Directorate of Religious Affairs

Diyanet has been criticized for following mainstream Hanafi Sunni Islam and being "indifferent to the diversity of Turkish Islam", i.e. the non-Hanafi who make up "a third to two fifths" of Turkey's population.[9] Non-Hanafi self-identified Muslims in Turkey include "about 15 million Alevis, perhaps three million Shi’a, and over a million Nusayris (Alawites)", plus the 12–15 million Sunni Kurds who follow the Shafi’i and not the Hanafi school.[9]

The Diyants relations with the Alevi was ambiguous. During the Government of Süleyman Demirel, the Diyanets approach towards the Alevi became of a denialist nature as Ibrahim Elmali was opposed to the mere existence of the Alevi stating "There is no such thing as Alevis".[17] Still during the early 2000s, during a trial in the Turkish Court of Cassation, the Diyanet was strongly opposed to the recognition of Alevi associations or to research on Alevi heritage as it would lead to "separatism".[18] The Ministry of Culture and also the Council of State criticized this approach as the Alevi represented a part of the Turkish culture.[18] The Diyanet reponded denying any existence of a Alevi religion.[18] The Alevi were much more on the political agenda during the tenure of Mehmet Görmez, in which for the first time in the Diyanets history, a Alevi question was acknowledged.[19]

In 2010-2011, Diyanet began its transformation to "a supersized government bureaucracy for the promotion of Sunni Islam".[9] Diyanet chairman Ali Bardakoğlu, who had been appointed by a secularist president, was fired in late 2010 and replaced by Mehmet Görmez.[9] In 2010, while the AKP was involved in policy changes that ended bans on hijab, Bardakoğlu refused to recommend that Muslim women wear the hijab, saying the religion does not require it.[9]

Under the AKP government, the budget of the Diyanet quadrupled to over $2 billion by 2015, making its budget allocation 40 percent greater than the Ministry of the Interior's and equal to those of the Foreign, Energy, and Culture and Tourism ministries combined.[4] It now employs between 120,000[9] and 150,000 employees.[9][4][20]

Reforms undertaken in the administration of the İmam Hatip schools in 2012 have led to what one Turkish commentator called “the removal, in practice, of one of the most important laws of the revolution, the Tevhid-i Tedrisat (unity of education)".[9][21]

In 2012, Turkish President Abdullah Gül visited the institution and said “it is undoubtedly one of the most important duties of the Religious Affairs Directorate [i.e. the Diyanet] to teach our religion to our people in the most correct, clear and concise way and steer them away from superstition”.[22]

The Diyanet has been accused of serving for the ruling AKP party,[9] and of lavish spending (an expensive car and jacuzzi for its head Mehmet Görmez).[23]

Following the July 2016 coup attempt, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan removed 492 religious officials from the Diyanet.[15]

Also in 2016, Diyanet instructed affiliated imams and religious instances to collect detailed information on the Gülen movement. It handed 50 intelligence reports from 38 countries over to the Turkish parliament.[24][25][26]

In 2017, some argued that "Diyanet’s implication in Turkish domestic and foreign politics opens a new chapter on Erdoğan’s increasing authoritarianism".[27]

In 2018 Mustafa Çağrıcı claimed “The Diyanet of today has a more Islamist, more Arab worldview”.[28] The same year, Diyanet has suggested citizens practice e-fasting during Ramadan. E-fasting refers to cutting down on use of technologies such as smartphones, laptops and social media.[29]

The Diyanet began issuing fatwas on request sometime after 2011, and their number has been "rising rapidly".[9] Among the activities it found forbidden (haram) in Islam over a one-year period ending in late 2015 were: "feeding dogs at home, celebrating the western New Year, lotteries, and tattoos".[9]

Use of toilet paper is not prohibited by the Diyanet on condition water is also used. This matter was misunderstood by some non-Muslims since the majority do not use water for cleaning following urination or defecation. Muslims are required to purify themselves with water following these and some other bodily excretions. In an April 2015 fatwa that made news outside of Turkey's borders,[9] the Diyanet ruled its usage permissible within Islam though it emphasized that water should be the primary source of cleansing.[30]

Fatawa of the Diyanet that have come under criticism from some members of the Turkish public include an early 2016 ruling that engaged couples should not hold hands or spend time alone during their engagement period.[31][32]

In January 2016 a controversy arose over a fatwa which briefly appeared on the fatwa section of the Diyanet website, answering a reader's question on whether a man's marriage would become invalid marriage from a religious perspective if the man felt sexual desire for his daughter. The Diyanet posted a reply stating that there was a difference of opinion on the matter among Islam's different Madhhab (schools of religious jurisprudence). “For some, a father kissing his daughter with lust or caressing her with desire has no effect on the man’s marriage,” but the Hanafi school believed that the daughter's mother would become haram (forbidden) to such a man. A "social media storm" ensued with "scores of users appealed to the Telecommunications Presidency’s Internet Hotline accusing Turkey’s top religious body of `encouraging child abuse`.” The Diyanet subsequently removed the answer from its website, posting that the fatwa page was “under repair.” It later issued an official statement to the press, insisting that its response was distorted through “tricks, wiliness and wordplay” aiming to discredit the institution, and that it would take legal action against news reports of the response.[32][33][Note 1]

In February 2018, Diyanet stated that using left hand for eating or drinking is not desirable, warning that “demons eat and drink with their left hand.” Diyanet added that people with physical disabilities could use their left hand if necessary.[35] Yet, there are plenty of hadiths pointing to using the right hand for eating and drinking.[36] Scholars are in the view that obviously people can eat and drink with their left hand if they are left-handed.

The Diyanet, under Fondation religieuse islamique turque de Belgique, controls 70 out of the 300 mosques in Belgium and forms the largest network of Muslim communities.[42] In comparison to other Muslim organizations it has a simple method of operation. Muslims in Belgium buy or construct a mosque and donate the premises to the Diyanet. The Diyanet will then send an imam trained in Turkey and pay his salary. The imam will stay a few years then be rotated back to Turkey to pursue a career or be sent to another Diyanet mosque abroad. The imams are officials of the Turkish state.[42]

The Diyanet controls about 270 mosques in France and pays the salaries of about 150 Turkish imams in the country.[43]

The Turkish-Islamic Union for Religious Affairs (German: Türkisch-Islamische Union der Anstalt für Religion e.V., Turkish: Diyanet İşleri Türk-İslam Birliği), usually referred to as DİTİB, was founded in 1984 As of 2016, the DİTİB funds 900 mosques in Germany.[44] The headquarters of DİTİB is the Cologne Central Mosque in Cologne-Ehrenfeld.

Of the 475 mosques in the Netherlands in 2018, a plurality (146) are controlled by the Turkish Directorate of Religious Affairs (Diyanet). Diyanet implements the political ideology of the Turkish AKP party and employ imams trained in Turkey in mosques under its control. Critics of the Diyanet imams, some of whom do not speak Dutch, hinder the effective integration of Dutch-Turkish Muslims into the society of the Netherlands by promoting allegiance to the Turkish state while neglecting to promote loyalty to the Dutch state.[45]

According to Dagens Nyheter in 2017, nine mosques in Sweden have imams sent and paid for by the Turkish Directorate of Religious Affairs (Diyanet). Along with their religious duties, the imams are also tasked with reporting on critics of the Turkish government. According to Dagens Nyheter, propaganda for president Erdoğan and the AKP party is presented in the mosques.[46][45]

The Diyanet runs over a dozen mosques in the United States of America from the Diyanet Center of America based in the suburbs of the Washington D.C. Metropolitan Area.