The Evolution of Imam Hatip Schools in Turkiye: From Kemalist Secularism to the Educational Politics of the AKP Era
Abstract
This article analyzes the historical and political evolution of Imam Hatip schools in Turkiye, tracing their transformation from marginal religious institutions under Kemalist secularism to significant contributors to national education during the AKP administration. Drawing on archival research, policy documents, and interviews with educators, the study examines how shifts in political ideology have shaped curriculum design, school governance, and public perceptions. The findings reveal that Imam Hatip schools have expanded both numerically and functionally, embodying a hybrid identity between general and religious education. However, the expansion also raises debates regarding educational equity, ideological influence, and academic outcomes. The article argues that the Imam Hatip model reflects broader tensions between secular republican values and religiously oriented educational policies. This study provides insight into the complex interplay between religion, politics, and schooling in contemporary Turkiye.
References
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Mohd Nor, M. R., & Ibrahim, M. K. (2020). Conflicts of religious education in a secular state: A study on Turkey’s Imam-Hatip School. Qudus International Journal of Islamic Studies, 8(1), 107–130. https://doi.org/10.21043/QIJIS.V8I1.5849
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Sarfati, Y. (2017). How Turkey’s slide to authoritarianism defies modernization theory. Turkish Studies, 18(3), 395–415. https://doi.org/10.1080/14683849.2017.1315304
Sayari, S., & Hasanov, A. (2008). The 2007 Elections and Parliamentary Elites in Turkey: The Emergence of a New Political Class? Turkish Studies, 9(2), 345–361. https://doi.org/10.1080/14683840802012108
Sen, A. (2022). Articulations of Islamic nationalism in the educational reform discourse of ‘new Turkey.’ Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 43(2), 205–216. https://doi.org/10.1080/01596306.2020.1817859
Sidik, M. F., Vachruddin, V. P., Rusydiyah, E. F., Pertiwi, A. S., & Darmawan, M. A. (2024). Conceptualization of the Integrated Islamic Religious Education Curriculum: A Literature Study at Imam Hatip Schools Turkey and MAN Insan Cendekia Indonesia. Jurnal Pendidikan Agama Islam, 21(1), 111–130. https://doi.org/10.14421/jpai.v21i1.7617
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Türegün, A. (2025). The political ideology of Turkey’s Islamist swing under Erdoğan. Journal of Political Ideologies, 30(2), 540–562. https://doi.org/10.1080/13569317.2023.2296395
Usman, A. C., Bulut, S., & Kaplan, M. (2025). Personal and social factors as a determinate of adolescent smoking. Journal of Substance Use, 30(4), 615–621. https://doi.org/10.1080/14659891.2024.2374798
Yaşar, A. (2020). Reform in Islamic Education and the AKP’s Pious Youth in Turkey. Religion & Education, 47(4), 106–120. https://doi.org/10.1080/15507394.2020.1828232
Yılmaz, H. (2019). Between Turk and Muslim: children and the Qur’an courses after the 1928 Alphabet Law. Paedagogica Historica, 55(6), 812–828. https://doi.org/10.1080/00309230.2019.1672764
Zengİn, M., & Hendek, A. (2023). The Future of Imam Hatip Schools as a Model for Islamic Education in Türkiye. Religions, 14(3). https://doi.org/10.3390/rel14030375
Akşit, B., & Akşit, E. E. (2010). Shifting Conceptions of Science, Religion, Society and State in Turkey. Middle East Critique, 19(1), 71–87. https://doi.org/10.1080/19436141003594625
Aktaş, F. N., Akyıldız, P., & Dede, Y. (2023). Students’ mathematics educational values at religious vocational middle schools: a cross-sectional study. Education 3-13, 51(3), 480–492. https://doi.org/10.1080/03004279.2021.1981421
Alothman, E. (2025). Do vocational education policy and high school placements reproduce social inequality in Turkey? Turkish Studies, 26(5), 927–951. https://doi.org/10.1080/14683849.2024.2442651
Arican, S., & Mutlu, Ş. (2023). 21st-Century Learning Skills and School Climate Levels of Anatolian Imam Hatip High School Students. Ankara Universitesi Ilahiyat Fakultesi Dergisi, 64(2), 699–742. https://doi.org/10.33227/auifd.1347688
Ariman, Y. (2022). Tax education for students in Turkey: The case of secondary school (pp. 337–356). https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-85138922371&partnerID=40&md5=9cbd5b8039f64152e144059ee284b5d4
