A close friend of the Turkish president reveals Erdogan’s goal of resurrecting Ottoman religious authority

Abdallah Bozkurt/Stockholm

A television interview with Sadık Albayrak, brother-in-law of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and a longtime ideologue of Turkey’s political Islamist movement, revealed that Erdogan personally told him of his plans to revive the Ottoman-era Meşihat, the office of Şeyhülislam (Sheikh al-Islam or Grand Mufti), which once served as the supreme religious authority in the Ottoman Empire.

Albayrak, 84, who has written extensively on the Ottoman religious establishment, the caliphate, Islamic law (Sharia) and the first Republican dismantling of Islamic institutions, used the program broadcast on Islamist television channel Yeni Akit to highlight what he described as the destruction, neglect and possible restoration of the ancient Meşihat complex in Istanbul, once the seat of the empire’s highest religious authority.

The office of Şeyhülislam fulfilled a number of essential functions in the Ottoman state. He advised the sultan on religious matters, confirmed the legitimacy of newly enthroned sultans, legitimized government policies through religious decrees, and oversaw the appointment of judges throughout the empire. The fatwas issued by the office effectively had the force of law. The institution remained in operation until 1924, when the newly founded Turkish Republic abolished both the Caliphate and the Ottoman religious hierarchy.

Today, according to a prominent figure in Erdogan’s family circle, the resurrection of this institution appears to be seriously considered almost a century later.

Born in 1940, Albayrak was educated in imam-hatip religious schools and later became active in the Islamist political movement Milli Görüş (National View) during the 1960s and 1970s, a Turkish ideological current widely seen as the local affiliate of the broader Islamist network inspired by the Muslim Brotherhood.

He worked for 15 years at Turkey’s religious affairs directorate, the Diyanet İşleri Başkanlığı (Presidency of Religious Affairs), before being fired, prosecuted and convicted of violating Turkish law. He later became a prominent commentator in Islamist publications such as Milli Gazete and Yeni Devir, newspapers closely linked to the Milli Görüş movement.

Milli Görüş was founded by Necmettin Erbakan, an openly anti-Western and anti-Semitic Islamist politician widely considered the architect of modern political Islamism in Türkiye. Erdogan himself was politically nurtured in the tradition of Milli Görüş before eventually breaking away from it to form his own party, the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP).

Albayrak’s remarks are difficult to dismiss as a fringe comment given his family’s political influence within Erdogan’s ruling establishment. One of his sons, Berat Albayrak, is married to Erdogan’s daughter, Esra Albayrak Erdogan, and previously served as Treasury Minister and Energy Minister. Another son, Serhat Albayrak, for nearly two decades headed the Erdogan family-controlled Turkuvaz media conglomerate, which includes dozens of publications and television channels, including the government’s flagship propaganda organs, the Sabah daily and the A Haber television channel.

The media group has long been accused of coordinating psychological influence campaigns in close cooperation with Turkey’s National Intelligence Organization (Milli İstihbarat Teşkilatı, MIT), operating troll networks on social media, and running secret anti-Western and anti-Semitic disinformation platforms that promote conspiracy theories targeting Jews, Western governments, and opposition groups.

This vast media machine helped normalize and mainstream Albayrak’s long-held ideological views, shaping public discourse and influencing the social and political psyche of Turkish society in increasingly radical directions. Because Albayrak sits firmly within the inner circle of Turkey’s ruling elite, his historical accounts carry substantial political weight, particularly when they intersect with current debates about religion, governance, and state authority under Erdogan, who increasingly presents himself as the de facto leader of Muslims around the world.

During the interview, Albayrak recalled how he once worked in the building that housed the Ottoman Meşihat and the Şeyhülislam office. He lamented that the office became vacant after the abolition of the Ottoman religious establishment in the early Republican era and that the building was later transformed into a girls’ high school, Istanbul Kız Lisesi, before finally being destroyed in a fire.

He blamed the destruction on the school’s administration, alleging that parties and festivities held there contributed to the fire and suggesting, without evidence, that it may have been arson. His comments present the destruction of the complex not only as the loss of a historic building, but as part of a broader erasure of Islamic legal and institutional memory in Republican Turkey.

Albayrak revealed during the interview that he personally urged Erdogan to restore the Meşihat complex. According to him, he presented Erdogan with a signed copy of “İlmiye Salnamesi,” a 700-page historical yearbook published in 1916, containing numerous documentary materials and photographs related to the institution and the building itself.

He revealed that Erdogan later ordered the reconstruction of the religious complex, but that effort was met with bureaucratic obstacles, property disputes and resistance from Istanbul University, which currently runs a botanical institute at the original site.

The show’s host concluded the segment by openly calling for the restoration of the complex, expressing hope that the interview would generate public momentum for rebuilding the institution.

These remarks strongly suggest that Erdogan is personally committed to the project but is waiting for the right moment and political conditions before moving forward, just as he did with the reconversion of the Hagia Sophia from a museum to a mosque in 2020, almost a century after the iconic structure was designated a museum by the Turkish Republic.

Albayrak has also called for the abolition of the Diyanet, implying that he favors replacing the current religious bureaucracy with a revitalized Ottoman-style religious authority centered around the Meşihat. The Diyanet, originally created by the republic to bring religion under state control and combat radicalism, has increasingly transformed under Erdogan into a political apparatus closely aligned with Islamist movements, including networks associated with the Muslim Brotherhood.

Apparently, those close to Erdogan and his ideological allies view even this transformation as insufficient and seek a broader revival of Ottoman religious authority that would more effectively serve their broader Islamist political vision.

Albayrak’s remarks reveal that the ancient Meşihat building remains a powerful symbol among Islamist circles who no longer view the Ottoman religious hierarchy as a relic of history but rather as a model whose institutional memory and governing philosophy should be restored in contemporary Turkey.

What Erdogan and his ideological allies ultimately seek is not simply the revival of a historic institution, but the use of religious symbolism to prop up an increasingly authoritarian and corrupt political order, consolidate support among hardline Islamist constituencies, and manufacture religious legitimacy for government policies carried out in the name of Islam while obscuring widespread allegations of corruption, bribery, and illicit enrichment surrounding the ruling elite.

The resurrection of the Meşihat could also serve as a powerful mobilization tool for Erdogan, allowing him to project his religious influence not only in Turkey but in the wider Muslim world. In such a framework, religious edicts issued by a reestablished Ottoman-style authority could be presented as binding guidelines for Muslims around the world, thereby reinforcing Erdogan’s ambition to position himself as a transnational Islamist leader.

In this sense, the Meşihat debate is not simply about the restoration of a historic building in Istanbul or the preservation of Ottoman cultural heritage. Rather, it reflects a much broader ideological struggle over whether Turkey’s Islamist ruling class intends to rehabilitate the Ottoman model of centralized religious authority as part of a long-term effort to reshape the Turkish state and society along Islamist lines and project new-found influence abroad among Muslim communities around the world.