The Last Crusade:

GULEN MOVEMENT ENGULFS LONE STAR STATE

ISLAM RULES THE WEST
TEXAS TAQIYYA
By
Paul L. Williams, Ph.D.

At the Harmony Schools which have spread throughout Texas, students are immersed in Turkish culture, customs, religion, history and language. They allegedly are taught that the Ottoman Empire represented the golden age of global civilization and that the Armenian Holocaust, in which millions of Turkish Christians were massacred, never occurred. The thousands of students who emerge from these schools advance the cause of Turkey and the New Islamic World Order, according to Act for America and other reliable sources.

Thirty-two Harmony Schools have been set up the Lone Star State at an annual expense to Texas taxpayers of $41 million.

The schools reportedly are the breeding grounds for the Gulen movement in America and Fethullah Gulen’s long-range plan to create a universal caliphate.

Seven Harmony Schools are in Houston, four in Austin, three in Fort Worth, three in San Antonio, two in El Paso, and two in Dallas. Others have been established in Brownsville, Laredo, Beaumont, Bryan, Waco, Lubbock, Carrollton, Euless, Odessa, Garland, and Grand Prairie.

The schools are operated by the Cosmos Foundation, a mysterious non-profit corporation with headquarters in Houston.

Spokespeople for Harmony in an exclusive interview denied that their charter schools are connected to the Gulen movement.

“We have no ties to Fethullah Gulen or his movement,” Sonar Tarim, the superintendent of the schools and a member of the Cosmos Foundation,, informed Family Security Matters in an exclusive interview.

Mr. Tarim, a Turkish national, also denied that the schools are Gulen-inspired and have any ties to Gulen’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) which has gained political control of Turkey.

“We have absolutely no connection whatsoever and we have one of the highest rated charter schools in the state,” Mr. Tarim insisted.

But the interview with Mr. Tarim raised more questions than answers and offered the following evidence that the Turkish administrators of Harmony are operating under the Islamic principle of taqiyya or “holy deception.”

ü Mr. Tarim said that the Gulen movement has no ties to the Harmony Schools. But he was obliged to admit that all Harmony schools participated in the Turkish Olympiads, an event established by Gulen for his schools throughout the country. This information comes from Zaman, Turkey’s daily newspaper, which is owned and controlled by Gulen and his movement.

ü Mr. Tarim said that very few teachers in Harmony Schools hail from Turkey. Yet the Cosmos Foundation has obtained H-1B visas for more than 1,136 Turks to come to Texas to teach in the Harmony Schools.

ü Mr. Tarim said that the Harmony Schools are not related in any way to the Bluebonnet Learning Centers, which represent another chain Gulen charter schools in Texas. Yet the Bluebonnet Learning Centers are located within the Harmony Schools and information about the centers remained posted on the Harmony website until the conclusion of the interview.

ü Mr. Tarim said that he and all Harmony teachers are certified by the Texas Board of Educators. Yet Tarim himself is not certified for his position as a school administrator.

ü Mr. Tarim said that Turkish nationals are not in control of the Cosmos Foundation and the Harmony Schools. Yet every member of the board of directors for the Cosmos Foundation is a Turkish national, and all members, save one, of the board of directors for the Harmony schools are Turks.

ü Mr. Tarim expressed no awareness that the Harmony schools were constructed by Turkish construction companies that reportedly are affiliated with Gulen and his movement.

The Islamic principle of taqiyya has served to characterize the movement.

In his public statements, Fethullah Gulen has espoused a liberal version of Sunni/Hanafi Islam by promoting the Muslim notion of hizmet – – altruistic service to the common good. He has condemned terrorism, advocated interfaith dialogue, and met with such religious dignitaries as Pope John Paul II, the Greek Orthodox Patriarch Bartholomeos, and Israeli Sephardic Head Rabbi Eliyahu Bakshi-Doron.

In private, Gulen has stated that in order to reach the ideal Muslim society “every method and path is acceptable, [including] lying to people.”

Nurettin Veren, a top administrator of the Gulen schools says: “These schools are like shop windows. Recruitment and Islamization activities are carried out through night classes.”

Bayram Balcri, a leading Turkish scholar, writes: “Fethullah’s aim is the Islamization of Turkish nationality and the Turkification of Islam in foreign countries. Dozens of Fethullah’s ‘Turkish schools’ are used to covertly ‘convert,’ not so much ‘in school,’ but through direct proselytism ‘outside school. Gulen wants to revive the link between state, religion, and society.”

Gulen, who has been labeled the “most dangerous Islamist on the planet,” has the financial means to achieve this objective. His movement has amassed more than $25 billion in assets – - a goodly portion for US taxpayers. In addition to Texas, his schools have been established at forty other locations throughout the country.

In the wake of Last Crusade reports, CBS7 in West Texas launched a cursory investigation into the Cosmos Foundation only to report that it remains “unlikely” that the Harmony Schools have only ties to Gulen and radical Islam.

The basis of the television station’s conclusion was stated as follows: “(Texas Congressman) Randy Neugebauer supports Harmony, and President George W. Bush invited Harmony Academy students to the Whitehouse in 2008.”