If the 2013 Taksim Gezi protests were a turning point for the regime's relations with its urban population, what happened three years later on the night of 15/16 July almost became a breaking point for the survival of the regime. On that night, a section of the Turkish military, calling themselves the Peace at Home Council (Yurtta Sulh Konseyi), attempted to take power from the government of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and the AKP via a coordinated operation in several major cities. Although all indications suggest that they came very close to their objective, they were ultimately defeated. Turkish fighter jets dropped bombs on their own parliament building, and the head of the joint chiefs of staff, Hulusi Akar, was kidnapped by his own security detail. For several hours, it looked as if the Turkish Republic was going to encounter the fourth shattering military coup in its 93-year history. While rockets slammed into the Grand National Assembly building in Ankara, plotters tried to detain the president as he holidayed in a resort on the Aegean. But he had left and the coup was thwarted by civilians and soldiers loyal to him. Erdoğan was evacuated to İstanbul, and the phone call from his plane urging people on to the street was the decisive moment in defeating the coup attempt (Lowen 2016). When the fateful night was over, when the coup-plotters were finally defeated, more than 250 people had been killed and 2,194 injured (Filkins 2016).

The Turkish government pointed the finger at the Turkish dissident, Fethullah Gulen for the failed coup attempt. Gulen, a cleric, businessman and cult leader who had lived in self-imposed exile in the United States since 1999, was, and continues to be, the leader of a pervasive and influential Islamist movement known as “Hizmet” (Service), which owns foundations, associations, media organizations, universities and schools in Turkey and many other countries. During the first decade of AKP rule, Gulen was a close ally of Erdoğan, and during the AKP's struggle to end the military's influence in Turkish politics, Gulen's movement played a major role as the strong arm of the government. Throughout this period, the AKP–Gulen alliance turned into their direct staffing of many public positions. The AKP and Gulenists shared an interest in finding a place for Islam in public life.