Erdogan v Gulen

Muhammed Fethullah Glen (born 27 April 1941) is a Turkish writer, former imam and preacher and Islamic
opinion leader. He is the founder of the Glen movement. He currently lives in a self-imposed exile in Saylorsburg,
Pennsylvania, USA
In his sermons Gulen has reportedly stated: "Studying physics, mathematics, and chemistry is worshipping God."
Gulen's followers have built over 1,000 schools around the world. In Turkey Gulen's schools are considered
among the best: expensive modern facilities, equal gender treatment and English taught from the first grade.
However, former teachers from outside the Glen community have called into question the treatment of women
and girls in Glen 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
Gulen movement participants have founded a number of institutions across the world which promote interfaith and
intercultural dialogue activities. Glen's earlier works are (in Bekim Agai's words) "full of anti-missionary and antiWestern passages", and "vitriolic" diatribes against Jews, Christians, and others. During the 1990s, he began to
advocate interreligious tolerance and dialogue. He personally met with leaders of other religions, including Pope
John Paul II, the Greek Orthodox Patriarch Bartholomeos, and Israeli Sephardic Head Rabbi Eliyahu BakshiDoron. In the late 2000s, the movement also initiated dialogue with those of no faith. For example, the Dialogue
Society in London, which is inspired by Glens teaching, has more atheist and agnostic members of its Advisory
Board than it has Muslims
The Glen movement is a transnational religious and social movement led by Turkish Islamic scholar Fethullah
Glen. The movement has attracted supporters and critics in Turkey, Central Asia and increasingly in other parts
of the World. The movement is active in education (with private schools in over 140 countries) and interfaith
dialogue; and has substantial investments in media, finance, and forprofit health clinics. The movement has
been described as a "pacifist, modern-minded Islam, often praised as a contrast to more extreme Salafism."
One recent afternoon Muslims from the Balkans feasted on roast lamb in a wooded corner of New Jersey. At the
call to prayer, trousers were rolled up, ablutions taken and the genuflecting beganall organised by the Hizmet,
which holds similar events in Africa and Asia. But their impact is strongest in Turkey. Long persecuted by the
secularist generals, the Hizmet was relieved when Mr Erdogans Justice and Development (AK) party took power
in 2002.
Mr Erdogan began his career with the more traditionally Islamist National View movement of Necmettin Erbakan,
who was ousted as prime minister by the army in 1997. Despite their differences, AK and the Gulenists joined
forces against the generals. After AK swept to a second term in 2007, it set about declawing the generals through
the Ergenekon trial of hundreds of alleged coup plotters. This was helped by prosecutors said to be close to Mr
Gulen. But the alliance has frayed amid allegations of Hizmet infiltration of the judiciary and the police. Mr Gulens
image was bruised by suggestions that Ergenekon had degenerated into a vendetta. They shared power with AK
but they kept wanting more, says an observer
The rift became clearer after the 2010 Mavi Marmara affair, when Israeli commandos killed nine Turks aboard a
Gaza-bound vessel; Mr Gulen suggested the flotilla should not have been allowed to sail. Their rift became wider
when an Istanbul prosecutor summoned Hakan Fidan, Turkeys spy chief and one of Mr Erdogans closest allies,
for questioning over links to Kurdish PKK rebels. An angry Mr Erdogan made the prosecution of any spy subject to
government approval and threatened to shut Hizmet-run prep schools
Turkeys secularists are rubbing their hands. But their joy may be short-lived. Mr Erdogan and Mr Gulen share a
hard-nosed pragmatism. Some believe their fist-shaking is the prelude to a bargain, not least because many of Mr
Erdogans supporters approve of Mr Gulen and vice versa. Neither can convincingly justify his enmity for the
other, says an analyst. It is a lose-lose for both.