Turkish Muslim leader Fethullah Gulen, whom Ankara blames for the failed coup attempt in 2016, has died in the United States, where he had been living. He was 83 years old.

The website Herkul, which publishes Gulen’s sermons, announced on its X account that he passed away on Sunday evening in the hospital where he was receiving treatment.

Gulen was the founder of Hizmet, a powerful Islamic movement in Turkey and beyond, but he spent his later years facing accusations of orchestrating an attempted coup against Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, which he denied.

Once an ally of Erdogan, their relationship soured dramatically, with Erdogan holding Gulen responsible for the coup attempt that involved rogue soldiers seizing warplanes, tanks, and helicopters, resulting in the deaths of around 250 people.

Gulen had been living in self-imposed exile in the U.S. since 1999.

Revered by his supporters as Hodjaefendi, or respected teacher, Gulen was born in 1941 in a village in the eastern Turkish province of Erzurum. The son of an imam, he began studying the Quran at a young age.

In 1959, he was appointed as a scholar at a mosque in the northwestern city of Edirne and gained prominence as a scholar in the 1960s in Izmir, where he established student dormitories and preached in tea houses.

These student residences marked the beginning of a network that expanded over the decades through education, business, media, and state institutions, granting his followers considerable influence.

This influence also reached beyond Turkey, impacting the Turkic republics of Central Asia, the Balkans, Africa, and the West through a network of schools.

Initially a close ally of Erdogan and his AK Party, tensions escalated in December 2013 when corruption investigations targeting Erdogan’s associates emerged.

It was widely believed that prosecutors and police from Gulen’s Hizmet movement were behind these investigations, leading to an arrest warrant for Gulen in 2014. His movement was labeled a terrorist organization two years later, following the coup attempt, with Gulen accused of orchestrating it.