The Fethullahci are the followers of Fethullah Gulen, a religious thinker who seeks to reconcile Islam and modernity.

The full-scale expansion of the Fethullah Gulen community beyond Turkey's boundaries coincided roughly with the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991.

The emergence of five new independent Turkic states in Central Asia and the Caucasus region gave Gulen's educational projects a formidable impetus and the religious thinker a unique opportunity to expand his activities abroad.

Over the six years that followed the Soviet collapse, the group succeeded in opening more than 100 schools and universities in Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan, as well as in Russia's republics of Daghestan, Tatarstan, and Bashkotorstan.

A secular orientation and a proven ability to cultivate ties with Turkish political and business elites as well as with local governments have spared Gulen's followers many troubles in the former Soviet Union, except in Uzbekistan, where they were expelled at the end of the 1990s.