Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has repeatedly told the world and his people that the words “Islam” and “terrorism” should not be used together, because Muslims cannot be terrorists. Indeed, Erdogan has insisted that students who attend Turkey's religious imam-hatip high schools would never become terrorists. Yet the man Erdogan accuses of masterminding the July 15 coup attempt is none other than the president's former close friend and ally, Fethullah Gulen, a Sunni imam. This has made the situation rather uncomfortable for the president and the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government. Acknowledging that Muslims might deliberately hurt and even murder other Muslims is not easy in general for the majority of Turks, so what can be done to address this uncomfortable reality?

The easiest solution would be to resuscitate an answer that Turks have used in the past — that is, declare the enemy to be non-Muslim and foreign. In this case, the Armenian has once again emerged as the imagined culprit, invoked to help Turks assuage their troubled conscience.

Thus, several pro-government figures have concocted allegations to christen Gulen an Armenian. Such accusations were voiced prior to July 15, but have since been embellished. For example, on June 6, the pro-AKP Ottoman Clubs (Osmanli Ocaklari) proclaimed Gulen an Armenian, citing branches in his family tree and his background. Others claimed that the so-called Fethullah Gulen Terror Organization, a term Ankara uses to refer to Gulen followers, was influential in the German parliament's June 2 decision to recognize the Armenian genocide.

At a pro-democracy rally held July 19, Kocaeli Buyuksehir Mayor Ibrahim Karaosmanoglu told attendees, “The fact that they [Gulenists] have infiltrated several key positions in the bureaucracy is a shame for us. They cannot be [trusted to be] teachers. They cannot be anything. … They hide themselves so well, they can even trade their honor to reach a key position.”