14.11.2024

His movement lingers on

Widely presented in the west as a champion of ‘moderate’ Islam, within Turkey he was condemned as a terrorist. Esen Uslu looks at the life and times of Fethullah Gülen

Fethullah Gülen, a controversial figure of Islamist politics in Turkey, died on October 24 aged 83 at his Pennsylvania retreat in the USA. In line with the sensitivities of the US public, his movement resolved not to use the Takbir prayer during the funeral procession, as it has also been used by Islamist insurgents as their war cry.

Indeed, that omission was actually the summary of his life and works. He was presented by his allies in the west as the leader of the progressive, liberal and ‘moderate’ followers of Turkish Islam. However, his own works presented him as a wali - a ‘chosen one’ in communication with his god. But, make no mistake, the movement he was instrumental in developing, managing, and sustaining over 40 years is still active after his passing.

The modern Turkish nation-state was born from the ashes of the Ottoman empire - a multi-religious, and multi-ethnic entity, where the Turks and Islam are now the ruling strata. The creation of a nation-state required uniform nationhood (Turks) and a uniform religion (Sunni-Hanafi Islam), dictated by force upon the 14 million population, which remained under the control of the remnants of the Ottoman army, trained in Prussian military style.

The Christian Armenians and Greek Orthodox Rums and Turks were massacred and dispossessed, and forced out of the country. The Turkish-speaking Muslim peasants of Balkan countries, as well as Caucasians, immigrated into Turkey. However, one of the first tasks of the nascent republic was to developed state offices tasked to organise that mass into a uniform nation.

In March 1924, the caliphate was abolished by the parliament - victorious after the Greek-Turkish war and Lausanne peace treaty. The same day, important laws were enacted. The first one abolished the Ottoman Sharia and Pious Foundations Ministry, while the Unification of Education Act closed religious schools and brought the entire education system under the control of the ministry of education. A state-controlled junior high school for boys training to become imams (prayer leaders) and hatip (preachers) was formed.

By pulling the carpet from under their feet, the Kemalist regime believed that they had undermined the Islamist opposition once and for all. But that was actually a forlorn hope - the various Sunni brotherhoods did not accept the dictates of state-sanctioned Sunni-Hanafi Islam, but had sufficient popular support to sustain themselves in their own world, where Kemalist ideology and officialdom failed to penetrate.

The Kemalists also expelled and expropriated the mainly Christian nascent bourgeoisie, and formed a thin stratum above the mass of a peasant society, using force to dictate their will and trying to develop a new, Turkish capitalist stratum in the protected greenhouses of the national economy. As a result, the concept of ‘nationhood and secularism’ remained a motto repeated every morning by the literate classes in order not to attract the lightning bolts of the state, but secret attachment to a religious order was for many the mainstay of daily life under suffocating state control.

The situation was more complicated in the Kurdish provinces, where the Naqshbandi brotherhood had been influential. The 1925 Kurdish rebellion was led by sheiks of the order, and brutal suppression by the Turkish regime left an unforgettable mark on the people’s minds. The regime took the opportunity to curtail every type of opposition, and entered into a new period of oppression that lasted until the end of World War II.

Nur Jamaat

After the war, while Turkey had entered a period of two-party democracy, the Islamist movement’s support for opposition to hard-set Kemalists made them more prominent. The most visible organisation was Nur (holy light) Jamaat, which was founded by the Kurdish mullah, Said of Nurs village, hence known as Saidi Nursi. The Nur Jamaat industriously hand-copied Saidi Nursi’s sermons in old Arabic script and distributed it despite the state oppression. Later they managed to acquire printing presses and the Risale-i Nur (Collection of Nur brochures) became available for those capable of reading the Latin script.

Those years are also when the internal immigration from villages to cities gained momentum, and within a decade the village population was nearly halved. While the introduction of farm machinery pushed out peasants from their smallholdings, the developing ‘assembly industries’ - the subsidiaries of international big corporations operating under the export substitution policies of the state - were pulling people into the cities and as workers into factories.

The social upheaval led by the mass migration created gecekondu (shanty towns) surrounding the big cities, as there was no preparation led by the state on how the immigrant people as new workers were to be accommodated. While in every major industrial country such movement of the people created ample opportunities for the bourgeoisie to massively profit from developing new suburbs, the Turkish state merely looked on haplessly, while the common land was grabbed without any price being paid and irregular and unauthorised buildings mushroomed.

The new working class’s position also changed its attachment to the Islamic brotherhoods, whose mode of operation also changed. While Alevi-Bektashi-Qizilbash communities settled in their separate gecekondu neighbourhoods, the Sunni orders were streamlined and organised around ‘mosque constructing associations’ in their own neighbourhoods. They sought protection and funds from the state Religious Affairs Department, and a new avenue connecting the state and Islamist politics was opened.

Another important development was the US-led new wave of anti-communism taking over the traditional nationalist-Islamist state anti-communism. Associations for Combatting Communism were formed with the money and facilities provided by the US-sponsored clandestine state organisations. The founding figures included the lesser-known preacher, Fethullah Gülen, also the leaders of Nur Jamaat, of course, and also a significant bunch of politicians who in the coming era were set to become prime ministers, presidents and party leaders.

While the associations’ visible activity was the forming of bands of thugs to attack and suppress any unionisation activity of workers and the liberal, left-leaning press, as well as taking part in state-organised pogroms against the remaining Greek community in 1955, the association also created a new avenue for the organisation of political Islam.

