Gülen, who was accused by Turkey’s president of orchestrating a coup in 2016, died on Sunday at a Pennsylvania hospital.
Thousands gathered on Thursday in the US to pay respects to the Turkish Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen, who died this week in self-exile.
With police surrounding the area, mourners, including family and friends, filled a small stadium in northern New Jersey for a prayer service and funeral. Pall-bearers carried Gülen’s casket into the packed stadium.
After the service, Gülen was taken to be buried several hundred kilometres away in Saylorsburg, Pennsylvania. His grave will be on the grounds of the Chestnut Retreat Center, a sprawling compound in the Pocono Mountains that became the centre of the scholar’s movement and teachings for 25 years.
“This is a solemn time of mourning, reflection, and prayer,” commented the Alliance for Shared Values, a New York-based group that promotes Gülen’s work in the US, adding that Gülen was an “intellectual thinker whose impact will be felt for generations.”
From friends to foes
Gülen had long been one of Turkey’s most important scholars, with millions of followers in his native country and around the world. He moved to the US in 1999 seeking medical treatment and had lived there ever since.
The religious scholar was once an ally of Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdoğan but later became one of his fiercest critics. He labelled Erdoğan — who has held the president’s office since 2014 — an “authoritarian” driven by self-interest.
Erdoğan, in turn, accused his former ally of being a terrorist, claiming that Gülen masterminded the attempted coup on 15 July 2016, when factions within the military used tanks, warplanes, and helicopters to try to overthrow the government.
A total of 251 people were killed, and around 2,200 others were wounded in the attempted coup. Around 35 alleged coup plotters were killed.
Crackdowns and arrests
Soon after the failed coup, Gülen, famed for his reclusiveness, invited journalists to the Pennsylvania compound to reject any knowledge or involvement in its planning. He said he wouldn’t have returned to Turkey even if the coup had succeeded, fearing he would be “persecuted and harassed”.
Meanwhile, Turkish authorities went on a broad crackdown, arresting thousands of alleged supporters and forcing others out of government and military positions. Schools and educational centres said to have had links to Gülen’s movement, Hizmet, have been shut down.
Reacting to the announcement of Gülen’s passing, Erdoğan said Gülen had suffered a “dishonourable death” and likened him to a “demon in human form.” The Turkish leader pledged that the movement, which Ankara has designated as a terrorist group, would be “completely eliminated”.
Gülen repeatedly denied any links to the coup until his death. “I really don’t know 0.1% of the people in this movement”, Gülen said in the past. “I haven’t done much. I have just spoken out on what I believe.”
He had also called for an international investigation into the coup, vowing his “full cooperation”.
“No one, neither I nor anyone else, is above the law. I want all the guilty, regardless of their affiliation, to be sentenced to the punishments they deserve in a fair trial,” he told the French newspaper Le Monde in August 2016.
