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Alparslan Kuytul

144 entries

Fatih Tezcan said three times on a live broadcast that Kuytul would kill himself in prison

The Furkan Movement has made a live broadcast of 25 August 2026 the subject of a criminal complaint. In it the speaker says "he will poison himself in prison" and "let us bury this one properly, let him never get out". Kuytul spent years in prison before this and showed no such tendency; the movement reads the words not as a prediction but as a threat dressed up as suicide.

Yazı

Kuytul's prison ward was raided — even the inside of his sock was inspected

Alparslan Kuytul's lawyer, Ömer Hakseven, reported that one day after the case files he had delivered himself entered the ward, Kuytul's ward was raided, all his belongings were scattered, and he was made to take off his slippers and even the inside of his sock was inspected. The reason given was the metal fastener inside the blue folders.

Yazı

Clothes brought by Kuytul's family were not handed over in prison

The clothes were not handed over. His daughter Meryem Kuytul set out a month of shifting rules: thirty days in the same clothes, and the weather has turned cold.

Yazı

Moved 1,000 km away without telling the family

Furkan Haber reports Kuytul was taken from Adana Kurkculer with no word to family or lawyer; they found him in Erzurum by calling prisons one by one.

Yazı

Thirty-six people arrested with no concrete evidence

Furkan Haber reports that despite the absence of concrete evidence in the file, arrest orders were issued for Alparslan Kuytul, Semra Kuytul and 34 members.

Yazı

A statement taken on the fourth day with no lawyer present

Furkan Haber reports detainees were blocked from meeting their lawyers, and that Alparslan Kuytul gave a statement on the fourth day without counsel.

Yazı

Handcuffed without a custody order

According to Furkan Haber, the officers who arrived on 19 August held no formal custody order; Kuytul was handcuffed with no resistance and no danger present.

Yazı

Pensions of Kuytul and his students blocked while the investigation continues

Lawyer Ömer Hakseven: a block imposed with no concrete evidence, at the investigation stage, has cut the family's only income. Five children are affected.

Yazı

A "well-type" wing: no sunlight reaches the floor of the prison holding Kuytul

Lawyer Ömer Hakseven on the prison holding Alparslan Kuytul: 13-metre yard walls, sunlight that never reaches the ground, birds that cannot come down.

Yazı

Why is Alparslan Kuytul both an important and a valuable figure?

The Karar columnist Salih Cenap Baydar discusses how the sense of justice wears away in a society and what opinion leaders are good for against that wearing away; he says the accusations directed at Kuytul should be read in this frame too.

Yazı

The "Furkan Intelligence Organisation" and "Execution Squad" Claim

No unit set up under that name exists; the accounts of a court being set up inside the movement, of people being tried there and of punishment being applied are rejected. There is neither a final court ruling nor a single person who says they went through this.

Unfounded

The Claim of Money Laundering in Germany

Money laundering is a grave and technical criminal imputation; it requires concrete evidence and a final ruling. That there are people abroad who hold the same ideas does not show that there is an unlawful financial organisation among them. There is no joint financial structure of the kind claimed.

Unfounded

The Claim That the Furkan Foundation Has Companies

There is no commercial company belonging to the Furkan Foundation. That there are tradespeople and company owners among those who attend the lessons does not make those companies the foundation's. Nor does the fact that measures were applied to some companies in the investigation prove ownership.

Unfounded

Cübbeli Ahmet's claims about the Furkan Movement on CNN Türk

On 7 September 2026, on Ahmet Hakan's CNN Türk programme "Tarafsız Bölge", Cübbeli Ahmet listed grave accusations about the Furkan Movement and Alparslan Kuytul under nine headings. The Movement rejected them all. No trial has begun, yet investigation claims were aired as a settled verdict.

Unfounded

The claim that his "roots are abroad" and that he is linked to foreign powers

The accusation at the centre of the dispute with Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu is a single sentence: "his roots are abroad". Alparslan Kuytul's answer begins the same way — his mother is known, his father is known, the people he meets are known — and it ends by calling the accuser into a mutual curse. To this day not one document has been produced.

