“Fethullah Gülen's Grand Ambition”: A Biased, Selective, Misleading, Misrepresentative and Miscalculated Article

Doğan Koç

Rachel Sharon-Krespin’s article titled “Fethullah Gülen's Grand Ambition: Turkey’s Islamist Danger” published in the Middle East Quarterly’s 2009 winter issue was brought to my attention by a colleague due to its citation of an article which I co-authored with Helen Rose Ebaugh. In her article Sharon-Krespin states:

He (Fethullah Gülen) is a financial heavyweight, controlling an unregulated and opaque budget estimated at $25 billion (p56).

She gives our article as the source of the above information, citing it in the footnotes as Helen Rose Ebaugh and Dogan Koç, “Funding Gülen-Inspired Good Works: Demonstrating and Generating Commitment to the Movement,” fgulen.com, Oct. 27, 2007.

It appears as if Sharon-Krespin was using Ebaugh and Koç (2007) as a source for her statement. It is unclear, however, just which part of her statement she attributes to our article. Regardless, her statement misquotes what we presented in the article.