Turkish Diyanet President Addresses Islamic World Future Alongside Islamist Leaders

The Diyanet Pres­i­den­t’s Islam­ic world uni­ty address brought togeth­er senior Turk­ish offi­cials and the World Mus­lim Schol­ars Union Gen­er­al Pres­i­dent at Gaziantep Forum II. On 22 Octo­ber 2025, Turkey’s Pres­i­den­cy of Reli­gious Affairs report­ed that Prof. Dr. Safi Arpaguş deliv­ered his mes­sage along­side Gaziantep Gov­er­nor Kemal Çeber, World Mus­lim Schol­ars Union Gen­er­al Pres­i­dent Ali Muhyid­din al-Karadaği, Diyanet Deputy Pres­i­dent Dr. Hüseyin Hazır­lar, and oth­er promi­nent offi­cials at the con­fer­ence themed “Where is the Islam­ic World Head­ing? Per­spec­tives for a Strong Future.” The arti­cle begins:

Diyanet Pres­i­dent Prof. Dr. Safi Arpaguş stat­ed that the Islam­ic world urgent­ly needs to begin a jour­ney of return to its essence, say­ing, “The sal­va­tion recipe for Mus­lims and all human­i­ty exists in the Quran, in the Sun­nah, and in our civ­i­liza­tion her­itage that emerged from these two.” Diyanet Pres­i­dent Prof. Dr. Safi Arpaguş par­tic­i­pat­ed in the “Gaziantep Forum II” pro­gram orga­nized in Gaziantep with the theme “Where is the Islam­ic World Head­ing? Per­spec­tives for a Strong Future.” Pres­i­dent Arpaguş, in his speech at the Şahin­bey Con­gress and Art Cen­ter, not­ed that dif­fer­ences such as race, lan­guage, sect, and school of thought, each of which are rich­es in the Islam­ic geog­ra­phy from Turk­istan to West­ern Sahara, from Africa to the Balka­ns, have been turned into tools of con­flict, stat­ing: “The share of exter­nal inter­ven­tions in all these events can­not be ignored, of course.

Read more: https://diyanet.gov.tr/tr-TR/Kurumsal/Detay/38090/insanligin-kurtulus-recetesi-kuranda-ve-sunnet-i-seniyede-mevcuttur

The World Mus­lim Schol­ars Union is the same orga­ni­za­tion known as the Inter­na­tion­al Union of Mus­lim Schol­ars (IUMS) head­ed by its pres­i­dent Ali  al-Qaradaghi. The IUMS is a promi­nent orga­ni­za­tion of Islam­ic the­olo­gians, some­times described as the “supreme author­i­ty of the Mus­lim Brotherhood.”

Key Points

• The Gaziantep Forum II pro­gram was attend­ed by Gaziantep Gov­er­nor Kemal Çeber, World Mus­lim Schol­ars Union Gen­er­al Pres­i­dent Ali Muhyid­din al-Karadaği, Diyanet Deputy Pres­i­dent Dr. Hüseyin Hazır­lar, Gaziantep Islam­ic Sci­ence and Tech­nol­o­gy Uni­ver­si­ty Rec­tor Prof. Dr. Şehmus Demir, and Turkey Nation­al Agency Pres­i­dent İlker Astarcı.
• Pres­i­dent Arpaguş stat­ed that the Islam­ic world must urgent­ly begin a jour­ney of return­ing to its essence and find solu­tions to prob­lems from the Quran, Sun­nah, and its own civ­i­liza­tion roots.
• The Diyanet Pres­i­dent empha­sized that Mus­lims have no way out except to devel­op coop­er­a­tion in sci­en­tif­ic, intel­lec­tu­al, polit­i­cal, eco­nom­ic, mil­i­tary, and sim­i­lar fields and to estab­lish com­mon insti­tu­tion­al structures.
• Arpaguş declared that espe­cial­ly events on the Pales­tine and Gaza axis have shown that the Islam­ic world can only solve its own prob­lems with­out exter­nal inter­fer­ence when it devel­ops cooperation.