Military rule

After the toppling of the government by a colonels’ junta in 1961, the army and state security bureaucracy decided to curb the activities of political Islam. The Combatting Communism Associations were closed down and their well-known leaders reappeared under the new guise of the ‘Society of Dissemination of Knowledge’, which quickly opened the dormitories for secondary education and university students and new Imam-Hatip schools in private-sector and state partnership. Quickly they build numerous Imam Hatip schools. The thuggery continued - a sidekick to the main force: the Nationalist Action Party’s infamous Grey Wolves. Their most notorious action was in 1969 - the attack on leftwing university students demonstrating in Istanbul against the visit of the Sixth Fleet of the US navy, killing two under the benign gaze of the police.

In 1971 another generals’ intervention toppled the government, and dictatorial rule was established which lasted until 1974. The military top brass once more believed that their government, formed by bringing ‘neutral’ bureaucrats together, would stop the ascendancy of the left and also suppress Islamist politics. But, as before, the Kemalist project failed dismally.

The Islamists burst onto the political scene under the guise of the MSP, the National Salvation Party - after the 1973 elections the MSP became the partner of the CHP, the traditional Kemalist party, in a coalition government, which became more popular after the invasion of the northern Cyprus in 1974. But the coalition was rapidly broken and new alliances with traditional rightwing parties were formed with the participation of the MSP. The Islamists were in the ascendancy.

During this time the old Nur Jamaat was disintegrating and groups were emerging on diametrically opposed platforms. Amid the ensuing chaos Fethullah Gülen emerged as the leader of a sizeable independent portion of the old movement and began to distance himself from the old platform. He was detained for seven months in 1974, but after his release his fortunes improved. He sought new inroads to obtain the blessing and cooperation of the military and state security bureaucracy. He put a stop to the virulent anti-American rhetoric, and obtained US blessing.

After the subsequent military takeover, he was on the run once again. The arrest warrant issued against him was only rescinded when prime minister Turgut Özal - one of his chums from the Struggle Against Communist days - intervened on his behalf in 1983.

With such high-level protection and assistance Gülen became a voluntary preacher in one of the most important mosques in Istanbul. His books, and cassette recordings of his sermons, were beginning to circulate. He started to follow the old tested paths. He formed organisations to provide grants and scholarships, as well as supplementary private teaching schools for preparing high schools students for university entrance examinations. His motto was “The universities should be open to us”.

This was part of the path towards forming cadres to rise within the state bureaucracy. As his students became part of the state, his ambitions were growing. He undertook a controlling role in the Institution for Organising University Entrance Examinations, and started to distribute the questions to selected and trusted members of his movement. Gradually this control was extended to the entrance examinations of military cadet schools and police collages.

He made use of Turkish expansionist aims, and started opening educational establishments in central Asian republics after the collapse of Soviet Union, as well as in some African countries. He presented himself as the extender of soft-power Turkey, while continuing to upgrade his role within the armed forces. He started to take over the old school Islamist organisations within the Turkish workers communities in European countries.

Erdoğan’s reign

While Turkey’s political scene was in turmoil, a US-sponsored political project brought Gülen’s movement and the most popular remnants of electoral Islamist politics - especially Recep Tayyip Erdoğan - together in a conciliatory platform, which led to formation of the AKP (Justice and Development Party). The liberals and democrats gathered around this platform and, despite the opposition of military top brass, it was elected to form the government.

The Gülen movement began to call itself the ‘Service Movement’ to distinguish itself from other brotherhoods, jamaats, orders and religious centres. It equipped itself using the state’s discarded armaments. As the state became more bureaucratic, the movement’s appeal grew, representing the more reliable route to power and riches controlled by the state.

It started to operate banking consortiums, and organised among Islamist businessmen. It formed TUSKON, the Turkish Confederation of Businessmen and Industrialists. In 2005 TUSKON appeared as an alternative to the TÜSİAD, the Turkish Industry and Business Association, which represented all the major companies, and to MÜSİAD, the Independent Industrialists and Businessmen Association - mainly supporters of old-school Islamist businessmen.

But points of conflict began to emerge between the Gülen movement and the AKP, which was unable to develop its own cadres despite being in power and was obliged to rely on Gülen’s trained cadres within the bureaucracy. Gülen’s forceful organisational efforts via education started to bring shame to the AKP. While it used those cadres in the police and army to curb the military tutelage, the scandals became apparent and negatively influenced the AKP’s electability.

Competition came to a head when Erdoğan opted to rely on the traditional forces to curb the influence of the Gülen movement. The US-coded ‘liberal, non-violent, moderate’ Islam opted to use its muscle and attempted to stage a military intervention in 2016, which failed miserably. It became known as FETO, the ‘Fethullahist Terror Organisation’ in official parlance, and tens of thousands of its cadres were purged from influential positions, not least in the army and the police.

Gülen had been living in the USA since 2009, and many of his disciples managed to escape abroad. The Gülen movement lost out in the wheel of fortune, despite Erdoğan’s unwavering support, as stated in his query, “Whatever have you asked and we have not given?” The declared aim of raising a “pious and vindictive golden generation” failed dismally.

However, the Islamist politics in Turkey’s political array does not allow for a vacuum. There are many orders, brotherhoods and tariqas vying for the place left by the Gülen movement, and we must not discount the old connections of that movement in adopting itself to the new realities of Turkish politics.