Compliance or negotiation? Diyanet’s female preachers and the diffusion of a ‘true’ religion in Turkey

Abstract

This article addresses the religious activities of the female preachers (vaizeler) employed by the Turkish Presidency of Religious Affairs (Diyanet). It investigates the extent to which, and how, the activities carried out by the Diyanet’s vaizeler are in compliance with a state attempt to standardise and control female religious engagement. As religious officers, the vaizeler both spread and embody an organised religion. However, far from any dichotomous perspective, to assert their religious authority the Diyanet’s preachers navigate daily between compliance with the institution’s dogmas and negotiation with a plurality of interpretations labelled as unofficial, popular and traditional. To fully assess this issue, this article refers to ethnographic observations of everyday vaizeler’s preaching activities in Istanbul’s mosques. Conducted between 2013 and 2014, these observations are crucial for contextualising the evolution of the Turkish state monopoly over religious affairs, particularly in the aftermath of the July 2016 attempted coup.

Introduction

Established on 3 March 1924, after the suppression of the Islamic caliphate and the abolishment of the Ministry of Religious Affairs, the Presidency of Religious Affairs (hereafter Diyanet) is one of the emblems of Turkish secularism (laiklik). ¹ As an administrative office under the control of the Prime Minister, it embodies the Republican will to bureaucratize and control the expression of religion in the public sphere ² (Gözaydın, 2008: 217). Although its function and missions have evolved over the years, as a state agency, the Diyanet is in charge of hiring religious personnel, supervising the activities carried out in mosques through the network of provincial and local Mufti offices and elaborating a Turkish ‘true’ understanding of Islamic knowledge (doğru din).

Since 2003, the Diyanet has increased the number ³ of female employees, particularly preachers (in Turkish vaize, pl. vaizeler) employed across the country to reach as many women as possible and provide them with religious knowledge. This work investigates to what extent and how concretely the Turkish state monopoly over religion has evolved. In doing so, it focuses on the religious activities organised for women in mosques. Although employed by a state institution, vaizeler as religious officers both spread and embody an organised religion that inevitably brings into the existence of ‘unofficial’ religious communities. The article stems from the following question: to what extent and how are the activities carried out by the Diyanet’s female preachers in compliance with a state attempt to standardise and control female religiosity, or more in general women’s engagement in the religious realm?

Although the Diyanet’s personnel are necessarily plunged into a religiosity that both conforms to and is shaped by the orthodoxy of state institutions, the multiple facets of their religious engagement are worth considering. I argue that the institution of the vaize is particularly telling in assessing the changing nature of Turkish secularism; moreover, it encourages further development in the intertwined relations between the secularism and secularity in today’s Turkey. This requires a distinction between the activities carried out voluntarily by women affiliated with Islamic movements and congregations (Raudvere, 1998; Turam, 2007) and those occurring within the frame of the Diyanet. However, daily, the preachers navigate between compliance with the institution’s dogmas and negotiation with a plurality of interpretations labelled as, popular, peripheral, and traditional.

The distinction between the religiosity that the state defines as ‘superstition’ (hurafe) versus an official, ‘true’ religion (doğru din), an urban one, is not an exception. As Maria Jaschok extensively describes, in 1958, the Chinese government established democratic mosque management committees to take care of practical aspects of mosques, including the selection of religious leaders (Jaschok, 2012: 51). With the investigation of female leadership in China’s organised Islam emerges a state control of activities performed by religious leaders, which represent an official religion far from superstition. Such an unsolved duality in religious authority is extremely telling in relation to Turkey, where the opposition is far more complex and originated during the Ottoman Empire. These two worlds, one of religious official institutions and one of the confraternities (tarikatlar), have experienced mutual connections for centuries, even during the 1920s and 1930s predominance of official religious institutions. The literature widely recognises the intertwined relationship between the two fields and discusses engagement, recognition and penetration rather than a no-holds-barred conflict (Bayart, 2010).

Moreover, as professional religious experts (Hassan, 2012; Maritato, 2015; Tütüncü, 2010), the Diyanet’s preachers access positions, such as vice Muftis, ⁴ that were once only available to men. In this sense, this article productively converses with a flourishing body of literature related to women’s roles in official religious institutions such as churches, congregations, mosques and synagogues and the consequences of including and legitimating female roles and expertise within male-dominated institutions (Avishai, 2008; Bano and Kalmbach, 2012; Nadell, 2005; Rapoport et al., 1995; Shubowitz, 2010).

