Fethullah Gulen is a proponent of stealth jihad. In one of his sermons, the fiery imam said that in order to reach the ideal Muslim society “every method and path is acceptable, [including] lying to people.”
In another he instructed his followers: “You must move in the arteries of the system without anyone noticing your existence until you reach all the power centers … until the conditions are ripe, they [the followers] must continue like this. If they do something prematurely, the world will crush our heads, and Muslims will suffer everywhere.”
His instructions have been well-heeded.
Gulen’s tentacles now extend into “all the power centers” of the U. S. government, including the Oval Office.
Dalia Mogahed, President Obama’s Muslim advisor, has endorsed the Gulen movement which critics believe seeks to restore the Ottoman Empire and to establish a universal caliphate.
Recently Ms. Mogahed, the first woman to wear a veil in the White House, said: “I think the Gülen movement offers people a model of what is possible if a dedicated group of people work together for the good of the society. I also think that it is an inspiration for other people and Muslims for what they can accomplish.”
Asked about the movement’s hidden agenda, Ms. Mogahed told Sunday’s Zaman, a Turkish newspaper owned by Gulen, that she usually does not attach any importance to such allegations.
Gulen and his millions of minions have helped to topple Turkey’s secular government, establish thousands of madrassahs (Muslim religious schools) throughout Central Asia, the Middle East, and Europe, and form a new country known as East Turkistan, a radical Islamic state.
His schools serve to indoctrinate students in Turkish language, culture and religion so that they may take part in the restoration of the Ottoman Empire.
Nurettin Veren, a top administrator of the Gulen schools says: “These schools are like shop windows. Recruitment and Islamization activities are carried out through night classes.”
Rachel Sharon-Krespin, MEMRI’s chief Turkey analyst, writes: “His (Gulen’s) followers target youth in the eighth through twelfth grades, mentor and indoctrinate them in the ???kevi, educate them in the Fethullah schools, and prepare them for future careers in legal, political, and educational professions in order to create the ruling classes of the future Islamist, Turkish state.”
Over 150 Gulen schools have been established throughout the United States – – and all receive full funding from US taxpayers.
The schools are manned, for the most part, by Turkish administrators and teachers who arrive in the US with H1B visas – – visas for individuals who are needed to occupy positions that cannot be filled by domestic workers. In truth, many of these imported educators teach in subject areas, such as elementary education, where unemployed and fully certified American teachers are standing in the unemployment lines.
Most of the imported Turkish educators are expected to kick-back 60% of their salaries to the Gulen movement.
The Gulen schools are so radical in their political and religious objectives that they have been outlawed in Russia and Uzbekistan . Even the Netherlands, a nation that embraces pluralism and tolerance, has moved to cut funding to the Gulen schools because of their imminent threat to the social order.
Yet the Gulen schools continue to open at the monumental rate of eight to ten a year throughout the U.S. and leading politicians – – both Democratic and Republicans – – regularly appear at Gulen gatherings to offer their endorsement of the militant imam’s educational endeavors.
The new spokeswomen for the Cosmos Foundation, a non-profit Gulen enterprise that operates thirty-three charter schools in Texas, is Karen Hughes, who previously served as President George W. Bush’s Under-Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy.
Ms. Hughes has declined to state how much money she is receiving for her efforts to further the Gulen schools.
The Texas Education Agency shelled out $68 million in 2010 to the Cosmos Foundation.
Few Texas tax-payers have uttered a word of protest.
Thanks, in part, to friends like Senator Bob Casey, the Gulen movement recently has opened several charter schools in Pennsylvania, including the Young Scholars of Central Pennsylvania in State College, the now-failing Truebright Science Academy in Philadelphia, and the Young Scholars of Western Pennsylvania in Pittsburgh.
FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributing Editor Paul L. Williams is the author of Crescent Moon Rising: The Islamic Transformation of America, The Day of Islam: The Annihilation of America and the Western World, The Al Qaeda Connection, and other best-selling books.