The Diyanet: Turkey’s Vehicle for Religious Influence Operations

Turkey’s Pres­i­den­cy of Reli­gious Affairs, known as Diyanet, func­tions as a sophis­ti­cat­ed vehi­cle for Turk­ish influ­ence oper­a­tions across Europe and beyond. Found­ed in 1924 to monop­o­lize con­trol of Sun­ni Islam under state over­sight, the insti­tu­tion trans­formed dra­mat­i­cal­ly after Pres­i­dent Erdoğan’s Jus­tice and Devel­op­ment Par­ty took pow­er in 2002. The AKP quadru­pled Diyanet’s bud­get and installed lead­ers aligned with its polit­i­cal agen­da, con­vert­ing a once-sec­u­lar insti­tu­tion into a pri­ma­ry instru­ment of Turk­ish soft pow­er. With a 2025 bud­get exceed­ing $3.7 bil­lion, Diyanet over­sees near­ly 90,000 mosques domes­ti­cal­ly and oper­ates in 145 coun­tries, employ­ing over 143,000 personnel.

The orga­ni­za­tion’s transna­tion­al reach cen­ters on con­trol­ling reli­gious dis­course with­in dias­po­ra com­mu­ni­ties through net­works like DITIB, Ger­many’s largest Turk­ish-Mus­lim umbrel­la asso­ci­a­tion. Diyanet sends imams to these mosques and pays their salaries through Turk­ish con­sulates, main­tain­ing direct con­trol over ser­mon con­tent deliv­ered across thou­sands of Euro­pean mosques. Beyond reli­gious ser­vices, these imams have par­tic­i­pat­ed in intel­li­gence gath­er­ing on Turk­ish dis­si­dents abroad. Ger­many cut fund­ing to DITIB in response, while France closed Diyanet’s bank accounts and end­ed pro­grams allow­ing for­eign coun­tries to send reli­gious teach­ers with­out French oversight.

Turkey uses reli­gion to gain polit­i­cal, ide­o­log­i­cal, and secu­ri­ty influ­ence par­tic­u­lar­ly in regions with sig­nif­i­cant Turk­ish immi­grant pop­u­la­tions. The Diyanet Cen­ter of Amer­i­ca exem­pli­fies this strat­e­gy, over­see­ing numer­ous U.S. mosques. In Bel­gium, Diyanet’s pres­i­dent met with Turk­ish NGO lead­ers and politi­cians dur­ing offi­cial vis­its, coor­di­nat­ing through the Bel­gian Diyanet Foun­da­tion, which con­trols approx­i­mate­ly 70 mosques. These net­works inter­sect with orga­ni­za­tions includ­ing the Union of Inter­na­tion­al Democ­rats and groups linked to the Mil­lî Görüş movement.

Euro­pean gov­ern­ments increas­ing­ly view Diyanet’s expan­sion with alarm. Aus­tria passed leg­is­la­tion pro­hibit­ing for­eign reli­gious offi­cers from deliv­er­ing ser­vices, forc­ing dozens of Diyanet imams to return to Turkey. Ger­many debates sim­i­lar mea­sures while doc­u­ment­ing Diyanet’s role in pro-Erdoğan pro­pa­gan­da and sur­veil­lance. Despite these coun­ter­mea­sures, Diyanet con­tin­ues expand­ing, allo­cat­ing $17.3 mil­lion in 2025 for train­ing pro­grams designed to recruit dias­po­ra mem­bers hold­ing cit­i­zen­ship in host coun­tries, train them in Turkey, and deploy them as local­ly cre­den­tialed imams who main­tain loy­al­ty to Ankara’s reli­gious and polit­i­cal direction.

Exter­nal References:
— Trans­for­ma­tion of the Turk­ish Diyanet both at Home and Abroad: Three Stages
— Transna­tion­al­i­sa­tion of Turk­ish Islam: Nav­i­gat­ing Glob­al Influ­ence Through Faith
— Erdo­gan’s noto­ri­ous reli­gious author­i­ty eyes glob­al expan­sion, aim­ing to reach 2.1 mil­lion peo­ple abroad in 2025

Dis­claimer:

The Glob­al Influ­ence Oper­a­tions Report (GIOR) uti­lizes AI through­out the post­ing process, includ­ing the gen­er­a­tion of sum­maries for news items, intro­duc­tions, key points, and, often, the “con­text” sec­tion. We rec­om­mend ver­i­fy­ing all infor­ma­tion before use. Addi­tion­al­ly, all images are gen­er­at­ed using AI and are intend­ed sole­ly for illus­tra­tive pur­pos­es. While they rep­re­sent the events or indi­vid­u­als dis­cussed, they should not be inter­pret­ed as real-world photography.