The article is organised as follows: in the introductory section, a framework of the relations between secularism and secularity in Turkey is outlined, stressing the definition of Turkish secularism as both a mission and an instrument of governing. In the second section, the evolution of the Turkish state monopoly over religion is investigated through the lens of the state-sponsored female preachers enrolled by the Diyanet. The preachers’ daily activities allow observing to what extent an organised religion tolerates spaces for negotiation with different religious interpretations; moreover, they elucidate how state control over religion in general and female religiosity in particular regularly occurs.

Methodology

To assess the role of Diyanet’s female preachers in a redefinition of female religiosity, I opted for political ethnography (Ybema et al., 2009) as the main methodology. It combines ‘field research tools of observing (with whatever degree of participation), conversing (including formal interviewing), and the close reading of documentary sources’ through ‘first-hand, field-based observation and experiences […] participating in organizational members’ lifeworlds, establishing working relationships with them’ (Ybema et al., 2009: 13).

For the purpose of describing and, as much as possible, understanding the activities of the Diyanet’s female personnel, I conducted one year of ethnographic research from February 2013 to February 2014 in different Istanbul neighbourhoods. ⁵ My research consisted of attending female preachers’ seminars and sermons, Qur’an readings and tefsir (exegesis of the Qur’an) sessions weekly in mosques and municipal cultural centres. In approaching what I was observing during my fieldwork, I firmly believe that my being both a foreigner and a non-Muslim pushed me to continuously dare to ask ‘obvious’ questions and to avoid taking issues for granted (Pechilis, 2013: 93–101). The months of observation were mainly devoted to approaching and becoming familiar with the preachers. Informal interviews and moments of socialisation were combined with mutual confidence building. I always introduced myself as a PhD student interested in knowing about vaizeler activities; my research, personal beliefs (not being Muslim) and family background raised questions and curiosities but never suspicion.

Although the methodology of my research was predominantly ethnographic, I also conducted formal, semi-structured interviews (some of them repeated) with Diyanet personnel at both the Istanbul Provincial (Il Müftülüğü’s) Mufti offices and the Ankara Diyanet Headquarters, Department of Family and Religious Guidance (Aile ve Dini Rehberlik Daire Baskanliği). In particular, I conducted in-depth interviews with personnel working on projects concerning women and family issues. Except for a few cases, I conducted mostly semi-structured interviews. In Ankara, in addition to Diyanet personnel, I interviewed experts, privileged observers from academia, religious foundations, and civil society organisations. The combination of observations and interviews allowed me to stress the intertwined relations between the individuality of female preachers and the institution (Diyanet) hiring them. Moreover, it helped me sharpen my questioning on the relations between the official religion and the preachers’ daily practices in the local context.

‘We never lived as secular people’: Reassessing secularism and secularity in Turkey

There are five days to go until the Republic Day. ⁶ In the main hall of the newly restored Üsküdar’s ‘Balaban’ tekke, ⁷ the vaize, Fatma, is giving a sermon. Seated in front of her, about 100 women of all ages take notes in their handbooks or on their tablets. During the talk, while mentioning the importance of technology in everyday life – particularly washing machines and fridges – she specifies television, saying: ‘In the past, TV had only one channel; not like today! In our home, we turned the TV off from the 24th of October to the first of November! In those days, there were only military marches on TV! Today is different: everyone can switch channels!’ ⁸

Fatma’s biographical narration is a crucial point from which to start addressing secularism in Turkey, specifically focusing on what secularism does more than what secularism is. Referring to a personal experience, Fatma not only reports that she has lived in a time when there was only one TV channel transmitting military marches just before the Republic Day. By stating that her family refused to watch TV in order to avoid secularist parades, she provides another relevant piece of information: military parades celebrating the foundation of Turkey’s secular state never entered the intimacy of her family’s living room.

Secularism in Turkey, the idea of a strong state apparatus engaged in spreading secular values throughout society, should thus be reframed: as a state discourse, ⁹ it counts among its audience a good turnout of conservative Muslims such as Fatma’s family, who ‘never lived as secular’.