Unfounded

"This file is not a criminal file, it is a SILENCE file"

The message Alparslan Kuytul sent from Erzurum Dumlu Prison was published on 1 September 2026 from the Furkan Movement's X account. It says that the purpose behind the detention of 46 people in Istanbul and the arrest of 9 of them is to put an end to the marches and to make those in prison forgotten; it asks that the press statements be continued even if only one person is left.

Yazı

Was the file filled with evidence, or with slander?

The Furkan Movement's statement on the 2026 operation: when the searches produced no element of a crime, the file was, it says, filled with the statements of people whose hostility to the movement is known and with claims already refuted in court.

Yazı

If you are sincere in your claim, go ahead!

Alparslan Kuytul invited everyone who calls him an Iran supporter, a Shia, a Wahhabi, a takfiri, an ISIS supporter, outside Ahl al-Sunnah or an enemy of Sufism and the orders to a mubahala: "If you are sure, come; I will bring my wife and my children, and you bring yours — whoever is lying, may their root wither." The invitation still stands.

Yazı

The claim that the case file contains a FETÖ contact list

According to a claim circulated on 22 August 2026, the investigation file contains a table showing the FETÖ/PDY contacts of the movement's leadership. Two days later one of the lawyers on the case reported that he had shown the post to the prosecutor handling the file in person, and that the prosecutor said "there is definitely no list of this kind in our file".

Unverifiable

His defence at the terrorism hearing of 4 July 2019

Notes from the defence he made at the 11th High Criminal Court in the 17th month of his detention: the three items he counts as the reason the case was brought, and his answer to the indictment.

Yazı

The Report That 20 Years in Prison Was Sought for Him

The figure circulated through Anadolu Agency on 23 July 2019 is the sum of the upper limits of the articles listed in the July 2019 indictment; it is not a sentence handed down by a court.

Out of context

The claim that he incited the people to hatred and enmity

The file says that at the 22 April intervention in Adana and the 29 May intervention in Erzin the people were incited to rancour and hatred; on those days not a single crushed flower and not a single thrown stone could be shown.

Unfounded

The claim that Alparslan Kuytul was responsible for the foundation's affairs

The inspection report on page 50 of the indictment stated that Kuytul had never held any office in the executive organ of the foundation; even so, he was tried in detention in that same case file.

Unfounded

The Claim That an Unlicensed Dormitory Was Being Run

The places sealed as unlicensed dormitories belonging to the foundation turned out, in National Education reports and court rulings, to be private dwellings; the seals were lifted and the homes were reopened.

Unfounded

The claim that a 3-million-lira racket was run with fake receipts

A fake-receipt story was published on 27 February 2018; yet the police had seized the receipts in the search, and the copies left with the donors had been submitted to the court at the first hearing.

Unfounded

The claim that the Furkan Foundation is a criminal organisation

No aim of gain, no system of sanctions, no secrecy, no victim. The file whose hearings began on 22 January 2019 does not meet even one element of the definition of a criminal organisation.

Unfounded

The claim that he supports terrorism or regards it as legitimate

After the attack on the Adana governor's office on 25 November 2016 he said "rights are not sought by killing innocent people"; two years later he was named together with four separate terrorist organisations.

Unfounded

The claim that he made propaganda for a terrorist organisation

When the membership charge fell away, the single accusation left was propaganda; not one sentence could be shown, and the police did not send to the file a single one of his talks against those organisations.

Unfounded

The claim that the Furkan Foundation has links to terrorist organisations

The documents stating that the foundation had no link to terrorism were inside the case file itself; the reports of the TEM counter-terrorism unit and of MİT had been drawn up more than a year before the operation.

Unfounded

The claim that he was a member of four terrorist organisations at the same time

He was accused of membership at the same time of four organisations that fight one another; when he was arrested the organisations were not even named, and in the final indictment all of the membership charges were withdrawn.

Unfounded

The First Forum Program After His Release

The forum program held on Friday, 13 December 2019, eight days after the release of 5 December 2019: prison memories, the letters that arrived and questions about the court process.

Yazı

"Even If a Woman Dresses Revealingly, a Man Cannot Look"

His answer, as an Islamic jurist, to the discourse that ties sexual assault to a woman's clothing: a woman's sin belongs to her alone, and it is not even permissible for a man to look at her.

Yazı

The Answer He Gave to the Question "Was the AK Parti a Project?"

