Fethullah Gulen, the controversial Turkish cleric and ally-turned-foe of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has handed away on the age of 83.

No explanation for loss of life has but been given though he was identified to have been unwell.

Gulen had resided since 1999 in Pennsylvania’s Pocono Mountains in the USA, the place he was mentioned to have lived in an residence on a compound owned by the Golden Era Basis, a nonprofit operated by his supporters within the US.

Although he diminished his public appearances in his later years, he continued to launch statements and writings urging followers to take care of their dedication to training, dialogue, and peaceable activism.

Inside Turkey, nonetheless, he grew to be a infamous determine, accused by the federal government of working a legal ring that infiltrated state establishments.

Turkish Overseas Minister Hakan Fidan, who confirmed Gulen’s loss of life this morning, described the cleric as the pinnacle of a “darkish organisation”, telling a information convention: “Our nation’s willpower within the combat in opposition to terrorism will proceed, and this information of his loss of life won’t ever lead us to complacency.”

Formative years

Gulen first got here to prominence as a preacher within the Nineteen Sixties within the western province of Izmir, Anatolia, the place he based a community of boarding homes often known as “lighthouses” that supplied college students tutorial assist.

Gulen regularly expanded his community of boarding homes to incorporate faculties, charities, and different civil society organisations.

His supporters would go on to open greater than 1,000 faculties in 160 nations.

Whereas not particularly Islamic establishments, the faculties supplied high quality training to all college students, lots of whom went on to key positions in Turkey, together with the judiciary, police, and forms.

Over time, their affect grew, with the organisations’ supporters establishing the influential Zaman newspaper in 1986, and Samanyolu Tv in 1993.

In 1996, supporters of Gulen additionally launched Financial institution Asya, additional extending the organisations’ attain.

Transfer to the USA

In 1999, Gulen left Turkey for the US, the place he would stay.

His allies mentioned he had moved because of well being causes, however his critics prompt his departure from Turkey was extra doubtless prompted by a authorities investigation into his actions, which had been probably undermining the federal government.

The next 12 months, Gulen was convicted in absentia of conspiring to overthrow the state by means of embedding civil servants, a conviction that might be cited as proof in opposition to him after a 2016 coup try in Turkey.

Allies and adversaries

Within the early 2000s, Gulen and his followers had been carefully allied with Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Growth Social gathering (AK Social gathering).

This led to the rise of many Gulen followers into influential positions within the state equipment as each camps sought to counter what they noticed because the affect of the secular elite in Turkey’s navy and judicial institutions.

Nevertheless, rumours of stress between the 2 teams started to flow into within the early 2000s, changing into plain in 2013 when law enforcement officials and prosecutors who had been seen as Gulen followers launched corruption probes to the higher ranks of the AK Social gathering and Erdogan’s interior circle.

Erdogan blamed Gulen for orchestrating the ensuing scandal, accusing the non secular chief of in search of to make use of his community of establishments and extremely positioned officers to function a “parallel state” inside Turkey.

Gulen denied the allegations.

Coup try in 2016

Three years later, Erdogan once more blamed Gulen for a coup try on July 16, when factions inside Turkey’s armed forces tried to oust Erdogan’s authorities and set up a physique of their very own making, the Council for Peace at Residence, as a replacement.

Whereas their efforts had been unsuccessful, a whole bunch had been killed in what was the bloodiest coup in Turkey’s trendy historical past.

Within the months that adopted, suspected Gulen sympathisers had been purged throughout the federal government, judiciary, and navy, and the federal government designated Gulen’s motion because the FETO (Fethullah Terrorist Organisation).

Turkey made quite a lot of extradition requests for Gulen, however none had been granted, with US officers claiming a scarcity of proof linking Gulen on to the coup.

For a lot of of Gulen’s followers, the post-coup purges marked the top of an period. Colleges and charities affiliated with Gulen had been shuttered and lots of of his supporters both imprisoned or pressured into exile.

Internationally, the motion continued to function, although with much less visibility, significantly in nations the place the Turkish authorities had requested authorities to shut Gulen-affiliated establishments.

Inside the US, quite a lot of the organisations’ constitution faculties have been investigated for visa irregularities, in addition to accusations of getting defrauded the US Treasury of as much as $4bn.

Fethullah Gulen by no means married.