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Fethullah Gulen |
Fethullah Gülen was born in 1941 in a small farming village near Erzurum in Eastern Turkey. Erzurum was known to be culturally conservative and to have a very pious population. Although there were few opportunities for a general secular education for Turkish people at this time, Mr. Gülen’s parents sent him to the nearest state primary school for three years. When he completed his primary years, his father, an imam, was assigned by the state to a mosque in another town where there were no secondary schools. Mr.
Gülen, therefore, was forced to abandon his formal schooling in the middle of his elementary school years and began receiving an informal education, primarily from his father.