Religious Functionaries

Abstract

Mosques in Turkey have a staff of one or more appointed religious functionaries. These people are civil servants, paid by the government and supervised by its Department of Religious Affairs. Through this department the state regulates and supervises worship in the mosque. All public religious functionaries must be employees of the Department of Religious Affairs. The state also monopolizes the nation’s only legal institutions of religious education and training. This way of structuring Islam, with its government monopoly of appointed and paid religious officials, could be termed State Islam.