60 Facts About Fethullah Gulen

Muhammed Fethullah Gulen was born on 27 April 1941 and is a Turkish Islamic scholar, preacher, and a one-time opinion leader, as de facto leader of the Gulen movement.

Since 1999, Fethullah Gulen has lived in self-exile in the United States near Saylorsburg, Pennsylvania.

Fethullah Gulen says his social criticisms are focused upon individuals' faith and morality and a lesser extent toward political ends and self describes as rejecting an Islamist political philosophy, his 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.

Fethullah Gulen founded the Fethullah Gulen movement, which is a 3-to-6 million strong, volunteer-based movement in Turkey and around the world.

Fethullah Gulen says he did not personally influence past prosecutions of Justice and Development Party members by judiciary prosecutors from assorted political factions and has said he has "stood against all coups".

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Muhammed Fethullah Gulen was born in the village of Korucuk, near Erzurum, to Ramiz and Refia Gulen, There is some confusion over his birth date.

Fethullah Gulen's mother taught the Qur'an in their village, despite such informal religious instruction being banned by the Kemalist government.

Fethullah Gulen took part in Islamic education in some Erzurum madrasas and he gave his first sermon as a licensed state preacher in 1958, when he was in his teens.

Fethullah Gulen was influenced by the ideas of Kurdish scholar Said Nursi.

Fethullah Gulen was in the Turkish civil service from his appointment as an assistant imam at Uc Serefeli Mosque in Edirne, 6 August 1959, until he retired from formal preaching duties in 1981.

Fethullah Gulen did not make any comment regarding the closures of the Welfare Party in 1998 or the Virtue Party in 2001.

Fethullah Gulen has met some politicians like Tansu Ciller and Bulent Ecevit, but he avoids meeting with the leaders of Islamic political parties.

In 1999, Fethullah Gulen relocated to the United States for medical treatment.

In June 1999, after Fethullah Gulen had left Turkey, videotapes were sent to some Turkish television stations with recordings of Fethullah Gulen saying,.

Fethullah Gulen said his remarks were taken out of context, and his supporters raised questions about the authenticity of the tape, which he said had been "manipulated".

Fethullah Gulen was tried in absentia in 2000, and acquitted in 2008 under the new Justice and Development Party government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Fethullah Gulen first based his claim to residency on his being as an alien of extraordinary ability as an education activist; the US Citizenship and Immigration Services rejected it.

Many of those educated in institutions sponsored by participants in civil-society endeavors that Fethullah Gulen had inspired ended up as members of the Turkey's judiciary, its governmental apparatus, and its military.

Fethullah Gulen was accused of establishing and running an "armed terrorist group".

Never married, Fethullah Gulen's own living quarters and study are within a pair of small rooms, whose rent he pays out of his publishing royalties and which contain a mattress on the floor, prayer mat, desk, bookshelves, and treadmill, within one of the estate's several structures, among which is a hall used as a mosque.

Fethullah Gulen movement, known as Hizmet or Cemaat, has millions of followers, as well as many more abroad.

Turkish and foreign analysts believe Fethullah Gulen has sympathizers in the Turkish parliament and that his movement controlled the widely read Islamic conservative Zaman newspaper, the private Bank Asya bank, the Samanyolu TV television station, and many other media and business organizations, including the Turkish Confederation of Businessmen and Industrialists.

Fethullah Gulen taught a Hanafi version of Islam, deriving from Sunni Muslim scholar Said Nursi's teachings.

Fethullah Gulen has stated that he believes in science, interfaith dialogue among the People of the Book, and multi-party democracy.

Fethullah Gulen has initiated such dialogue with the Vatican and some Jewish organizations.

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Fethullah Gulen opened an isik evler or "light houses" in 1976, with there being informal sohbets available there for the students as well.

Fethullah Gulen encouraged like-minded individuals to follow suit, which became the genesis of the Fethullah Gulen movement.

In 2005, a man affiliated with the Gulen movement approached US Ambassador to Turkey Eric S Edelman during a party in Istanbul and handed him an envelope containing a document supposedly detailing plans for an imminent coup against the government by the Turkish military.

Fethullah Gulen had previously been tried in absentia in 2000, and acquitted of these charges in 2008 under Erdogan's AKP government.

Mahrous argues that Erdogan has not only accused Fethullah Gulen of plotting the failed coup attempt, but used this allegation as an excuse to engage in mass purges against public institutions allegedly loyal to Fethullah Gulen—"but at the same time Erdogan has decided to turn Turkey into a media battleground against Egypt, with Turkish intelligence providing funds for several Muslim Brotherhood TV channels to attack Egypt".

