The claim that he advocates armed jihad
Out of context
Claim
Fact
The answer on which the claim is based is dated 30 May 2010, and its full text is published. The first thing said in that text is that jihad does not consist of arms alone.
"Jihad is also waged with property, with knowledge and with the preaching of the Quran. It is not done with the sword alone."
His answer to the question "what should we do today?" is just as clear: in many places in the Islamic world the work of Muslims is to build a community, to educate and to preach. For Turkey the ruling is laid down in a single sentence:
"Nothing is going to be achieved with guns or with knives."
His practice over more than thirty years has not stepped outside that sentence either: madrasa work, conferences, publishing and preaching.
Why this label, "Out of context"?
Because there really is a sentence that the claim holds on to, and we are not hiding it. In the same answer, lands that are under occupation — Palestine, Afghanistan, Iraq and Chechnya — are set apart; the legitimacy of resisting the occupier there is not denied.
But this is not a fault. The right to resist occupation is not an unusual opinion belonging to a single person; it is the mainstream ruling of classical fiqh. The sentence is about a state of occupation, not about what is to be done in Turkey — and the claim takes only one of the two halves of the same paragraph and throws the other away.
What this amounts to in practice stands in the state's own record: in the intelligence assessment that entered the case file opened by the operation of 30 January 2018, the item that he did not think it right to go to conflict zones is counted among Kuytul's statements.
What does the whole answer say?
On 30 May 2010 the question put to Kuytul was this: how many kinds of jihad are there, and what should the jihad we are to carry out today look like? The answer proceeds in three steps.
The first step is the definition. Every work done for the sovereignty of Islam is jihad; property, knowledge and preaching are part of it. That is, the word "jihad" cannot be equated with arms.
The second step is the ruling for today. In many places in the Islamic world the position of Muslims is the work of community, education and preaching; what is to be done is to educate the people with the Quran and to bring up thousands of scholars.
The third step is the exception, and the claim holds on to this part alone: lands under occupation such as Palestine, Afghanistan, Iraq and Chechnya are set apart, because there is an actual war there.
Where do the scissors go in?
The sentence the claim quotes reads this way in the text:
"If the conditions for it come about and Muslims reach that level, it may also become necessary for them to wage armed jihad against the unbelievers."
The quotation stops here. Yet the sentences that come immediately afterwards in the recording are these:
"But for the present, in many places in the Islamic world the position of Muslims is to carry out the work of community, education and preaching. Nothing is going to be achieved with guns or with knives."
The first sentence is an entry in fiqh: it states which ruling arises in which situation; it is not a call to act. The second sentence closes that entry for today. When the second is taken out from between them, what is left is the claim.
Two separate questions that are confused
- Does a people under occupation have the right to resist? — The answer of classical fiqh is that it does; Kuytul does not deny this.
- What is the path of Muslims in Turkey? — The answer is definite: community, education, preaching.
When the answer to the first is put in place of the second, the claim that "he advocates armed jihad" comes out. Yet in the same paragraph the two are written out separately.
In practice: keeping young people away from the conflict zone
The evidence that this stance did not remain mere words is given not by those making the claim but by state records. What he said on 23 August 2014 about the young people flowing to the war zones is this:
"America's new strategy is to create conflict zones in various parts of the world, to draw sincere young Muslims to them and to destroy them there."
In those same years he openly held it to be wrong for young people to go to conflict zones. This stance is on record in the police letter that entered the case file opened by the operation of 30 January 2018 as well: in the document the item "that he did not think it right to go to conflict zones" is counted among Kuytul's statements, and the same paragraph reports that no connection between the foundation and any terrorist organisation could be found.
Why do we not say "unfounded"?
We could have; the sentence "he does not advocate armed jihad" can be constructed, and as far as Turkey is concerned it is true as well. But that would be to hide something from the reader: in the recording there is a sentence of exception about lands under occupation, and everyone who listens to it hears it.
That is why the label is "Out of context". The part that is true is this: the legitimacy of resisting occupation is not denied — and that is the mainstream view that has held for centuries. The part that is false is this: a ruling of fiqh about a state of occupation is relayed as though it were a call to armed action in Turkey.
The documents and dates on this page belong to the case file opened by the operation of 30 January 2018. The claim of a connection with armed organisations is under a separate heading: the claim that he supports armed organisations.