Hundreds and potentially thousands of mourners grieving the death of Islamic preacher Fethullah Gulen gathered at Skylands Stadium in Augusta Thursday afternoon, leading to traffic congestion and causing major delays in the area.
Residents enrolled in the Sussex County Sheriff’s Office alert system were notified of a “large scale event” via phone call and text message and were urged to avoid the roadways near the ballpark, including Route 15, Route 206 and Route 565. The notification came around 11:25 a.m. — roughly a half-hour after the service was planned to begin — with commuters asked to avoid the area until 4 p.m.
Shortly thereafter, other police departments pushed out their own notifications to alert commuters of “heavy traffic,” and to seek alternate routes.
In video and photos posted by Turkish-based media outlets, including a self-professed journalist with over 115,000 followers on the X platform, hundreds of people could be seen sitting in the ballpark, which is home of the Sussex County Miners, a Frontier League independent baseball team.
Gulen, who built a powerful Islamic movement in Turkey before being accused of plotting a failed coup against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey in 2016, died late Sunday. He was 83.
Gulen died of natural causes at St. Luke’s Hospital, Monroe campus, in Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania, according to a video message from Dr. Douglas Degler, posted by social media account Herkel, who had posted his sermons. Gulen had lived in self-imposed exile since 1999 near a retreat center in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania, according to a 2016 article from USA TODAY.
Gulen is expected to be buried on the grounds of Chestnut Retreat Center in Saylorsburg, Pennsylvania, where he had been residing and working for nearly 25 years. The center posted a statement on Sunday following Gulen’s death, noting that the cleric “has inspired countless individuals through education, service and dialogue.”
Gulen’s movement, known as “Hizmet” (or “service” in Turkish) seeks to spread a moderate brand of Islam that promotes Western-style education, free markets and interfaith communication.
Gulen was a one-time ally for Erdogan, but the two men had a spectacular falling out, and in 2016, the Turkish government designated the Islamic movement of “Hizmet” as a terrorist organization.
Since the failed coup, his movement has been systematically dismantled in Turkey and its international influence has declined. Gulen, however, had a large following, and is known as a respected teacher, with his influence spread beyond Turkish borders to Asia, the Balkans, Africa and the West.
Thousands of Turks who fled the government crackdown that targeted Gulen’s followers came to northern New Jersey, which is home to a large Turkish American community that is less than 100 miles from where Gulen had resided.
Thursday’s gathering at the ballpark, located near Ross’ Corner in the Augusta community of Frankford Township, is coupled with heavy police presence and with air traffic restrictions in place. A “temporary flight restriction for special security reasons” from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. Thursday is in place for a roughly 10-mile perimeter of air space, according to an alert from the Federal Aviation Administration.
Email: lcomstock@njherald.com; Twitter: @LoriComstockNJH or on Facebook.