The transition from the Ottoman Empire to Turkish Republic had a strong connection with the season of reforms that started in the mid-nineteenth century. With the declaration of the Turkish Republic on 29 October, 1923, and the fall of the House of Osman, a reconfiguration of the religious realm occurred. The founders of contemporary Turkish institutions named the relationship between religion and the state ‘laiklik’, deriving from the French laïcisme. Jean Baubérot’s distinction between secularisation and laicisation is, in this sense, worth considering. The author sees secularisation as a process of a gradual and relative loss of the social pertinence of religion, generally produced without clashes; laicisation to the contrary is associated with explicit tensions among different social forces and may even lead to an open conflict (Baubérot, 2013). From this perspective, a country can be laic but not secularised. That is, religion may lose power in relation to state institutions while exerting influence in social life. As Nilüfer Göle states, both secularism and laicism are about state politics, but they are not ‘neutral power-free space and a set of abstract principles; [they are] embodied in people’s agencies and imaginaries’ (Göle, 2010: 254). The two terms are distinguished in the literature addressing the Turkish case. The laiklik is generally translated into ‘secular’; ‘secularism’, according to Gözaydın, better adheres to the notion of ‘laicism’ (Gözaydın, 2008: 216–227).

The literature addressing the Turkish laiklik has been mainly devoted to the extent to which religion has been ‘excluded’ from the Turkish public sphere or included after being transformed and modernised. Ahmet Kuru defines Turkish laiklik as ‘assertive secularism’, that is, a state control over religion (Kuru, 2009: 176). This is opposed to a ‘passive secularism’ ¹⁰ promoted by the conservative parties and groups that want the state’s neutrality toward religion and a complete separation between the two realms. The laiklik, combined with positivism and modernisation, constituted the core principles of Kemalism, the Republican foundation ideology. However, although Islam stayed in the background for decades, it never disappeared from the stage (Sakallioğlu, 1996: 236). Despite the diffusion of positivist and materialist views, Islam, as a foundation of society, strengthened Turkish national identity. In light of these considerations, the reforms of the 1920s and 1930s are known for a complete Westernisation and a rationalisation of both the state and society against the backwardness of tradition and should thus be handled with care. As Niyazi Berkes notes, the ‘Constitutional basis for the Kemalist regime was completely secularised […] in 1928 by the amendment of Article 2 of the Constitution. This was a victory for the secularists, but it never reflected nor produced a clear and positive doctrine of secularism. That doctrine evolved to the stage where it could be given a formal expression in the revised Constitution of 1937’ (Berkes, 1998: 495).

In this sense, particularly until the 1950s, the practice of religion was perceived as completely personal and confined to the boundaries of the self; any collective practices were stigmatised and considered suspicious (Turam, 2007: 42). This implies not a lack of interest in religious matters but an increase in the policies regulating them. After fifteen years of religious conservative AKP governments, examining the evolution of state control over religion signifies attentively considering Diyanet’s role and practices. However central, this institution is not detached from the society in which it exists; rather, it muddles through it. In the past decade, the Diyanet’s structure and activity have become increasingly synchronised with the policies of the AKP while actively contributing to the public discussion of all manner of political and social affairs. As Sultan Tepe masterly concludes, instead of considering Turkey’s state-religion relations as static, an analysis of the Diyanet’s policies shows one of the side effects related to the establishment of the institution (Tepe, 2016: 188).

Islam and religious institutions followed a pragmatic streak, moulding and changing according to political and social evolution. Performing their activities in Istanbul mosques, the Diyanet’s female preachers cast light on a standardised female religiosity that, while being compliant to the institution dogma, negotiates spaces and authority within a hybrid and multifaceted religious landscape.

Negotiating official female religiosity in Istanbul Diyanet’s mosques

It is 2 pm on a hot summer day. In the large Şirinevler’s ¹¹ Ulu Mosque, Zehra, the vaize, is holding the last of four seminars in preparation for the pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina. Seated on the floor are approximately 40 men and 30 women in their sixties listening in two separate groups. Zehra is standing in the middle, showing her presentation slides and speaking into a microphone. Practical advice is provided to both groups, such as: ‘Never distance yourself from the others; always carry with you your identity card. […] It is easy to get angry in crowded places and hot temperatures, but you must always look for peace; […] we are guests and we all are brothers there.’ Once this first portion of the seminar is finished, Zehra politely asks the men to leave the mosque’s hall so that she can continue a women-only session. The women regroup close to her, asking many questions regarding dress code and cleanliness during the pilgrimage. Suddenly, shouts interrupt the session: ‘Get out of here! You are speaking too much and too loud! Women must not stay in the mosque!’ The women stop talking and do not react. Then, they start whispering to the vaize to keep calm and be patient: ‘Sabır! Sabır! Sakin Ol!’. Zehra continues speaking, trying to ignore the shouts. After a while, she replies in a calm and resolute way: ‘I will stay here. I am a Diyanet’s vaize, and I have a permit for being here. Let’s continue.’ At the end of the session, the mosque keeper and the imam come to apologise to Zehra, apologising for the people interrupting the speech. In a kind but resolute way, she states: ‘My seminars are approved and organised by the local Müftülüğü; therefore, what I do here is righteous.’ ¹²