In his interview of 10 December 2019 he answered this question with "There is no choice but to say yes"; he set out his reasoning through the examples of Erbakan, Morsi and İncirlik in 2003.

Yazı

Nine Cases, Three Acquittals: What He Says About the Judiciary

The picture he gave on the TV5 broadcast of 11 December 2019: as of that day 9 cases opened, 3 acquittals, 6 ongoing files, and release at the first hearing in two separate files.

Yazı

Closed Associations, a Trustee, and Reopened Student Houses

The picture as of 11 December 2019 in his own words: the associations were closed by KHK, a trustee was appointed to the foundation, and the sealed student houses were reopened after the Ministry of National Education's report.

Yazı

How Did the "An Economic Crisis Is Coming" Remark Enter the Indictment?

A crisis warning from one of his sermons was placed in the indictment of the 30 January 2018 file with the question "how did he know this"; Kuytul explains that this was not a prophecy but a sentence about consequences.

Yazı

"If They Arrest Me Again, I Am at Home"

His answers, in three separate programmes within the ten days after his release, to the question of being arrested again: the coal-and-diamond analogy, that the appointed hour is but one, and that he is at home.

Yazı

Why Did the Religious Communities Stay Silent?

He explains why no other religious communities or orders spoke out during his 22-month detention by pointing to partisanship; as his criterion he cites Hazrat Ali's advice to at least make oppression known.

Yazı

Who Does He Mean by "Deep Forces"?

He describes the term he uses so often himself: the dominant bureaucracy that turns secularism into hostility toward Islam. He separates the government from it, because the grievance and the demand of the two are not the same.

Yazı

"We Have No Direct Connection to Any Religious Community"

His answer to the question of which current in the world the Furkan Movement is affiliated with: it has nothing to do with the Salafi line and no organizational tie to any religious community; benefiting from their books is another matter.

Yazı

Why Did I Defend the KHK Victims?

While saying that anyone involved in the coup was guilty, he objected to those who were not involved being put in the same basket. His basis was two official figures: roughly 150,000 dismissals and the 11,480 people the prosecutor's office declared innocent.

Yazı

"I Am Against Oppression, No Matter Who It Is Done To"

He explains, with examples, the criterion of not looking at the identity of the one who has been wronged; and he shows its limit as well: he says that if an injustice were done to the government that put him in prison, he would defend it too.

Yazı

14 of the 22 Months in Prison Were Spent in a Single-Person Room

Fourteen months of the 8 February 2018 – 5 December 2019 detention were spent alone in a three-person room; the requests for a roommate were refused on the grounds of an instruction from the Ministry.

Yazı

Why Was I Arrested? His Own Three Answers

In the written defence he submitted to the court he listed the three reasons he saw behind the operation of 30 January 2018: criticism of the AK Party, the plans of the deep state and, above all, his expounding of tawhid.

Yazı

What is Kuytul's finding about a "secret committee hostile to religion"?

The interview after 22 April 2017: how he describes the structure he sees behind the obstructions, and why he does not lay what happened at the government's door alone.

Yazı

The claim that "they are being obstructed because they are enemies of the government"

The thesis presented as the reason for the obstructions does not match the record: he supported the same government's resolution process and welcomed its headscarf regulation.

Unfounded

The claim that "Furkan Foundation's programs pose a security risk"

The justification for the bans was always security. Yet in hundreds of conferences not a single pane of glass was broken, the permitted rally of 29 May 2016 ended without incident, and on 22 April 2017 not a single stone was thrown.

Unfounded

The claim that he was "part of the coup project"

The evidence was a video cut down to under a minute; when the 4.5-minute original of the speech was published, most of those who had shared it corrected their view.

Unfounded

The claim of a "coup-loving foundation" and the Directorate General's examination

The complaint made to BİMER demanding the foundation's closure was left without result by the chief inspector of the Directorate General of Foundations, who examined the same video recording and wrote that it contained nothing constituting an offence.

Unfounded

Why is he against coups? The 15 July interview

An interview given about 25 days after the coup: a coup is a usurpation of authority, the state does not change unless society changes, and this is not the path of the prophets.

Yazı

The "he knew about the coup in advance" claim

A political assessment made on 1 July 2016 was presented as though it had been made one day before the coup; yet the same observation had been voiced since 10 February 2016.

