Directorate of Religious Affairs (Diyanet)

Pres­i­den­cy of Reli­gious Affairs (Diyanet) is Turkey’s state insti­tu­tion for admin­is­ter­ing Sun­ni-Islam­ic reli­gious ser­vices, cre­at­ed in 1924 to bring reli­gious life under repub­li­can over­sight while pre­serv­ing the country’s sec­u­lar frame­work. Con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly man­dat­ed, it man­ages more than 80,000 mosques, appoints and trains imams, issues week­ly ser­mons, over­sees reli­gious edu­ca­tion and chap­lain­cy, and sup­ports Turk­ish Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ties abroad through attachés and foun­da­tions. Since the 2000s its bud­get, staff, and inter­na­tion­al foot­print have expand­ed sig­nif­i­cant­ly, and many ana­lysts view the Diyanet as both a domes­tic ser­vice provider and a soft-pow­er instru­ment for Ankara. The insti­tu­tion main­tains it offers uni­fied, non-par­ti­san guid­ance, while crit­ics argue its grow­ing role reflects politi­ciza­tion and insuf­fi­cient accom­mo­da­tion of non-Sun­ni tra­di­tions such as Alevism.

References

• The Rise of Diyanet: The Politi­ciza­tion of Turkey’s Direc­torate of Reli­gious Affairs (Turkey Analyst)
• Trans­for­ma­tion of the Turk­ish Diyanet both at Home and Abroad (Euro­pean Jour­nal of Turk­ish Studies)
• Turkey — 2023 Report on Inter­na­tion­al Reli­gious Free­dom (U.S. Depart­ment of State)
• Pres­i­den­cy of Reli­gious Affairs — Offi­cial Website
• The Turk­ish Diyanet in the UK (LSE Reli­gion and Glob­al Society)