to his native country. He won a lengthy legal battle against the administration of then-President George W. Bush to obtain permanent residency in the United States.
Rarely seen in public, Glen lived quietly on the grounds of an Islamic retreat center in the Poconos. He occupied a small apartment in the huge complex and left mainly to consult doctors for illnesses such as heart disease and diabetes, spending much of his time in prayer and meditation and receiving visitors from all over the world.
Glen never married and had no children. It is unclear who, if anyone, will lead the movement.
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Associated Press writer Suzan Fraser contributed from Ankara, Turkey.