Aşlamacı, İ., & Kaymakcan, R. (2017). A model for Islamic education from Turkey: the Imam-Hatip schools. British Journal of Religious Education, 39(3), 279–292. https://doi.org/10.1080/01416200.2015.1128390
Ay, M. F., & Pingov, N. Z. (2022). A Study of Imam Hatip High School Students’ Motivation for the Qur’an Course. Hitit Theology Journal, 21(1), 105–132. https://doi.org/10.14395/hid.1073678
Baltacı, A., Coşkun, M. K., & Ceylan, I. (2019). The religious education problems of syrian students in religious-based (imam hatip) high schools: A qualitative analysis for solution. Ankara Universitesi Ilahiyat Fakultesi Dergisi, 60(2), 307–336. https://doi.org/10.33227/auifd.559156
Bayhan, S. (2017). The cultural politics of school relocations: an ethnographic study of an Istanbul neighbourhood school. Critical Studies in Education, 58(3), 356–372. https://doi.org/10.1080/17508487.2016.1146994
Bayhan, S., & Gök, F. (2017). Education policy in an era of neoliberal urbanisation: a case study of Istanbul’s school relocations. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 38(4), 581–595. https://doi.org/10.1080/01425692.2015.1113858
Bilgin, B. (1993). The Understanding of Religious Education in a Country where there is Separation of Religion and State: the Example of Turkey. British Journal of Religious Education, 15(2), 36–43. https://doi.org/10.1080/0141620930150207
Budak, B. (2025). The Development of Islamic Education in Islamic Primary Schools in The Netherlands. Religions, 16(12). https://doi.org/10.3390/rel16121475
Buyruk, H. (2021). The role of religious education in hegemony construction: the case of imam hatip schools in Turkey. Paedagogica Historica, 57(6), 657–674. https://doi.org/10.1080/00309230.2020.1762677
Çakmak, D. (2009). Pro-Islamic Public Education in Turkey: The Imam-Hatıp Schools. Middle Eastern Studies, 45(5), 825–846. https://doi.org/10.1080/00263200903135596
Çinar, F. (2013). Analysis and comparison of the curriculums implemented in imam hatip high school from 1924 to 2000. Milli Egitim, 1(197), 180–208. https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-84883034553&partnerID=40&md5=b74a3b1c77e75ff4e97bb743d92412eb
Dede, Y., Aktaş, F. N., & Akyıldız, P. (2023). Mathematics educational values of students and teachers in Imam-Hatip high schools. International Journal of Mathematical Education in Science and Technology, 54(8), 1509–1525. https://doi.org/10.1080/0020739X.2023.2172621
Demircioǧlu, A. (2020). Challenges encountered in religious education in Turkey. Journal of Education Culture and Society, 11(2), 474–489. https://doi.org/10.15503/jecs2020.2.474.489
Elveren, A. Y. (2018). The Pious Predator State: The New Regime in Turkey. Challenge, 61(1), 85–91. https://doi.org/10.1080/05775132.2018.1424695
Genç, M. F. (2018). Values education or religious education? An alternative view of religious education in the secular age, the case of Turkey. Education Sciences, 8(4). https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci8040220
Gümüş, S., & İpek, M. (2022). An Analysis on the Belief Teaching in Imam-Hatip Secondary School and Secondary School Religious Culture and Moral Knowledge Lessons. Cumhuriyet Ilahiyat Dergisi, 26(3), 939–953. https://doi.org/10.18505/cuid.1072792
Karataş, M. (2025). The Paradox of Religiosity–Secularism in Formal Religious Education. Religions, 16(1). https://doi.org/10.3390/rel16010099
Karlidag-Dennis, E., McGrath, S., & Stevenson, H. (2019). Educational policy-making and hegemony: monolithic voices from civil society. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 40(8), 1138–1153. https://doi.org/10.1080/01425692.2019.1647091
Kaya, A. (2015). Islamisation of Turkey under the AKP Rule: Empowering Family, Faith and Charity. South European Society and Politics, 20(1), 47–69. https://doi.org/10.1080/13608746.2014.979031
Küçükakın, P. M., & Engin-Demir, C. (2022). The compliant wife, the good mother and other normalizing constructions of womanhood: a critical discourse analysis of idealized female identities within Turkish educational policy. Critical Studies in Education, 63(4), 451–467. https://doi.org/10.1080/17508487.2021.1899950
Mercan Küçükakın, P., & Engin-Demir, C. (2022). A critical analysis of discourses on gender equality in education: the case of Turkey. Gender and Education, 34(8), 940–956. https://doi.org/10.1080/09540253.2022.2050679
Mohd Nor, M. R., & Ibrahim, M. K. (2020). Conflicts of religious education in a secular state: A study on Turkey’s Imam-Hatip School. Qudus International Journal of Islamic Studies, 8(1), 107–130. https://doi.org/10.21043/QIJIS.V8I1.5849