Outside the mosque, drinking tea in a nearby café, Zehra and I had one of our longest and deepest conversations. She felt sad while mentioning the episode that had just occurred and referred to those men as people belonging to religious communities opposing women’s preaching in mosques. ‘Did you hear what they said?’ she asked me. ‘That women cannot stay in the mosque! Do they know that Ayşe, the beloved wife of Mohammed, was preaching and teaching Islam to the whole community? They are simply wrong.’

In their everyday engagement, the Diyanet’s preachers inevitably come in to contact with men (and women) opposing their work. The opposition might be men who negatively regard women’s ability to gather together in mosques but also women engaged in religious communities and/or mystical orders. Sufi orders (tarikatlar) and religious communities (cemaatlar) never disappeared from the Turkish religious landscape; on the contrary, they play a relevant role in shaping the religious identity. ¹³ As I described in the previous section, since the early Kemalist era, Sunni Islam as both a legitimising force and a unifying ideology resulted in an ambiguous position: on the one side, the state imposed its control over Qur’an courses and the sermons delivered in mosques to oppose Islamic irtica (reaction or fundamentalism); on the other side, an ‘official’ Turkish Islam was included as part of the state’s ideology. This is a dimension of the issue that calls into question the aforementioned huge body of literature debating a Turkish ‘Lausannian’, ¹⁴ Islam d’État, versus an ‘unofficial, spiritual, Anatolian’ one. Currently in Turkey, religious communities organise weekly female preaching sessions and meetings (zikr) in houses and in students’ dormitories. ¹⁵

Therefore, the point at stake is: is this engagement aimed at strengthening the state’s involvement in a religious sphere and thus reducing the activity of congregational female preachers (abla), or is it more an attempt to provide similar services through an official label?

On this matter, despite the Diyanet’s hierarchical and pervasive control, a state monopoly over religion has been far from being completely achieved. Women’s meetings outside the control of imams or religious hierarchies have been generally associated with uncontrolled Sufi activities. Although formally outlawed in 1925 by Revolutionary Law, Sufi orders (tarikat) and affiliated communities are ‘popular and influential in Turkish society’ (Shively, 2008: 692). Women traditionally participate in religious communities (cemaat), organising preaching sessions and weekly collective meetings (zikr) in houses. Hatice Güler, who in the early 2000s played an active role in fostering women’s access within the Diyanet’s hierarchies, declares on this point:

Besides the male and female religious officials sent by the Diyanet, there are other communities which sent their preachers. However, the Diyanet is more official and formal: it is first and foremost a state institution. […] It should take precautions since there are some dangerous groups that are against it […] but we must pay attention to one thing: the Diyanet’s personnel is educated, is expert in pedagogy as well. In Turkey to a certain extent anyone wearing a tunic and having read some religious book say ‘I am a scholar/teacher (hocayım)’ and people start gathering around him. This is very common. However, the Diyanet’s personnel at least to be enrolled should be more educated, and then by the fact that they are official some people trust them more. ¹⁶

Hence, the Diyanet’s engagement in the ‘fight’ (mücadele is the Turkish word often recurring in conversations) against ‘superstition’ (hurafe) was symbolised by the presence of a large number of people affiliated with religious orders and communities widespread across the country. ¹⁷

However, in the everyday, this ‘fighting’ for the diffusion of a ‘right’ religious knowledge is bumping into a suppler relationship between the Diyanet and religious communities. In this sense, the Diyanet acts as an umbrella institution, promoting inclusion (herkese kapısı açık, literally ‘to leave the door open to anyone’; this also recurs in interviews and talks with Diyanet’s personnel) and thus opposing the sectarian nature of the cemaatlar. On this point, Züleyha, the vaize of Istanbul’s Beyoğlu district avers:

