Mahmut Ustaosmanoğlu

Ustaosmanoğlu was born to a village imam in Miço (now Tavşanlı) village of the Of district. He became a hafiz under his father by the age of 10 and continued his madrasa education, gaining his ijazah by the age of 16. Afterwards he married his cousin and started his work as an imam.[1]

In 1952, Ustaosmanoğlu met Ahıskalı Ali Haydar Efendi (Gürbüzler), a Naqshbandi sheikh who he became his murshid. Ali Haydar Efendi appointed him as the imam of the İsmailağa Mosque in 1954.[2] By the year 1960, Ustaosmanoğlu's life had its greatest turn after Ali Haydar Efendi's demise and he became the leader of the path (tariqa). In 1996, he retired as the imam of the İsmailağa Mosque.[2]

Ustaosmanoğlu tried to keep a low profile in the following years, especially after the 1997 memorandum, but his relations came under public spotlight with a series of internal strife in the sect. His son-in-law Hızır Ali Muratoğlu was murdered in 1998 and in 2006, a retired imam named Bayram Ali Öztürk was murdered in the mosque and the man who stabbed him to death was lynched by the congregation.[3][4][5]

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is known to maintain close relations with Ustaosmanoğlu and a prosecution from 2007 to 2009 including wiretapping led to Erdoğan himself.[6] Erdoğan paid a highly publicised visit to Ustaosmanoğlu the night before the presidential election in 2014.[7]