بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
الصلاة والسلام عليك يا سيدي يا رسول الله
In the Name of Allah, the Rahman, the Merciful
Blessing and Peace upon you, Apostle of Allah
In 2016 there was an attempted military coup in Turkey to remove President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. He and his government blamed it on the Gulenists, followers of Fethullah Gulen (1941-2024) and subsequently banned the movement, declaring it a terrorist organization. While it seems the decision to outlaw the Gulenists was essentially political, from our traditionalist and conservative Sunni perspective it was the right decision regardless of the true motive.
Generally speaking, we Sunni Muslims love President Erdogan and pray for his success and prosperity. Though imperfect and by no means above criticism, he is nevertheless a good Islamic leader at a time when the Muslim world is plagued with mostly secular minded and tyrannical rulers and governments.
The nation of Turkey has an important role in both the Islamic consciousness and eschatology, as the land of Constantinople (Istanbul) spoken about in the Hadith of our Holy Prophet, sall Allahu alayhi wasallam. He prophesied that seventy thousand people from the children of Isaac shall conquer Constantinople but not by force of arms, rather by praising and glorifying Allah.
Children of Isaac is a reference to the Edomites, descendants of the Patriarch Isaac’s elder son Esau rather than his younger son the Patriarch Jacob (Israel). The Jews call the Christians, especially of the Near East, Edom. These Edomite Christians of Asia Minor or Anatolia and of the Levant eventually mostly converted to Islam.
Thus it appears to me that the prophecy refers to a spiritual revival among the Muslims of Constantinople and its vicinity through which they shall “conquer” the city. President Erdogan is playing a crucial role in this process of re-Islamization of Turkey, but Allah and His Apostle know best.
Although a Muslim nation for centuries, secularism was forcefully imposed on the Turks by that devil known as Ataturk. It was only under President Erdogan that Turkey began to reverse course from its anti-Islamic, Kemalist framework toward a rediscovery of its Islamic faith and heritage.
At present, the satanic Zionists are especially irked with Erdogan’s Turkey and are moving toward a state of open hostility and military aggression against it. Often times we can discern who the good guys are when the bad guys propagandize against them.
The Gulenist movement, which calls itself the Hizmet (meaning khidmah or service) movement, is based in Saylorsburg, Pennsylvania. It is natural for Muslims to be suspicious of so-called Islamic groups with a global profile or an origin and activity revolving around a particular Muslim country that choose to base themselves in the West. Here I am not referring to local Muslim organizations that serve the local Muslim minority populations settled in the West, but rather transnational so-called Islamic movements that for some reason have chosen a place in the West to establish their headquarters. For instance, it is not surprising that the Qadiani heresy, which calls itself “Ahmadiyya Movement in Islam” is based near London, England, since it was founded by a confessed “plant” of the British government. Likewise, the Bahai cult has its official headquarters in Haifa and is surely in league with the Zionists and international Jewry in the conspiracy to subvert not only the Muslims but humanity in general.
But unlike the Qadianis and Bahais, we do not make takfir of the Gulenists, who are to be considered Muslims with wayward ideas and dangerous objectives contrary to the teachings of Islam and the interests of the Ummah. That this particular movement is based in the United States of all places is part of the reason it is incriminated as an instrument of American imperialist designs on the Muslim world—imperialist designs that are both political and cultural.
One should also be wary of so-called Islamic movements led by individuals who are clean-shaven and eschew the traditional Islamic appearance in favor of Western style and fashion.
Fethullah Gulen
The Gulenist movement operates a network of chartered schools through which it indoctrinates students into its particular ideology and approach to Islam. At present, there are perhaps several million students studying in these schools, which the movement itself has a few hundred thousand dedicated members. Muslims should beware of this movement and avoid sending their children to study in Gulenist schools.
Let us analyze some of Gulen’s teachings and see how they blatantly oppose the traditional and orthodox Sunni Islamic doctrine:
On the issue of hijab, Gulen taught that it is not a fundamental ordinance in Islam. Observe his trivialization of hijab from this quote of his, “This issue is not as important as the essentials of faith and the pillars of Islam. It's a matter of secondary importance. Faith in God was revealed to our Prophet in Mecca. Then came the daily prescribed prayers. Such commands as giving alms, fasting, and pilgrimage came in Madina. In the sixteenth or seventeenth year of Muhammad’s prophethood, Muslim women's heads were still uncovered. It was not included in the pillars of Islam or the essentials of faith. Those issues to which Islam gives priority should, out of our own devotion, be given priority while becoming a Muslim and communicating Islam to others.”
Likewise, concerning the beard and turban, Gulen said, “I see the robe, turban, beard, and loose trousers as details. Muslims shouldn’t drown in detail. Today many Muslims may be doing this. Choosing not to wear a turban, robe, or loose trousers shouldn't be construed as weakening the Muslim Turkish identity. From imams in mosques to members of Parliament, from governors to district officials, no one should be categorized as a sinner because of such things.”
Like any other supposed “Martin Luther of Islam”, Fethullah Gulen was critical of matters such as theocracy (which in the Islamic context means the implementation of the divine Shariah as the supreme law of the state) and deviated from the truth in his perspective on polygamy.
We Sunni Muslims must always be wary of the many “Martin Luthers” that have begun to emerge from the midst of the Ummah, who often serve a foreign agenda. In addition to Fethullah Gulen, beware of individuals like Tariq Ramadan, Javed Ghamidi and his successor in grooming Hassan Ilyas, Malala Yousufzai, Irshad Manji and many others. These figures tend to be darlings of the West, usually echoing the false narrative that the mainstream conception of Islam is somehow flawed and in need of reform or modernization. All these “Martin Luthers” may vary in degree of deviation and danger posed to Islam. In my opinion, the Gulenists are not as radical as some of the others, yet they certainly represent a problematic departure from the teachings and narrative of mainstream Sunni Islam.
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