Chris Post/AP/Press Association Images. All rights reserved.The recent failed coup attempt in Turkey by members of Fethullah Gülen’s Hizmet movement has spawned a great deal of writing, both analytical and opinion-based, on the future of Turkey at this critical moment and, more specifically, on the viability of the Hizmet movement.
One such piece, published recently in the Huffington Post, focuses largely on Fethullah Gülen himself. Written by Graham E. Fuller, a former CIA official and current member of the RAND Corporation, the article argues that Gülen is largely misunderstood in the west, that he was likely to have been uninvolved in the coup undertaken by the movement he created, and, most critically, that he is an important face of global, honest, socially progressive Islam.
The article draws numerous conclusions about Gülen, his movement’s role in Turkey, Islam as a religion, and politics in the Middle East that are problematic and at times incorrect, and which we intend to challenge in this article.
