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Fatma Zibak

A new documentary premiering on YouTube on October 17 examines how Turkish Muslim cleric Fethullah Gülen’s teachings encouraged followers to establish schools and promote dialogue around the world, and how his movement is navigating repression, exile and life after his death, according to its producers.

The 90-minute film, “GULEN: Devoted to Education & Dialogue,” features 35 interviewees from 14 countries. Its release comes three days before the second anniversary of Gülen’s death on October 20, 2024.

Directed by Ahmet Ünal and produced by Raindrops Productions LLC, with Rıdvan Kızıltepe as project coordinator, the documentary follows Gülen’s ideas beyond Turkey through interviews with academics, observers and people who knew him or participated in his movement.

Education was central to Gülen’s teachings. He encouraged his followers to open schools that taught both academic subjects and moral values, saying that science and religious faith could go hand-in-hand.

That approach helped the movement, known as Hizmet, or “service” in Turkish, expand internationally. Schools established by its participants became its most visible institutions, along with charities, professional associations and organizations promoting dialogue between religions.

By the time of Gülen’s death institutions associated with the movement had operated in more than 100 countries, according to The Associated Press. Their reach extended from Central Asia and Africa to Europe and the United States.

The documentary examines that educational work along with Gülen’s views on science, faith, peace and social change. Organized into nine thematic chapters, it begins with personal encounters with the cleric before considering how his teachings influenced communities in different countries, the producers said.

Gülen’s support for interfaith dialogue included a meeting with Pope John Paul II in 1998. His followers subsequently established organizations that brought people from different religious traditions together.

But the movement’s international growth was followed by a rupture with the Turkish government and a crackdown that reshaped its institutions and scattered many of its participants abroad.

Gülen and his followers initially supported Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s government against Turkey’s military-backed secular establishment. Their alliance later broke down amid disagreements over government policy and corruption investigations targeting Erdoğan’s inner circle. Erdoğan denied the corruption allegations and accused Gülen’s followers of building a parallel state within the police and the judiciary.

After a failed coup on July 15, 2016, that claimed the lives of 251 people, the government accused Gülen and his movement of organizing the uprising. Gülen strongly denied involvement and condemned the coup attempt.

Turkey sought his extradition from the United States, where he had lived since traveling there for medical treatment in 1999. Washington requested further evidence and never extradited him. He was not charged with a crime in the United States.

The crackdown that followed brought tens of thousands of arrests, the dismissal of nearly 130,000 people from public service under emergency decrees and the closure of schools, businesses and media organizations associated with the movement.

The campaign against alleged members has continued beyond Gülen’s death. Turkish officials have claimed that the movement remains a security threat, while its supporters describe the prosecutions as punishment for their religious beliefs and associations.

Against that background, the film examines the movement’s future after Gülen’s death along with the coup attempt and its aftermath, including exile and the challenges of keeping communities together outside Turkey.

Scott C. Alexander, a professor of Islamic studies at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago and a board member of the Hizmet-associated Alliance for Shared Values, claims that the movement’s future depends on its participants and their ability to endure what he describes as an exceptionally severe challenge: a powerful state using its economic, political and, to some extent, military power against unarmed civilians.

“Many in the movement were traumatized. That is only natural. But what I have seen is that the movement is surviving the trauma,” he says in the documentary.

The scale of the crackdown is reflected in figures Turkish Justice Minister Akın Gürlek released in July: More than 720,000 people had faced legal proceedings since 2016 and more than 127,000 had been convicted. Investigations or trials involving another 83,404 people were ongoing, while 10,485 people were in prison over alleged movement membership or involvement in the coup attempt.

The crackdown has also driven people accused of links to the movement to flee Turkey, sometimes taking dangerous routes across the Evros River into Greece or attempting sea crossings in small boats.

The state’s treatment of the movement is a central question for Anwar Alam, a scholar of international relations and Islamic movements interviewed in the documentary.

He sees the conflict as a struggle over the relationship between the state and civil society, arguing that Gülen’s encouragement of civic participation challenged political traditions that placed the state at the center of public life.

“Whereas the Hizmet movement was trying to deepen the democracy, the state found that it is no more in control of civil society,” Alam says in the documentary.

Other interviews explore women’s efforts to gain a greater voice in decision-making and the challenge of passing the movement’s values to younger generations.

Those questions lead into the documentary’s final chapter, which considers how Hizmet will continue without the religious figure whose teachings brought its participants together.

Gülen died at a Pennsylvania hospital at the age of 83 after years of ill health. The local coroner said his death was from natural causes.

The documentary is scheduled to premiere on the Gulen Documentary YouTube channel, with teasers, interview clips and excerpts to be released beforehand.