Fethullah Gülen

Muhammed Fethullah Gülen (born 27 April 1941) is a Turkish Muslim scholar, preacher, and a one-time opinion leader, as ''de facto'' leader of the Gülen movement. Gülen is designated an influential neo-Ottomanist, Anatolian panethnicist, Islamic poet, writer, social critic, and activist–dissident developing a Nursian theological perspective that embraces democratic modernity. Gülen was a local state imam from 1959 to 1981, and he was a citizen of Turkey until his denaturalization by the Turkish government in 2017. Over the years, Gülen became a centrist political figure in Turkey prior to his being there as a fugitive. Since 1999, Gülen has lived in self-exile in the United States near Saylorsburg, Pennsylvania.

Gülen says his social criticisms are focused upon individuals' faith and morality and a lesser extent toward political ends, and self describes as rejecting an Islamist political philosophy, advocating instead for full participation within professions, society, and political life by religious and secular individuals who profess high moral or ethical principles and who wholly support secular rule, within Muslim-majority countries and elsewhere.

In 2003, a number of Gülen movement participants allied with Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's centre-right Justice and Development Party (AKP), providing the AKP political and sorely-needed administrative support. This political alliance worked together to weaken left-of-center Kemalist factions, but fractured in 2011. Turkish prosecutors accuse Gülen of attempts to overthrow the government by allegedly directing politically motivated corruption investigations by Gülen-linked investigators then in the judiciary, who illegally wiretapped the executive office of the Turkish president, and Gülen's alleged instigations of the 2016 coup attempt. Gülen has denied the accusations. A Turkish criminal court has issued an arrest warrant for Gülen in 2016, and Turkey is demanding his extradition from the United States. U.S. government officials do not believe he is associated with any terrorist activity, and have requested evidence to be provided by the Turkish government to substantiate the allegations in the warrant requesting extradition, frequently rejecting Turkish calls for his extradition.

Gülen has been described in the English-language media as an imam "who promotes a tolerant Islam which emphasises altruism, hard work, and education" and as "one of the world's most important Muslim figures." Gülen is wanted as a terrorist leader in Turkey and Pakistan, as well as by the OIC and GCC. Provided by Wikipedia