In Turkey, there are many tarikatlar [Sufi orders] and, of course, these are also in the Diyanet. But generally not at the highest offices. This is because the Diyanet is like an umbrella which include all interpretations of Islam. In my view, it is like the cars in the highway’s lanes: every one chooses its own way, but in the end the destination is the same: we all are Muslim and we all are brothers. ¹⁸

Additionally, the Diyanet’s preachers often use mystical examples in their sermons, and they refer to Sufi spirituality (tasavvuf) as a model of conduct. Moreover, another element is worth considering. Compared to women operating in these Islamic networks, the Diyanet’s female preachers are considerably small in number. Furthermore, Islamic congregations are promoting an exclusive affiliation and loyalty among members (Hassan, 2012: 92). Over the years, the Diyanet and religious communities were engaged in forms of cohabitation, if not mutual inclusion. On this point, Huriye Martı, who, at the time of this research, worked as the head of the Diyanet’s Department of Family and Religious Guidance, states:

It is impossible to know the religious affiliation of all the students graduated from theology. Yet, when she passes the exam, a vaize is first of all bounded to the Diyanet. This means that she represents the institution before any other affiliation. Even if a preacher follows only a particular cemaat, she is under the control of the Mufti and the other Diyanet’s personnel working in the mosque. So, in cases of complains, they will report to the Diyanet. ¹⁹

Being enrolled in a state institution provides the Diyanet’s preachers with legitimacy. Moreover, as Jaschok affirms while considering the case of Chinese ahong preachers, being registered as official religious leaders has strengthened their position in their claim to social status (Jaschok, 2012: 55). However, with regard the Diyanet’s vaizeler, the professionalisation of female preaching could lead one to suppose a standardisation of the preachers’ practices allowing autonomous references to the sacred texts only within the boundary lines of the institution’s interpretation.

A few weeks after my return from my fieldwork in Turkey, I was contacted by an anthropologist who wanted to write an article about the Turkish vaizeler for an Italian weekly magazine, Io Donna. The editorial staff sent a professional photographer to Istanbul. Before his departure, I gave him the contact information for a group of preachers so that they could easily arrange to meet. However, mediation was necessary because of a concern voiced by Fatma, the vaize of Istanbul’s Üsküdar municipality: ‘You know’, she wrote me via email, ‘we are devlet memurluğu [civil servants], and without obtaining a yasal izin [official permit] from the Istanbul Müftülüğü, we cannot meet with journalists or photographers.’ ²⁰

As this email conversation shows, one of the peculiarities of Turkish religious officers is that they are first and foremost bureaucrats, civil servants, ²¹ subject to state appointment and control. The preacher invoked her membership in a state body: to abide by a hierarchical protocol, she had to inform her superiors about any participation in extra-institutional activity.

The Diyanet preachers’ mission to enlighten Muslim women with religious knowledge is related to their role of civil servants incorporating ‘nationalist and statist elements’ (Tütüncü, 2010: 611). Moreover, the vaizeler are bearers of an academic religiosity leading to a redefinition of the polarisation ‘official’ vs. ‘unofficial’ in terms of ‘academic’ religion vs. ‘superstition’. However, an observation of the daily practices encourages a careful consideration of the mutual interactions between official orthodoxy and the plurality of voices emerging from the field. Although the vaizeler’s number has increased in the last decade, their activities are still less known compared to those organised by ‘unofficial’ communities. Mona Hassan reports that as late as 2005, the Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation (TESEV) found that ‘practically none of the ‘devout women’ (dindar kadınlar) in their sample group knew of any female civil servants responsible for religious affairs (din görevlisi), although they were well acquainted with the activities of Islamic groups and mystical orders’ participating in their home-based sections (Hassan, 2011: 463).

