Political Islam – CSS Blog Network

Fethullah Gulen: Moderniser or Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing?

Image of President Erdogan holding up his hands — Courtesy AK Rockefeller/Flickr

This article was originally published by S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS) on 19 July 2016

Synopsis

Fethullah Gulen, leader of one of the world’s largest Islamic movements, is accused of attempting to topple Turkish President Erdogan in a failed military coup. Is Gulen a modernist religious leader or a conspirator?

Commentary

BELIEVERS SAY he preaches a new, modernist form of Islam. Critics charge he is a wolf in sheep’s clothing preparing to convert secular Turkey into an Islamic republic. They accuse Fethullah Gulen of being a conspirator who has created a state within the state and attempted this weekend to topple the democratically elected Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in a failed military coup.

That was not how past Turkish governments or for that matter Erdogan in his eight years as prime minister saw Gulen, the leader of one of the world’s largest and wealthiest Islamic movements.

Plans to Retake Mosul from ISIS Reveal There’s More at Stake than a City

Iraqi Insurgents — Two Iraqi armed insurgents, courtesy Menendj/WikiMediaCommons

This article was originally published by the IPI Global Observatory on 11 March 2016.

It seems clear that pro-government forces in Iraq are preparing to retake Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city. The Islamic State (ISIS), a Sunni extremist group, captured Mosul following a series of assaults in June 2014, an offensive that ultimately resulted in an embarrassing collapse of the Iraqi Army in northern Iraq. Since then, the Iraqi government has made the recapture of Mosul a key domestic goal in its fight to reclaim its territory and reassert its control over a restive minority Sunni population. Prior to the events of 2014, the Sunnis were agitating for greater regional autonomy, akin to the political status of the Iraqi Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), and strongly against the Shiite-dominated central government.

Mosul lies at a strategic juncture between a number of groups, including the Turks, Kurds, Arab Sunnis and Persian Shiites. It is also lies in close proximity to several states and territories, including Iraq, Iran, Turkey, Syria, and the autonomous northern KRG. Which party controls this city is a significant determinant for all of these regional powers when considering their border security and foreign policy.