The US based cleric Fethullah Gulen, who built a powerful Islamic movement in Türkiye and beyond but spent his later years mired in accusations of orchestrating an attempted coup against Turkish leader Tayyip Erdogan, has died. He was 83. Herkul, a website which publishes Gulen’s sermons, said on its X account that Gulen had died on Sunday evening in the US hospital where he was being treated. Gulen was a one-time ally of Erdogan but they fell out spectacularly, and Erdogan held him responsible for the 2016 attempted coup in which rogue soldiers commandeered warplanes, tanks and helicopters. Some 250 people were killed in the bid to seize power.