In the market of Turkish religious authorities, this manifold panorama of voices ensures the Diyanet in a position of oligopoly or, better, of monopolistic competition, rather than in a monopoly. The vaizeler’s high religious education emerged as a conditio sine qua non for the definition of a modern religiosity allegedly free from superstition and false beliefs. Fatma Bayraktar, ²² who at the time of this research worked both as a vaize in Ankara and at the Diyanet Department for Family and Religious Services, describes education as a crucial element for having a ‘personal and modern vision’, especially regarding women’s issues:

Let’s take, for example, the fact that women must not work outside home. There is no mention in the Qur’an, nor in the life of the Prophet […] the same for the marriage of little girls; we can say to the people this is not in the Qur’an! That is the reason why education is important. And the mosques are an educational place, like the schools… ²³

Fatma Bayraktar particularly stresses this point:

You know, to be a believer is not like being a theologian. I am a theologian. Here [at the Diyanet], we are not talking about feelings. It is necessary to learn the true religion (doğru din) […] if you are member of a religious group, they are going to tell you a partial vision which is of that group; but if you are a graduate from the faculty of theology, that education is objective and different from the ablalar ’s [female preachers from religious congregations] one. Normally, the latter consists of listening to many sermons until you start to give sermons too. […] Those who graduate from theology have a broader perspective. Of course, this does not mean that all the theologians have this vision, but I say that 60–70 percent of them, yes, they have. And this is very important! ²⁴

Discussing with both Diyanet’s personnel and theologians, the religious education acquired at the faculty of theology marks a division between two worlds: that of theologians and that of religious masters. Seyna Arslan, a professor teaching at the Faculty of Theology of Istanbul University, clearly expresses this point:

We [ilahiyatçı, theologians who graduated from faculties of theology] are academicians, so we must not be partial in supporting one religious interpretation. We are not preachers, […] some of them are famous, like Fethullah Gülen, and some others are theologians, retired professors from the faculties of theology, like Hayarettin Karaman. ²⁵ […] Some are not theologians at all, as Cübbeli Ahmet or Mustafa Islamoğlu […]; some of them are stars, even comical! […] Yet they are followed by many people, particularly artisans, merchants, taxi drivers […] the point is that theologians are not ‘men of religion’; they ‘talk about religion’ (din içinden değil, din hakkında konuşuyorlar). ²⁶

The faculties of theology, one of the emblems of the Republican attempt to rule over religion, provide a variety of academic courses – philosophy, sociology, psychology, logic, English or French combined with Arabic, the study of Qur’an, Sunna, and history of religion. The high level of education these women achieved could also give rise to contrasting views vis-à-vis family’s traditions:

It is possible that what is narrated and passed down within the family can be different, especially concerning women’s issues. Yet, when stepping into religious true knowledge, you can say, ‘Hey, wait a minute! This is wrong!’ ²⁷

However, the extent to which such an academic religiosity is ‘objective’ and ‘liberating’ should be critically assessed, particularly in light of the Muslim feminist approach, which considers female interpretations of religious texts as a way to overcome misogynous elements that are the fruit of centuries of a male-dominated exegesis. When interpreting the Qur’an or the Sunna, the vaizeler do not share Muslim feminists’ approach (Ahmed, 1992; Badran, 2009; Moghadam, 2002; Mohanty, 1988; Wadud, 2006). The main purpose of their engagement is to diffuse religious knowledge rather than to liberate women from any subaltern conditions. This aspect is well explained by Hicret Toprak, the President of the Diyanet’s Foundation Centre for Women, Family and Youth (KAGEM), who notes that within the Diyanet, feminism is perceived as a pejorative concept:

You would not meet any vaize who will tell you, ‘I am a feminist’, because within the Diyanet’s community still today, this is something very pejorative. No one stands up and says, ‘Yes, I am a Muslim feminist’, and this is also not recommended. However, in their activities, the vaizeler share feminism’s objectives, not its philosophy. ²⁸

I argue that this aspect is crucial in understanding the vaizeler’s in-between position between the state and society as well as their status as religious experts (Maritato, 2016). Although they perceive their role as enlightening and relieving women from ignorance and superstitions, the vaizeler embody a female participation paternalistically and politically octroyée by the state and its male religious hierarchies. In this sense, women’s role within a state body, which is a religious official institution, should fruitfully converse with the literature on the changing nature of women’s religious authorities (Bano and Kalmbach, 2012).

Concluding remarks

The article assesses how the notion of the Turkish state’s monopoly over religion in general and female religiosity in particular has evolved with regard to the institution of female preachers (vaizeler) employed by the Turkish Presidency of Religious Affairs (Diyanet). In the Turkish case, this aspect calls into question the state’s role in conceptually defining and practically legitimising the forms and meanings of religion. As Sinem Gürbey brilliantly states, the state’s power of defining Islam exactly reproduces this dichotomy; with regard to religion, it is necessary to separate what is perceived as tradition and what the secular state defines as a system of beliefs separated from the practices and confined in the private sphere (Gürbey, 2009: 372).

