Fethullah Gülen’s death: The final page in a Cold War strategy gone wrong
Across the ocean, a polarized society found rare unity in a single sentiment: good riddance. In Turkey, no one mourned the departure of Gülen from this world
I recall the unrestrained hubris they flaunted throughout Turkey in the early 2010s, reveling in a sense of untouchable power. They threatened, jailed, and silenced journalists, along with current and former military and police officers, fortifying their grip through intimidation. And now? These once-invincible figures, reduced to anonymity, shuffled through a funeral veiled in hats, masks, and sunglasses—shadowed by their own faces—paying respects to the man they once exalted as their supreme leader, their mahdi.
Fethullah Gülen, the Islamic cleric and leader of a religious movement, regarded as a terrorist in Turkey for masterminding the July 2016 coup attempt, has died of kidney failure, a complication of diabetes. His organization, labeled a terrorist network by Turkish authorities and known by the acronym FETÖ, has long faced widespread condemnation. After years of declining health and frequent hospitalizations, Gülen’s death was neither sudden nor unexpected.
The funeral took place under tight security at a stadium in northern New Jersey. FETÖ members were advised by the organization’s elite via WhatsApp to keep a low profile; one message read: ‘Wear masks, hats, and sunglasses. Turkish media will be present. Security will be in place. Stadium entry requires a QR code.’ Gülen’s remains arrived in a black Cadillac, while the ceremony’s location details were kept tightly guarded until the last moment, with discreet updates shared through WhatsApp. After the service, Gülen was buried on his estate in Saylorsburg, Pennsylvania, where he had lived for over 25 years. Secrecy, after all, is what this organization knows best—keeping things opaque, keeping things concealed.
Yet miles away, across the ocean, a polarized society’s rare and concerted reflex was almost heard: good riddance. No one in Turkey mourned the departure of Fethullah Gülen from this world.
Among those once allied with him and his movement—high-ranking AKP officials, affiliated businessmen, and media personnel (few worthy of being called journalists)—the celebration was loudest. Pro-government media headlines captured the sentiment: ‘The Devil is Dead’ (Hürriyet), ‘Condolences to the CIA’ (Milliyet), and ‘The Cautionary End of the Traitor without a Homeland’ (Sabah).
Turkey’s Ministry of National Defense stated, “The leader of FETÖ, who caused great harm to our state and heroic military, has passed away. Though his ‘stateless’ death may not ease the suffering of this organization’s victims, it serves as a sobering reminder of the inevitable fate awaiting those who betray their homeland.”
Entertainment figures, opposition politicians, leftist groups, and conservative nationalists alike agreed on one truth: Fethullah Gülen and his movement had never been a simple religious faction. They had caused profound harm to Turkey over four decades, with the most recent blows the heaviest of all.
The Fethullah Gülen movement, originally known as ‘the cemaat’, was one of those Cold War-era ‘genius projects’ crafted to counter communism. Gülen himself was an anti-communist cleric, diverging from the broader Islamic Sufi tradition of Said-i Nursi’s Nur tariqa. His oratory talent was first noticed by a high-ranking state imam—the then-deputy head of Turkey’s Directorate of Religious Affairs (Diyanet)—while preaching in a remote town in northwestern Turkey. From there, he began his semi-embedded journey within the state.
Shrewd and perceptive, he understood the supply-demand dynamics of his era and shaped FETÖ as a 'moderate' Islamic group promoting scientific education, not only in Turkey but also across the Balkans and Africa. He wielded buzzwords like ‘interfaith dialogue’ liberally, a rhetoric that won him favour with both the Turkish state and Western allies, particularly in the U.S. and Germany, as early as the late 1960s.
‘Think of the Gülen movement as just another Gladio structure established to combat leftist—and, in Turkey’s case, Kurdish—movements,’ says Prof. Behlül Özkan of Özyeğin University. When the Cold War ended, such Gladio organizations or apparatchiks should have been dissolved. But they weren’t. By the early 2000s, when the Turkish military finally considered addressing the ‘problem’ and purging its ranks of infiltrators, Gülen had already left Turkey in 1999, under charges of undermining secularism. His exit, despite previous visa denials, was soon secured by a U.S. green card, thanks to lobbying efforts by American officials. Three years later, the AKP rose to power, ushering in a golden era for the Gülen movement.
