Secularism, Laicism and Religion in the Turkish Republic

The Turkish Republic, founded by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk in 1923 after the Ottoman Empire's collapse, adopted a distinctive form of secularism known as laicism, abolishing the Ottoman caliphate in 1924 and placing all religious affairs under a state body, the Presidency of Religious Affairs or Diyanet, which appoints imams, writes standardized Friday sermons and controls mosque administration to this day, an arrangement that manages Sunni Islam through the state rather than separating the two entirely.

Alevi communities have long objected to the Diyanet's exclusively Sunni character, since their own cemevi worship houses receive no equivalent state funding or legal recognition as places of worship, a grievance repeatedly raised before the European Court of Human Rights. Headscarf bans in public institutions, in place for decades under strict laicist policy, were progressively lifted in the civil service, universities and finally the military between 2013 and 2017 under the Justice and Development Party government, reflecting a broader contested shift some scholars describe as a re-Islamization of public life and others describe as expanded religious freedom for a pious Muslim majority previously restricted by a secularist elite.