“Maarif has secured the closure, confiscation or forced transfer of at least 162 educational institutions affiliated with the Gülen movement across 29 countries. This global restructuring campaign has disrupted the livelihoods of approximately 7,800 school administrators, teachers and support staff worldwide.”
It has also effectively dismantled a source of opposition to Erdogan, and helped him create a network through which he can spread his dreams of restoring the Ottoman caliphate.
“Erdogan’s global school network drives a radical overseas political agenda,” by Levent Kenez, Nordic Monitor, July 14, 2026:
A Turkish government-funded entity run by jihadists has expanded into a global network designed to export political Islam and systematically dismantle alternative Turkish educational networks abroad, according to official records. The Turkish Maarif Foundation, established in June 2016, operates as a state-backed apparatus combining formal non-profit status with embedded executive authority to enforce the geopolitical and ideological objectives of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
A comprehensive investigative report released by Solidarity with Others, an international human rights organization based in Belgium, reveals that the foundation has served as a central instrument in a coordinated campaign of transnational repression.
The Turkish government attributed a coup attempt in July 2016 to the movement inspired by the late Islamic cleric Fethullah Gülen, a claim the movement denies. It says the coup was a false flag operation orchestrated by Erdogan and Turkish intelligence to purge people from the movement. Since then, Maarif has secured the closure, confiscation or forced transfer of at least 162 educational institutions affiliated with the Gülen movement across 29 countries. This global restructuring campaign has disrupted the livelihoods of approximately 7,800 school administrators, teachers and support staff worldwide.
Financial records obtained from government sources document an unprecedented escalation in state funding for Maarif. The foundation received an initial budgetary allocation of 90 million lira ($30 million) in 2016 from the Ministry of Education. By 2024, annual budget transfers authorized through presidential decisions published in the Official Gazette had surged to 5.7 billion lira ($175 million), climbing further to an authorized ceiling of 6.77 billion lira ($195 million) for 2025. In total, the Turkish state has channeled over 27.7 billion lira ($900 million) into the foundation over an eight-year period of time, representing a financial expansion of nearly 2,000 percent since its inception….
WPM says
Why in the world is Turkey still in NATO ? If they are exporting and supporting terrorism in other NATO countries??
Walter Sieruk says
In the title of this article the words “political Islam.” Was used. That term is nonsensical and redundant as well as unknown in the Islamic world. This is because is in its very essence a political religion.
Therefore it needs to be made clear as to why that Western term is nonsensical and redundant. As explained by two statements.
First, as for that term being nonsensical one devout Muslim who, truly, proclaimed “Islam is Islam.”
Second. as for that term being redundant, has been well explained by none other Ayatollah Khomeini who declared” All Islam is politics.” [1]
[1] THE ISLAM IN ISLAMIC TERRORISM by Ibn Warraq page 332
Walter Sieruk says
About Islam and the stealth jihadists with the insidious political activity, that has much influence they have for Islam’s Sharia in Western countries.
A scholar of Islam who used to live in the Middle Eastern Nation of Lebanon had explained all that subtle and not so subtle ideological political involvement by dedicated and devout Muslims for the advancement of Sharia in the nations of the West. She revealed that the “combination of religion and politics are one on the same is the foundation of Islam, an inseparable political/religious ideology…” [1]
Therefore, the term “political Islam” too overly wordy and outright redundant.
[1] Brigitte Gabriel, her book is They Must Be Stopped, page 22.