Islamic State magazine labels Turkey’s Gulen an ‘infidel’

ISTANBUL, Turkey – The Islamic State group's Turkish language magazine has labelled Fethullah Gulen an "infidel" in its latest issue, calling on Muslims to reject him and his arch-enemy, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

The Turkish-language Konstantiniyye magazine called Gulen and his followers “unrighteous” and “corrupt” in the eyes of Islam.

Gulen is a Turkish preacher living in exile in the US, who is accused by Turkish authorities of having masterminded the attempted coup of 15 July with the assistance of his followers in Turkey’s state apparatus.

The article read: “It must be stated that Muslims should not side with either of these idol worshippers as a result of recent events in Turkey because it is deemed to be prudent or such.

“Anyone taking sides with an idol worshipper is an infidel too if they take sides with any idol worshipper regardless of whether you think they are good or bad.”  

The article goes on to state that anyone who says it is in the interest of Islam and Muslims to chose either Erdogan or Gulen should not be listened to because they are infidels as well.

The seventh edition of magazine’s cover has a full page photo of Said Nursi, a Kurdish Sunni theologian from the early 20th century, along with the headline “the Risale of abuse”.

The headline is a reference to Nursi’s Risale-i Nur collection, a roughly 6,000-page body of Quranic commentary.

It is believed that Gulen and his movement drew their main inspiration from Said Nursi and his works.

Nursi’s followers are called the Nur community. 

The article, which emphasises that the Gulen and Nur communities follow the same school of thought, goes on to state: “There is no doubt that the unrighteous and corrupt Gulen community is one of those that takes the deviant Risale [collection] as its inspiration and it would be wrong to distinguish between any of them.”

Ever since last month’s attempted coup and the resulting crackdown on Gulen followers, a number of alleged linkages between Gulen and various groups that Turkey is in conflict with have been put forward.

Turkish officials have been keen to point at alleged links between the Gulen movement and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). 

Last weekend pro-government Turkish newspaper Yeni Safak led with an article claiming that the Gulen movement was collaborating with the IS group.  

The IS group has often targeted Erdogan in the past for cooperating with the West against Muslims. It even threatened to liberate Istanbul in a message in 2014. 

But it is the first time it has taken aim at Gulen.

The magazine draws its name Konstantiniyye from the early Ottoman-era word for Istanbul.

Access to the web-based magazine is restricted in Turkey but digital versions are easily available.