Muhammed Fethullah Gülen (27 April 1941 – 20 October 2024) was a Turkish Muslim scholar, preacher, and leader of the Gülen movement, which as of 2010 had 8-10 million of followers globally and had established a network of over 2,000 STEM focused schools in more than 150 countries. Gülen was 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. From 21 March 1999 until his death on 20 October 2024, Gülen lived in self-exile in the United States near Saylorsburg, Pennsylvania. Gülen's body was buried inside the Chestnut Retreat Center in Pennsylvania, where he had been residing for the last 25 years. 15,000 attended his funeral in a stadium in New Jersey.
Gülen said his social criticisms are focused upon individuals' faith and morality and a lesser extent toward political ends, and self described 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. Gülen was described in the English-language media as an imam "who promoted a tolerant Islam which emphasises altruism, hard work, and education" and as "one of the world's most important Muslim figures". He encouraged his followers to establish secular schools, charities, interest-free banks, and organizations across all areas of society. In 2016, when Erdoğan government began openly targeting the movement, they seized assets worth over $12 billion, including 1,043 private schools, 1,229 charities and foundations, 19 trade unions, 15 universities, and 35 medical institutions linked to the movement. Total number of schools opened by Gulen followers globally exceeded 2000 by the same year.