Öncü, A., & Balkan, E. (2016). Nouveaux Riches of the City of Minarets and Skyscrapers: Neoliberalism and the Reproduction of the Islamic Middle Class in İstanbul. Research and Policy on Turkey, 1(1), 29–45. https://doi.org/10.1080/23760818.2015.1099780
Ozgur, I. (2011). Social and Political Reform through Religious Education in Turkey: The Ongoing Cause of Hayrettin Karaman. Middle Eastern Studies, 47(4), 569–585. https://doi.org/10.1080/00263206.2011.586146
Öztığ, L. İ., & Adısönmez, U. C. (2024). Old Wine in a New Bottle: Navigating Religion and Politics in Turkiye. Religions, 15(7). https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15070836
Öztürk, K. (2025). Civil Society and Education in Turkey: The Relations between the Society for the Dissemination of Knowledge and Imam Hatip Schools (1951-1976). Middle Eastern Studies, 61(1), 18–36. https://doi.org/10.1080/00263206.2024.2371839
Pak, S.-Y. (2004). Cultural politics and vocational religious education: The case of Turkey. Comparative Education, 40(3), 321–341. https://doi.org/10.1080/0305006042000274827
Şahİn, I., & Kesik, F. (2019). A critical review of religious education policies and practices of Turkey from the perspective of inclusion. Education as Change, 23. https://doi.org/10.25159/1947-9417/3456
Şarapli, O. (2021). State ideology and education in Turkey, 1980-2015. https://doi.org/10.3726/b17350
Sarfati, Y. (2015). Islamic Schools in Modern Turkey: Faith, Politics, and Education. British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, 42(4), 684–686. https://doi.org/10.1080/13530194.2014.905293
Sarfati, Y. (2016). Political Mobilization through Religious Schooling: A Comparison of Ma’ayan Schools in Israel and Imam Hatip Schools in Turkey (pp. 53–82). https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-105017655901&partnerID=40&md5=750f21fe26614cb9486ffc5ac1bea7a1
Sarfati, Y. (2017). How Turkey’s slide to authoritarianism defies modernization theory. Turkish Studies, 18(3), 395–415. https://doi.org/10.1080/14683849.2017.1315304
Sayari, S., & Hasanov, A. (2008). The 2007 Elections and Parliamentary Elites in Turkey: The Emergence of a New Political Class? Turkish Studies, 9(2), 345–361. https://doi.org/10.1080/14683840802012108
Sen, A. (2022). Articulations of Islamic nationalism in the educational reform discourse of ‘new Turkey.’ Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 43(2), 205–216. https://doi.org/10.1080/01596306.2020.1817859
Sidik, M. F., Vachruddin, V. P., Rusydiyah, E. F., Pertiwi, A. S., & Darmawan, M. A. (2024). Conceptualization of the Integrated Islamic Religious Education Curriculum: A Literature Study at Imam Hatip Schools Turkey and MAN Insan Cendekia Indonesia. Jurnal Pendidikan Agama Islam, 21(1), 111–130. https://doi.org/10.14421/jpai.v21i1.7617
Suna, H., Tanberkan, H., & Özer, M. (2020). Changes in literacy of students in Turkey by years and school types: Performance of students in pisa applications. Journal of Measurement and Evaluation in Education and Psychology, 11(1), 76–97. https://doi.org/10.21031/epod.702191
Türegün, A. (2025). The political ideology of Turkey’s Islamist swing under Erdoğan. Journal of Political Ideologies, 30(2), 540–562. https://doi.org/10.1080/13569317.2023.2296395
Usman, A. C., Bulut, S., & Kaplan, M. (2025). Personal and social factors as a determinate of adolescent smoking. Journal of Substance Use, 30(4), 615–621. https://doi.org/10.1080/14659891.2024.2374798
Yaşar, A. (2020). Reform in Islamic Education and the AKP’s Pious Youth in Turkey. Religion & Education, 47(4), 106–120. https://doi.org/10.1080/15507394.2020.1828232
Yılmaz, H. (2019). Between Turk and Muslim: children and the Qur’an courses after the 1928 Alphabet Law. Paedagogica Historica, 55(6), 812–828. https://doi.org/10.1080/00309230.2019.1672764
Zengİn, M., & Hendek, A. (2023). The Future of Imam Hatip Schools as a Model for Islamic Education in Türkiye. Religions, 14(3). https://doi.org/10.3390/rel14030375
Published
2026-01-13
How to Cite
YILMAZ, Mustafa Necati; ÇELIK, İbrahim Şevket.
The Evolution of Imam Hatip Schools in Turkiye: From Kemalist Secularism to the Educational Politics of the AKP Era.
Bestari, [S.l.], v. 22, n. 2, p. 131-150, jan. 2026.
ISSN 2807-6532.
Available at: <https://riset-iaid.net/index.php/bestari/article/view/1591>. Date accessed: 09 feb. 2026.
doi: https://doi.org/10.36667/bestari.v22i2.1591.
Section
Articles