Unfounded

The "He said July 15 was theatre" claim

The remark really was made; but what was meant is not that there was no coup or that the government staged it, rather the view that the coup plotters were provoked and lured into a trap.

Out of context

"He has ties to FETÖ" claim

The claim was investigated by the police before the 30 January 2018 operation, following a tip-off dated 2016: the ByLock, Bank Asya, association and telephone queries all came back empty.

Unfounded

The "He made propaganda for FETÖ" claim

While the indictment writes propaganda for a terrorist organization, the police documents in the same case file write that no involvement, contact or association with FETÖ could be found. The contradiction lies inside a single file.

Unfounded

The "They Resemble FETÖ's Early Years" Claim

A resemblance is not evidence. The possibility of a covert cadre inside state institutions was in fact investigated by the police in 2016-2017; no record was found.

Distorted

The claim that "the Furkan Foundation is part of the FETÖ structure"

The foundation, its founders and its forty-four-member board of trustees were screened by the police on 9 January 2017; no link to any terrorist organization was found, and the foundations audit reached the same conclusion.

Unfounded

The "On the Same Line as the Gülen Community" Claim

On 4 February 2016 Kuytul read Gülen's Asharq al-Awsat interview out from the newspaper and objected to its arguments one by one; the division comes down to whether an Islamic state is necessary.

Unfounded

The "He Criticised Gülen Only After 15 July" Claim

The criticism did not begin after 15 July 2016. Records dated 1998, 2005, 2014 and February 2016 belong to the years when the movement was at its strongest.

Unfounded

The "He Supported the Turkish Olympiads" Claim

He did not support them; he objected to them. And he did so on 16 February 2014, at the time when the event was at its most splendid and hardest to criticise, giving his reasons as well.

Unfounded

The claim that he declared those who go into the army, police officers and civil servants to be unbelievers

These words are not Kuytul's but those of takfirist circles who came to his talks and tried to influence young people; he listed those views one by one and rejected them, giving his reasons.

Unfounded

Does Alparslan Kuytul Support ISIS?

Not a supporter of ISIS but a name that appears on the organisation's death list; his criticisms of ISIS were recorded in 2014, four years before the accusations.

Unfounded

The claim that an ISIS member was his student

The ISIS member in question is the person who stated to the police that they had come to Adana in order to assassinate Kuytul: not his student, but his target.

Distorted

The claim that he declared those who vote unbelievers

He does not vote himself; but not only has he never called those who vote unbelievers, he is the one who told those who called them unbelievers: "do not talk like this" — saying that an act is wrong is not the same as calling it unbelief.

Unfounded

The claim that he advocates armed jihad

The answer, dated 30 May 2010, says that jihad is also waged with property, with knowledge and with preaching, and that nothing can be achieved in Turkey by arms; the claim holds on to a single sentence about occupied lands.

Out of context

The claim that he supports armed organisations

The claim is older than the 2018 operation: the same question was put and answered on 15 February 2014, and in a record of activity spanning more than thirty years, all of it public, not a single piece of evidence of support has emerged.

Unfounded

The claim that Salafi and takfirist individuals attended his talks

The claim was manufactured out of the middle of a single sentence in the police letter in the 2018 case file; both the beginning and the end of that same sentence say the opposite of the claim.

Out of context

Is Alparslan Kuytul a takfirist?

The person accused of takfirism is someone who gave a twenty-five-hour talk to set out the harm takfirism does; the state's own record likewise says that he "does not hold a takfirist understanding".

Unfounded

The Claim that He "Supported America in the Afrin Operation"

A single sentence was cut out of a twelve-minute speech made on 19 January 2018, before the operation had even begun; the speech as a whole is not support for America but a warning against it.

Distorted

The Distortion of the "His Mother's Knee" Remark

A few sentences cut from a lesson of 29 April 2011 were served up in 2018 as though they were a new speech; what was being explained was the ruling on 'awrah, agreed upon by all four schools of law.

Out of context

The "He Called the People Who Took to the Streets on 15 July Murderers" Claim

In the full recording the word "murderer" was said not about those who took to the streets, but about those who beheaded the privates brought to the bridge after being told "there is a drill".