It was under Erdoğan’s rule that FETÖ managed to infiltrate and consolidate its influence within the military, judiciary, and police. The alliance fractured only when the AKP realized that FETÖ had grown too powerful, posing a direct threat. But by then, it was too late.
Gülen’s followers comprised two primary groups: a loyal base who viewed him as the mahdi, organized in a classic cell structure, and a covert cadre known as the ‘mahrem yapı’—the ‘secretive structure.’ This inner circle oversaw operations within Turkey’s judiciary, police, and military, often placing Gülen’s directives above state orders. Gülen preached about covertly embedding within state structures, citing a long-term strategy in his sermons to ‘move in the arteries of the system’ until his followers could seize control of Turkey.
During the AKP’s first decade, Gülenists and the AKP cooperated to dismantle military influence. This alliance culminated in high-profile trials based on fabricated evidence, orchestrated by Gülenist operatives embedded within the police. Erdoğan later admitted to this deception, recognizing it only after realizing that Gülenists were plotting a coup. The coup’s organizers were military officers who had ascended to critical positions vacated after the dubious Sledgehammer trial—a maneuver that weakened the Kemalist faction within the armed forces and replaced them with Gülen loyalists.
Journalists who uncovered Gülenist interference in these trials faced defamation campaigns and the threat of imprisonment. Several were jailed for exposing Gülen’s deep infiltration into state apparatus. Though Gülen publicly appeared supportive of Kurdish rights, his followers within the police, judiciary, military, and intelligence agencies actively sabotaged every peace effort the Turkish state attempted since 2009.
This was the trajectory that brought an imam’s ostensibly education-based movement to the point of attempting a coup against the Turkish state.
In the aftermath of the coup attempt, Turkey underwent a massive purge and wave of arrests. Those with the resources and inside knowledge managed to leave Turkey after 2016, while many faced trial and imprisonment. Today, little remains of the organization within Turkey's borders beyond imprisoned members and their families.
Over decades, this organization preyed on vulnerable and impoverished families, promising education and a better life. The majority of its members who subscribed to its newspapers or used its bank ended up jailed after the coup, while the real perpetrators continue to operate—albeit in a diminished form—abroad.
Now primarily a diaspora movement, FETÖ's elites reside in the U.S., with around 30,000 members dispersed across Europe, with Germany hosting the largest concentration. FETÖ members in Europe maintain a closed community, forming their own small masjid and distancing themselves from Turkish mosques. Many struggle financially, relying on social benefits in their host countries, while the financial and leadership core remains in Pennsylvania, managing substantial, albeit opaque, funds accumulated over years from global donations, charities, and schools.
This core committee will likely continue their work as they did during Gülen’s illness over the past three years. In his death, however, a successor with Gülen’s authority is unlikely to emerge. The top committee within the secretive mahrem structure will oversee operations but lacks the vision to unify members. ‘This committee does not have the intellectual or spiritual means to do that,’ notes Prof. Gökhan Bacık of Palacky University Olomouc. ‘They may attempt a post-Gülen theology, invoking “Gülen would have wanted this or that,” but this won’t be enough to hold the movement together.’
It may be hard to fathom how a religious organization with Sufi roots, once celebrated for promoting ‘interfaith dialogue,’ could orchestrate a coup, killing hundreds. But it did—and it was a gradual process, one that some of us documented over the decades. Now, with Gülen’s death, it’s hard to imagine the group ever reclaiming the influence they wielded in the early 2000s. Gülen went head-to-head with Erdoğan, and Erdoğan emerged the victor.
This is what I always tell friends unfamiliar with Turkey’s complexities: as a guiding principle, any accusation Erdoğan and his circle make about the Gülen movement holds truth. Likewise, any accusation from the Gülenists about Erdoğan and his allies also holds truth. Haydi, good luck navigating Turkey.
If you're still looking for a basic overview, here's a BBC explainer with my comments, or you can refer to my own bullet-pointed explainer here.