From the ‘new rome’ to the old one: The Gülen movement in Italy

The Gülen movement, led by the Turkish cleric and philosopher Fethullah Gülen, has been in the past years the subject of extensive scholarship, also as a consequence of its spreading in the west through dozens of dialogue and education institutions. While the literature has covered the Gülen organizations in many European countries, the Italian case was however still uncharted, although in the country existed, in the late 2000s, Gülen-related institutions in seven different cities. The research outlined in this paper—based on in-depth interviews, participant observation, and second-hand sources—originally aimed at filling this gap, by charting the Italian organizations in the context of the broader Gülen network. However, the current political and judiciary events inside Turkey and abroad—together with economic factors—have recently implied a significant downsizing of the organizations and a change in their scope and activities, which the paper will also try to describe, trying to sketch some reflections about the future of the movement in the west.