Out of context

The "He Defended the Abuse at the Ensar Foundation" Claim

The headline gave the impression that the abuse was being defended; in the full speech the words were "the person who committed that crime must be given the necessary punishment". The newspaper later changed the headline.

Distorted

The "He Is Hostile to the AK Party Government" Claim

The criticism genuinely exists and is not hidden. But the decisions he openly supported in those same years are on record too: calling a wrong a wrong is not hostility.

Partly true

The "He Knew About the Coup in Advance" Claim: How the Date of the Speech Was Changed

The speech was made on Friday 1 July 2016; the date given in the claim falls on a Thursday, and for twenty-two years the exegesis lesson has been held on a Friday.

Unfounded

Was the Phrase "His Pen Has Been Broken" an Insult to the President?

The sentence that was cut out was not a wish but a warning describing what others were doing. The chief inspector of the Directorate General of Foundations wrote that it contained no insult, and on 10 January 2019 the court returned an acquittal.

Unfounded

Cutting a Sentence in the Middle: How Are Cropped Videos Produced?

The words do not change, the recording does: a three-to-five-second excerpt, a date shifted, an addressee replaced. This is the common ground of the pages under this heading.

Yazı

The "He Used the Prophet for His Own Benefit" Claim

Of the twenty-minute statement made on 10 April 2016 in front of the conference whose hall had been cancelled two days beforehand, only the dream passage was clipped out; the cancellation itself was never discussed.

Out of context

The "They Act According to Dreams" Claim

The one who says that a dream is not acted upon is Kuytul himself: what was related on 10 April 2016 was not a ruling but glad tidings given to a tense crowd.

Unfounded

The Night of 21 May 2020 in the Words of Those Who Were Beaten

What happened in Adana on the night of 21 May 2020 was put on record eight days later, at a forum, in the words of the seven people who had lived through it themselves.

Yazı

The "They Held a Secret Tarawih Prayer in the Mosque" Claim

At that time both the mosque and its courtyard were closed, and no one went inside. There is no prayer performed in secret in an enclosed place; there is a prayer that was prevented in the street.

Unfounded

The "He Used the Friday Prayer Objection as a Political Tool" Claim

The objection is jurisprudential from the outset: an obligatory prayer that can be performed with precautions in place is not given up. The measures he proposed are the same as those applied when the mosques opened on 29 May 2020.

Distorted

The "He Compared Turkey to East Turkestan" Claim

The comparison really was made; what was dropped in the retelling was its grounds, which rested not on a single tarawih ban but on a list of incidents running from 2014 to 2020.

Out of context

The "He Brought the People Out onto the Streets and Disturbed Public Order" Claim

People gathered not for the tarawih prayer, but for their friends who had been beaten and taken into custody. During the wait, which lasted until nine in the morning, not a single disturbance occurred.

Unfounded

The Claim That He Opposed the Coronavirus Measures

He said "I am not against the measures, but I am against their being exaggerated"; on masks, distance and hand-washing he said he would follow the experts. His objection was not to the measure but to a distinction that distance could not explain.

Distorted

The Claim That They Staged a Prayer Provocation in Adana

On the night of 21 May 2020 in Adana, five or six people wanted to pray the tarawih in a park; when the police said it was forbidden, they left. The beating began not in the park, but on the road as they were moving away.

Unfounded

The "Alparslan Kuytul Organised the Incident" Claim

At the time of the incident he was at an iftar meal at another end of Adana; he did not know of the decision of those who went to the park, and came to the scene only after he heard of the detentions.

Unfounded

The "They Attacked the Police" Claim

Those taken into custody obtained reports from forensic medicine and from the hospital, and the footage shows people handcuffed behind the back being struck. On the other side there is no such record.

Unfounded

The "He Did Not Take the Epidemic Seriously and Spread a Conspiracy Theory" Claim

It is true that he found the measures exaggerated, and we are not hiding it. But he never denied the existence of the virus, called no one to abandon precautions, and made no claim to expertise.

Partly true

The "They Prayed with Zero Distance Between Them" Claim

In the report's own footage there is about one and a half metres between the rows. What is more, the prayer shown on the screen is not the tarawih but the dawn prayer performed the following morning.

