ABSTRACT
This essay aims to explain sociologically the transformation of the Gülenist community emerging as a religious group then an organizational structure through organizing in the public arena and gradually on to a hegemonic power in the political arena. In the modern world, religious groups diversify their activities with new looks, functions and representations. The public sphere allows new religious groups and movements to compete within the market model. However, religious structures that adopt illegal organizing strategies during periods of civilian democratic decline can turn these features into a hegemonic rite in the democratization processes. The Gulenist movement, which emerged in congregational forms based on the tradition of Nur, chose to develop into social organizations and bureaucratic structures. The use of religious notions in the in-motion discourse and the selection of civil social tools and bureaucratic critical mechanisms as a hegemonic tool in the discourse towards the outside of the group led to multidimensional influences at the social level. The establishment of the Gülenist movement as a global network of international dimensions which lead the sociological literature to code this movement as a continuing actor of the coup attempt is a fundamentally distinctive difference.