A state-by-state look at where Generation Y stands on the big issues. Dozens of military officers, as well as secular writers, academics and businessmen, waited for years in prison for trials that critics called witch hunts.

“If one-tenth of this accusation is correct . "There is a political crisis in Turkey right now, and also a societal crisis in the sense that I've hardly seen Turkish society this polarized, this tense, this paranoid," said Mustafa Akyol, author of the book "Islam Without Extremes.

In recent weeks, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a religious conservative, has compared Gulen and his supporters to a virus and a medieval cult of assassins.

The imam, Fethullah Gulen, a former ally of Erdogan's, disputed the notion that he was involved in the attempted overthrow of Turkey's president on Friday night. In the secluded compound where he preaches nonviolence, tolerance and the value of education, Fethullah Gulen sat in a well-lighted room, handing out candy to children. “Gulen for many years has been living in exile, in relative seclusion and in poor health,” said Esposito, who sits on the advisory board of the Rumi Forum. ", "Both sides use religious language to justify themselves," Akyol added. Turkish government says group managed by Fethullah Gulen is leading a coup attempt in Turkey, He denies any involvement in a political conspiracy, Gulen's group once backed Turkey's Prime Minister, but that relationship has soured, "There is a political crisis in Turkey right now," and society is polarized, author says.

"Government should be won through a process of free and fair elections, not force.

While they took different paths to prominence and power, with Erdogan turning to overt politics and Gulen establishing his educational and cultural network from an overseas base, as recently as 2010, Erdogan publicly thanked “our friends across the ocean” for his victory in constitutional battles with secular forces. BBC's Katy Watson and ABC News' Steve Ganyard report the latest news on the recent attempt to overthrow the democratically elected government in Turkey. And obviously we would invite the government of Turkey, as we always do, to present us with any legitimate evidence that withstands scrutiny. The United States, which spent years trying to send Gulen home after his 1999 arrival here as a tourist before a court granted him a green card, says the process is a legal one in which politics — and alliances — have no role. One of the world's most powerful Muslim preachers lives behind a gated compound in the small, leafy town of Saylorsburg, Pennsylvania.

“It’s governed by treaties, governed by laws, and it is not a decision that I make but rather a decision that our Justice Department and investigators and courts make alongside my administration in a very well-structured and well-established process.”. He and Erdogan were formerly allies but became estranged in recent years. You'll receive e-mail when new stories are published in this series. Despite the growing animosity and government charges, it was not until last month, following the coup attempt, that Turkey first formally requested Gulen’s extradition from the United States. Turkish officials have accused the United States of harboring Gulen and suggested U.S. involvement in the aborted coup. In May 2006, the U.S. consul general in Turkey, Deborah K. Jones, expressed concerns about the “increasing proportion” of Gulen supporters among Turkish applicants for U.S. visas.

“As Islamic movements go,” Graham Fuller, a former senior CIA official and vice chairman of the National Intelligence Council, wrote last month in the Huffington Post, “I would rank Hizmet high on the list of rational, moderate, socially constructive and open-minded organizations.

.

Today he criticized Erdogan for what he called the government's "repression and persecution" of Gulen's followers in Turkey. Gulen serves as “honorary president” of some of the groups and is cited as the “inspiration” to them, according to their websites.

For more than a year, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania fought the case, arguing that Gulen, who had not attended high school or taught in a classroom, was neither an educator nor extraordinary. U.S. diplomats in Turkey had also raised alarms. In 2011, Erdogan began his third term as prime minister of the Islam-inspired Justice and Development Party, known as AKP, that Gulenist support had helped prosper.

He left Turkey in 1999, and is now living in self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania. But all have the same distinguishing features: They were opened by Turks and focus on math, science and technology, as per Gulen’s emphasis in education. She also previously worked at UPI and the LA Times. Here, the movement has replicated elements of a pattern it established in Turkey and in countries across Central Asia and beyond.

While Gulen admirers praise his calls for ecumenicism, early speeches quoted at length in the Israeli media contained flashes of anti-Semitism and criticism of Israel.

Gulen submitted letters of support from former Turkish and U.S. officials, along with boxes of documents and numerous books and testimonials that in some cases appear to contradict the organization’s later insistence that he has no direct involvement in its network of schools.

If you believe the Turkish government, supporters of this cleric in Pennsylvania are spearheading a coup attempt in Turkey that is destabilizing one of America's most important allies in the Middle East.

“They are almost uniformly evasive about their purpose of travel and their relationships to Gulen,” she wrote in a diplomatic cable addressed to the State Department and intelligence agencies.

Who is this mysterious man in Pennsylvania?

Throughout much of the last decade, the Gulen movement was also a strong Erdogan supporter.

A Justice Department team is sifting through what U.S. officials say are some 85 boxes of evidence that Turkey says describes the infiltration of Gulenists into every part of Turkish society, including the judiciary, the police and the military faction that launched the coup attempt, and proves Gulen’s direct role as mastermind of the plot. TURKEY-GULEN/ REUTERS/Selahattin Sevi/Zaman Daily … On December 17, police carried out a series of anti-corruption raids targeting dozens of people closely linked to the Turkish government. Islamic preacher Fethullah Gulen is pictured at his residence in Saylorsburg, Pennsylvania in this December 28, 2004 file photo.

“Gulen,” he added, “doesn’t hold any official office or any official position. Some are sponsored by the Rumi Forum, which opened in Washington in 1999 to “foster interfaith and intercultural dialogue.” Others with similar missions, which describe themselves as Gulen-inspired, include the Pacifica Institute, which opened in the San Fernando Valley in California in 2003, and the Niagara Foundation, established in 2004 in Chicago.