Unfounded

The Claim That He Said "Taking Precautions Is a Betrayal of Islam"

The sentence the reports placed in quotation marks does not appear in his talks. In the same address he says that he will comply with the distance rule, and he advises exchanging Eid greetings without contact.

Distorted

The "He Does Not Know the Plague Hadith" Claim

He had explained the hadith himself in his own talks. The hadith forbids changing city; he advised no one to change city. And he has no objection to the hadith that commands distance either.

Unfounded

The "They Knowingly Violated the Ban" Claim

They learned from the police that prayer in the park was forbidden and they left; the decision of the governor's office was not shown at any stage. The only document handed over at the end of the night is a public health fine.

Unfounded

The "He Called Cübbeli Ahmet an Unbeliever" Claim

No such sentence was ever uttered. Those who relayed it relayed it without checking, and the person it was brought to answered without checking either.

Unfounded

The "Enemy of Sufism" Claim

The person said to reject Sufism is someone who has given thirty hours of lessons on that very subject. Sufism is held to be necessary today as well; what is rejected is the outlook that loads the attributes of Allah onto a sheikh.

Unfounded

The claim that he is "against the Sufi orders"

He does not hold the Sufi orders to be wrong; he accepts them as a legitimate path. The only thing he says is that what today calls for is a religious community. This is not enmity but an openly defended choice of priority.

Partly true

The "he went knowing full well that trouble would break out" claim

In Adana on 22 April 2017 the intervention had begun before Kuytul had even set out: gas, pressurized water and plastic bullets were used against the few hundred people who arrived at the park early.

Out of context

The claim that "there was a state of emergency, and they tried to hold an event despite the ban"

The governor's office did have a ban decision; but that decision concerned the conference. The press statement was on a different subject, statements in Adana did not require permission, and the park chosen was not on the list of banned places.

Partly true

Did the ban decision of the Adana Governor's Office target a hall or a religious community?

The subject of the decision was not a hall but a foundation and the persons deemed connected to it; its area was the whole province and it had no end date. In the field, too, it was applied broadly, not narrowly.

Distorted

The "He Was Found in the Wrong in the Adnan Oktar Case" Claim

The ruling and the damages are real. The ruling came in a single hearing, with no evidence submitted and no defence heard; in 2015, when one document came up, the same lawyers withdrew hundreds of cases.

Partly true

The "He Insulted Adnan Oktar" Claim

The words really were spoken. But they were spoken in answer to a question, in the "may be" mood, and on the basis of public judicial records; the claim leaves out all three of these at once.

Out of context

The "Enemy of the Alevis" Claim

The foundation is based in Adana, a province with a dense Alevi population. In twenty-two years there has not been a single incident between the two sides; participants of Alevi origin are in the movement too.

Unfounded

The claim that "he showed tolerance towards those who insulted the Kaaba"

The incident the claim rests on came to light days after Kuytul's statement. It is not possible to show tolerance towards an incident that has not yet taken place.

Unfounded

The claim that "he took his place alongside the Boğaziçi protesters"

It is true that he objected to the appointment and regarded the protest as legitimate. But finding a protest justified is not the same as adopting the views of those who take part in it.

Partly true

The "LGBT Supporter" Claim

A sentence describing who might have taken part in a protest was presented as approval of the views of those who did. In his reply Kuytul repeated that atheism is unbelief and that LGBT is forbidden.

Unfounded

Kuytul's assessment of the downing of the Russian plane

The full text of the talk that was put into circulation in cropped form: the possibility of retaliation, 5.7 billion dollars of exports, dependence on natural gas, NATO's position in December 2015 and the rules of engagement.

Yazı

The claim about the remark "go ahead and shoot down Russia's plane"

The sentence was uttered before the plane crisis and did not mean "you cannot shoot it down"; in Kuytul's own explanation what is being discussed is not capability but the consequences of shooting it down.

Out of context

The "Pro-Russian" Claim

Three or four seconds were cut out of a long answer; the sentence "we would all fight against Russia together" comes immediately after the point of the cut.

Distorted

The "if he wants to do politics, let him found a party" claim

Nowhere is there a requirement to found a party in order to express an opinion. The journalists, lawyers and academics who discuss the country's affairs on television have no party either.

