Iran Press/ America: The official website of the Gulen Movement, Herkul, announced his death, which family members also confirmed.
“Our Hoca [Fethullah Gulen] passed away on October 20, 2024, at 21.20 [local time] in the hospital, where he had been receiving treatment for a while,” Herkul said in a statement.
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said the death has been confirmed by Turkish intelligence sources.
Gülen spent the last decades of his life in self-exile, living on a gated compound in Pennsylvania’s Pocono Mountains, from where he continued to wield influence among his millions of followers in Turkey and throughout the world. He espoused a philosophy that blended Sufism — a mystical form of Islam — with staunch advocacy of democracy, education, science, and interfaith dialogue.
Gülen began as an ally of Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan but became a foe. He called Erdogan an authoritarian bent on accumulating power and crushing dissent. Erdogan cast Gülen as a terrorist, accusing him of orchestrating the attempted military coup on the night of July 15, 2016, when factions within the military used tanks, warplanes, and helicopters to try to overthrow Erdogan’s government.
Heeding a call from the president, thousands took to the streets to oppose the takeover attempt. The coup plotters fired at crowds and bombed parliament and other government buildings. A total of 251 people were killed and around 2,200 others were wounded. Around 35 alleged coup plotters were also killed.
Gülen adamantly denied involvement, and his supporters dismissed the charges as ridiculous and politically motivated. Turkey put Gülen on its most-wanted list and demanded his extradition, but the United States showed little inclination to send him back, saying it needed more evidence. Gülen was never charged with a crime in the U.S., and he consistently denounced terrorism as well as the coup plotters.
In Turkey, Gülen’s movement — sometimes known as Hizmet, Turkish for “service” — was subjected to a broad crackdown. The government arrested tens of thousands of people for their alleged link to the coup plot, sacked more than 130,000 suspected supporters from civil service jobs and more than 23,000 from the military, and shuttered hundreds of businesses, schools, and media organizations tied to Gülen.
Gülen called the crackdown a witch hunt and denounced Turkey’s leaders as “tyrants.”
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Turkey sanctions hundreds of individuals with links to Gulen movement
