Turkey exposes FETO abuse of religion in 8 languages

By Sefa Sahin

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey’s top religious authority has translated into eight languages a report on the exploitation of religion by the Fetullah Terrorist Organization (FETO), the group behind last year’s defeated coup.

Based on an analysis of around 670 hours of recorded speeches by FETO leader Fetullah Gulen and his collected works of 80 publications, the report by Turkey’s Religious Affairs Directorate Diyanet was first released in Turkish this July.

To spread international awareness of the FETO threat, the report has since been translated into English, Arabic, French, German, Russian, Albanian, Kyrgyz, and Kazakh.

The 90-page report reveals that Gulen, in order to convince his followers that his orders were “divinely guided,” constantly implied that he conversed with the Prophet Mohammed.

The report also shows that Gulen made frequent references to Sufism -- a mystic branch of Islam -- in his speeches to attract more followers.

According to the report, Gulen also told his followers he was spiritually connected to angels and could speak to great Sufi saints of the past.

"FETO is a movement clandestinely engaged in religious engineering in the guise of ‘religious dialogue,’ whereas what it really does is distort the fundamental two-fold Islamic creedal formula (kalima-i tawheed),” says the report.

The directorate said the report would be distributed abroad to warn people of FETO’s deliberate misuse of a number of Quranic verses to mobilize its members at the expense of harming Islam.

FETO and its U.S.-based leader Gulen orchestrated the defeated coup of July 15, 2016, which left 250 people martyred and some 2,200 injured.

Turkey accuses FETO of a long-running campaign to overthrow the state through the infiltration of Turkish institutions, particularly the military, police, and judiciary.