Mahrous stated that his advice to Fethullah Gulen is to not wait until his extradition, but instead leave the United States and obtain permanent asylum in Egypt.

On 26 September 2017, Fethullah Gulen asked for a United Nations commission to investigate the 2016 coup attempt.

Fethullah Gulen movement is a transnational Islamic civic society movement inspired by Fethullah Gulen's teachings.

Fethullah Gulen's followers have built over 1,000 schools around the world.

In Turkey, Fethullah Gulen's schools are considered among the best: expensive modern facilities where the English language is taught from the first grade.

However, former teachers from outside the Fethullah Gulen community have called into question the treatment of women and girls in Fethullah Gulen schools, reporting that female teachers were excluded from administrative responsibilities, allowed little autonomy, and—along with girls from the sixth grade and up—segregated from male colleagues and pupils during break and lunch periods.

Fethullah Gulen has personally met with leaders of other religions, including Pope John Paul II, the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople, and Israeli Sephardic Chief Rabbi Eliyahu Bakshi-Doron.

Fethullah Gulen has said that he favors cooperation between followers of different religions as well as religious and secular elements within society.

Fethullah Gulen has shown sympathy towards certain demands of Turkey's Alevi minority, such as recognising their cemevis as official places of worship and supporting better Sunni-Alevi relations; stating Alevis "definitely enrich Turkish culture".

Fethullah Gulen teaches that the Muslim community has a duty of service to the common good of the community and the nation and to Muslims and non-Muslims all over the world; and that the Muslim community is obliged to conduct dialogue with not just the "People of the Book", and people of other religions, but with agnostics and atheists.

Fethullah Gulen's Sufism is greatly influenced by Sufi Kurdish Quranic scholar Said Nursi, who advocated illuminating modern education and science through Islam.

Some participants within Fethullah Gulen's movement have viewed Nursi's or Fethullah Gulen's works as that of mujaddids or "renewers" of Islam within their respective times.

In 2016, Turkey's Religious Affairs Directorate, Mehmet Gormez, said Fethullah Gulen's is a "fake Mahdi movement".

Fethullah Gulen defines Turkish nationalism by particular type of Anatolian Muslim culture that is at the roots of the modern Turkish nation state, rather than by any specific ethnicity.

Fethullah Gulen believes Turkish Islam an especially legitimate, if not an exclusively valid expression of the Islamic faith, especially with concern individuals of a Turkish background.

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Albeit Fethullah Gulen ascribes positive characteristics to various localized entities, overall the tenor of Fethullah Gulen's teachings warn against the human tendencies toward insularity or discriminations against people of other ethnicities, other branches of Islam, or other faiths.

Fethullah Gulen was accused of being against the peace process which had aimed to resolve the long-running Kurdish-Turkish conflict.

However, Fethullah Gulen's supporters dismiss this claim, citing his work with many Kurds.

Fethullah Gulen has supported Turkey's bid to join the European Union and has said that neither Turkey nor the EU have anything to fear, but have much to gain, from a future of full Turkish membership in the EU.

Fethullah Gulen feels that extreme feminism is "doomed to imbalance like all other reactionary movements" and eventually "being full of hatred towards men".

Fethullah Gulen warns against the phenomenon of arbitrary violence and aggression against civilians and said that it "has no place in Islam".

Fethullah Gulen criticized the Turkish-led Gaza flotilla for trying to deliver aid without Israel's consent to Palestinians in Gaza.

Fethullah Gulen spoke of watching the news coverage of the deadly confrontation between Israeli commandos and multinational aid group members as its flotilla approached Israel's sea blockade of Gaza.

Fethullah Gulen is strongly against Turkish involvement in the Syrian Civil War.

Fethullah Gulen is said to have authored many articles on a variety of topics: social, political and religious issues, art, science and sports, and recorded thousands of audio and video cassettes.

Fethullah Gulen writes the lead article for The Fountain, Yeni Umit, Sizinti, and Yagmur Islamic philosophical magazines.

Fethullah Gulen topped the 2008 Top 100 Public Intellectuals Poll and came out as the most influential thinker.

Fethullah Gulen was named as one of Time magazine's 100 Most Influential People in 2013.

Fethullah Gulen was listed as one of the 500 most influential Muslims by the Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Centre in Amman, Jordan.

Fethullah Gulen was listed on the Watkins' Spiritual 100 List for 2019 as one of the "100 Most Spiritually Influential Living People".