Unfounded

The claim that "he criticises the government only because of his own grievance"

The conference cancellations began in 2014; yet he had objected to the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and to Syria policy in 2011 — that is, eleven years before the event the claim counts as the cause.

Unfounded

The claim that "a religious teacher should not get involved in politics"

He does not deny that he speaks on political matters. But what he speaks on is not party politics; he supports no party. The field the objection calls "politics" and the field he speaks in are not the same thing.

Partly true

The claim that "politics is not the business of a scholar of fiqh"

Islamic fiqh does not consist of prayer, fasting and zakat alone; the rulings on the state, on war and on treaties are subjects of fiqh too. The Prophet himself founded a state and governed it.

Unfounded

The claim that he is "on the side of a party or the opposition"

He says openly that he supports no party; his measure is not a party but fiqh, and by that same measure he has said he would defend the party he criticises when it is wronged.

Unfounded

The claim that "he does not give the Prophet and the sunnah the importance they deserve"

The claim rests not on a sentence but on an impression. Against it stand lesson and conference titles running from 1995 to 2015: Love of the Messenger of Allah, Obedience to the Prophet, The Prophet as a Model.

Unfounded

The claim that "he does not accept the Prophet's authority to lay down rulings"

Does the Prophet have the authority to lay down a ruling on a matter not found in the Qur'an? Kuytul's answer to that question was published on 26 April 2015: "Of course he does" — and his grounds are verses of the Qur'an.

Unfounded

The claim that "he does not regard the sunnah as revelation and does not consider it binding"

The man said not to consider the sunnah binding is the one who made the sharpest objection to those who say "we came to this state because we followed the sunnah".

Unfounded

The claim that "he is a Quranist who says 'the Qur'an is enough for us'"

An answer that objects to those who say "the Qur'an is enough for us" was turned into evidence for the very opposite claim. What was said is plain: the Qur'an cannot be understood without the sunnah.

Unfounded

The "Hadith Denier" Claim

The man accused of denying hadith is, in the recordings, the one who criticises hadith denial: an authentic hadith is evidence, and the remedy for a fabricated report is not denial but turning to those qualified to judge it.

Unfounded

The claim that he is "of the Shia school"

The claim is levelled at a Hanafi who has for years rejected, with evidence, the Shia positions on the twelve imams, the infallibility of the imams and temporary marriage.

Unfounded

Why Was the Call for a Mutual Imprecation Made to Faruk Beşer?

There is no one-sided curse here; there is a call for a mutual imprecation, made after three and a half months of silence, conditional and covering both sides.

Distorted

The "Aggressive Person Who Incites the Young" Claim

For three and a half months not one word was said in reply to the accusations; in a body with thousands of members, not a single incident of violence or public disorder can be pointed to.

Unfounded

The "He Says Tawhid but Divides the Muslims" Claim

The claim rests on a confusion of concepts: tawhid is to recognise no authority besides Allah, while wahdah is the unity of the Muslims. And criticism and tafriqa are not the same thing either.

Distorted

The "He Deceives People with Religion" Claim

For this accusation, repeated in two separate disputes, not a single lesson, sentence or fatwa was produced. And those addressed in at-Tawbah 31, cited as the evidence, are religious scholars who declare the forbidden permitted.

Unfounded

The Claim That the Members of the Religious Community Are an "Unquestioning Herd"

A blanket imputation made about thousands of people without a single name, incident or record being given. What stands against it is madrasa work, educational activities and an open archive.

Unfounded

The "He Has People Call Him Hocaefendi" Claim

Neither a request nor an encouragement. The title took hold in the second half of the 1990s, as people around him spoke of him that way in his absence; in Turkey male religious teachers are addressed like this anyway.

Unfounded

The "Arrogant and Unreachable Person" Claim

The accusation rests on a single incident: not attending a press statement in August 2014. The person making the claim has never met Kuytul, and not even those who spent years at his side and later left have said such a thing.

Unfounded

The "They Did Not Join the Joint Gaza Action" Claim

The foundation did not take part in the joint press statement of August 2014 as an institution; that is true. But no institutional invitation was made, and the content of the programme and who would take part were left unclear.

Partly true

The claim that the Furkan Foundation is indifferent to the Palestinian cause

Not taking part in one programme was treated as indifference. Yet the rallies, press releases, lessons and the prayer said every Friday, running from 2004 to 2014, are on record and open to the public.

