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

After what event was the article written?

In July–August 2014, while the attacks on Gaza were continuing, a press statement was held in Adana. Orhan Göktaş, at that time head of the Adana branch of Mazlumder, telephoned Alparslan Kuytul and asked him to say the prayer at the statement. Kuytul stated that he could not attend because of his heavy schedule.

The article entitled "A Vanguard Generation or a Dead Generation?" published thereupon went far beyond the question of not attending a single event, and consisted of accusations lined up one after another. Our subject here is one of them: the sentence saying that those who questioned him from within the religious community were "driven away as though excommunicated". The invitation itself and the question of why it was not joined as an institution are dealt with on a separate page: the matter of not joining the joint Gaza action.

Let us look at the sentence itself

To show that a claim is true or false, one must first know what it is attached to. There is nothing in this sentence to attach it to:

• Of the people said to have been driven away, not one is named.
• When it happened is not written — not even a year is given.
• Because of which question or which criticism it happened is not explained.
• Who decided, and how the decision was communicated, is not said.

A sentence built in this way cannot be refuted with a document, because there is no incident to set against it. The only way to test it is to ask the one who made the claim for a concrete example. That is exactly what was done in the Furkan Foundation's reply dated 7 August 2014: give names if there are any.

In the more than ten years that have passed, no name has come forward in answer to that invitation. The smallest thing needed for a claim to become testable — a single example — is still nowhere to be found.

The difference between "left" and "was expelled"

In a structure that has lasted for many years and through which thousands of people have passed, there have been those who left; there is no sense in denying it. People change cities, their work grows heavier, family reasons arise, their conviction changes, they part ways. All of this is ordinary.

What the claim does is to present this ordinary movement as a procedure: as though, whenever someone who questions appears, a decision is taken and that person is removed from the community. There is no such decision-making mechanism. No one has been dismissed.

The strongest evidence here is again those who left. There are people who spent years at Kuytul's side and later moved away for different reasons, and not one of them has accused him of arrogance or of "driving away those who question". Those who know a person best are those who are beside them; the person who made the claim, on the other hand, had not met Kuytul face to face even once up to that day.

There is also a text of apology

When the article drew reactions from various quarters, its author published a second text. In that text it was said that "although I used no word of mine with intent to insult, it was perceived that way", and an apology was offered to those who had been disturbed.

This second text is an explanation about how the words were understood; it does not take back the claim itself. More importantly, it does not supply what was missing either: in the apology too, not a single name, not a single incident and not a single date is given.

Why "Unfounded"?

On this site the parts of claims that are true are written openly; we do not shy away from saying "partly true". Here there is no such part. Because there is no describable incident, concerning a particular person and having taken place on a particular date, there is no core about which "half of it is true" could be said either.

What is left is an accusation standing on its own. What would have kept it standing was a name, and that name was never given.