The institutionalisation of a female figure providing women with religious knowledge might support the idea of a state interference in the public dimension of female religiosity. Investigating the role of the Diyanet’s vaizeler, Mona Hassan notes that women’s inclusion within the official preaching workforce ‘signifies a transformation of hitherto predominantly private forms of women’s religiosity into a public affair subject to state regulation’ (Hassan, 2012: 452). Fatma Tütüncü expands the focus, assessing the vaize institution as a tool ‘to understand the sovereign power of the Turkish state, which exceptionally defines legitimate religious subjectivities, politicizes religiousness, and mobilizes on women campuses’ (Tütüncü, 2010: 559–560).

The role played by the Diyanet in discerning between official and unofficial Islam is of seminal relevance. Over the years, the Diyanet’s alleged monopoly has been perceived as an arena where different religious interpretations could coexist, although the Diyanet’s activities were always labelled as ‘academic’ and ‘official’ compared to those that are ‘uncontrolled’ and conducted by ‘unofficial’ religious communities (cemaatlar). From what I could discern during my fieldwork, this mutual tolerance, the idea of the Diyanet as an ‘umbrella’ that is able to embrace and represent the plurality of interpretations characterising Islam in Turkey, was confirmed by many of my interlocutors, even those occupying high offices at the institution. Therefore, the issue is more complex, and it envisages the permeability between the two camps: rather than describing the Turkish state as an actor that, according to the conjuncture, decides to open up (or not) to Islam, mutual forms of trespassing and negotiation between the two camps emerge. The Diyanet vaizeler provide thus new evidence opposing the dichotomy between ‘official’ and ‘unofficial’ Islam. The latter, as Talal Asad explains, fits within two political structures: the city (state) and the countryside (tribes), that is, the ulema and the saints. These different notions are ‘textual constructions’. Tradition should not necessarily lead to a lack of reasoning and an unthinking conformity. Traditional practices are neither static nor self-referential; they are open to reason and argument (Asad, 1986: 13–16).

In light of the corruption scandals ²⁹ that occurred on 17 December 2013, the cohabitation of multiple religious interpretations under the roof of the Diyanet wavered, particularly the one related to the most influential of the religious communities, ‘Hizmet’, which is guided by Fetullah Gülen and was until 2013 the closest ally of the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Parti, AKP) governments. The ‘fight’ against unofficial interpretations of religious texts marked as superstitious thus assumed renewed importance and should be further explored, particularly in the aftermath of the attempted 15 July 2016 coup realised at the time of the redaction of this article. In the aftermath of the coup attempt, a wave of purges and detentions targeted people at various levels connected to the Gülen community who were accused of having orchestrated the coup itself. The Diyanet has not been spared: employees accused of being connected with the Gülen movement have been suspended. ³⁰ Although it is probably too early to assess the effects of such a political shuffling, the government seems prone to centralising power and controlling religious affairs. This can be gauged by investigating the role played by the Diyanet – a state agency with a network presence across the country – in this centralising mission. This operation started far before the 2016 attempted coup: in the last decade, the AKP government promoted both an increase in the economic investments and a reorganisation of the Diyanet, whose budget reached over $2 billion. With almost 120,000 people employed, it became one of Turkey’s largest state agencies (Öztürk, 2016: 629). Moreover, during the dramatic night of the coup, when about 300 people lost their lives, the Diyanet played an important role: the President, Mehmet Görmez, issued an order to all the imams to go to their mosques and recite the sala prayer. This prayer is normally read at mosques to announce a funeral but that night was read in Turkey’s mosques to commemorate democracy martyrs. In addition, in the days after the attempted coup, the Diyanet stated that no burial services would be provided to the coup suspects and echoed the government’s accusation of the Hizmet Movement led by Fethullah Gülen as the main party responsible for the attempted coup. ³¹

In light of these considerations, any analysis of the Diyanet’s recent transformation needs to critically assess not only whether and to what extent this state institution acts as a ‘mouthpiece’ of the ruling party (Öztürk, 2016), echoing a Kemalist mission to oppose the traditional and unofficial Islam (Türkmen, 2009), but also the extent to which its employees comply with the institution’s dogmas, avoiding any negotiation with ‘unofficial’ religious interpretations.