Unfounded

The claim that "he pushes those who question out of the religious community"

There is not a single name, date or incident in the article. The invitation "give names if there are any" has gone unanswered for more than ten years; those who left did so by their own choice.

Unfounded

When did the conference obstructions begin? A 2014-2018 timeline

The obstructions did not begin with the operation of 30 January 2018: the first statement was published on 13 December 2014, and then came İskenderun in 2016 and Adana in 2017.

Yazı

The claim that "the Furkan Foundation blocked the motorway"

The motorway really was closed. But the closure was the result of the roads being held in advance and of vehicles not being allowed out; as soon as permission for the square came through the road was opened, and the statement ended without incident.

Out of context

Was the İskenderun conference really cancelled on "security" grounds?

Permission for the conference was granted on 11 May 2016, and it was then cancelled on security grounds. In the same period the posters were confiscated and sponsors were pressured; on the same day an open-air program of tens of thousands ended without incident.

Distorted

The claim that "he did not come out into the squares against the coup"

It is true that they did not join the democracy vigils. But on 21 July 2016 they held an anti-coup gathering in a public square with hundreds of people; the objection was not to opposing the coup but to the name given to the protest.

Partly true

The allegation of fraud

In the 22 January 2019 case file there is not a single person who says they were defrauded; the indictment, meanwhile, refutes its own logic of fraud by writing that the expenses were shown as low.

Unfounded

The claim that an ISIS suspect attended the talks and that this shows a connection

A person who attended a talk open to everyone was counted as a "student" and as evidence of an organisational connection. Kuytul's only recorded relationship with ISIS is that his name appeared on the organisation's death list.

Distorted

March 2019: The letter Alparslan Kuytul wrote to the public from prison

In the letter he wrote from Bolu F-Type Prison in March 2019: his answer to the terrorism charge and the words "Until I die I will go on saying Tawhid, Justice, Freedom, Civilisation".

Yazı

29 April 2019: The letter Alparslan Kuytul wrote to the public from prison

In the letter he wrote from Bolu F-Type Prison in April 2019: his answer to the terrorism charge and the words "Until I die I will go on saying Tawhid, Justice, Freedom, Civilisation".

Yazı

The claim that some people who left the community joined armed organizations

The names listed are people who left years ago because they did not embrace Kuytul's stance against armed jihad. What lies before us is not the record of a connection but of a break.

Distorted

The claim that the speeches complained of constituted an offence

Following the complaints of the summer of 2016 the original recordings were examined; the report stated that nothing constituting an offence had been found in the video recording, and one complainant withdrew his application.

Unfounded

The claim that he insulted Atatürk

When the CD in the file was examined, an expert report established that the speaker was not Kuytul; the case was brought all the same, and on 6 February 2020 the court adjourned instead of acquitting.

Unfounded

The claim that the foundation's income was collected off the books

Collecting donations and holding charity bazaars are sources of income written into the foundation's deed; the alleged amount, meanwhile, rose within a few months from 350 thousand to 3 million, and from there to 80 million.

Unfounded

The claim that there is a vault and secret passages in the foundation's building

The place called a "vault" is a study centre opened in 2014 with SODES funding, with its sign hanging at the entrance, which had passed a favourable inspection a month before the operation.

Distorted

The claim of a connection with the United Arab Emirates and Egypt

The report of 31 January 2018 did not write that a connection had been found but that one "was being investigated"; afterwards no document followed, nor did the claim enter any case file.

Unfounded

The claim that Furkan volunteers blocked the path of a man conducting an interview

A member of the public who objected to a man harassing Furkan volunteers, presented as someone who "blocked his path".

Distorted

He Knew About the Coup a Day in Advance / He Threatened Erdoğan

His speech of 1 July was clipped and circulated by pro-government news sites — a-haber chief among them — and by troll accounts, together with claims that he had known about the coup a day in advance and that he had threatened President Erdoğan. In reality it was an analysis made for an entirely different purpose and about other events, and a sincere warning to the President and those around him.

Out of context

Did Alparslan Kuytul congratulate the coup?

The unedited video, set against the cropped clips in circulation claiming that Alparslan Kuytul congratulated the coup on the night of 15 July.

Out of context

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