[2] Initially created to manage religious duties which was previously overseen by the abolished Chiefdom of Islamic/Muslim Community (Shaykh al-Islām) before the establishment of the republic during the Ottoman Empire era,[3] it later gained formal recognition under Article 136 of the Turkish constitution.

[7] It has expanded Quranic education to early ages and boarding schools – "enabling the full immersion of young children in a religious lifestyle"[10] – and now issues fatwa (Turkish: fetva) on demand.

In 2005, 450 women were appointed vaizes (who are more senior than imams) by the Diyanet,[16] and it deemed in vitro fertilisation and birth control pills "proper according to Islam".

[17][18] In 2006, Pope Benedict XVI visited the Diyanet, where he met with its then president, Ali Bardakoğlu, and with various Turkish Muslim leaders, among them the Grand Muftis of Ankara and Istanbul.

[19] In 2012, Turkish President Abdullah Gül visited the institution and said "it is undoubtedly one of the most important duties of the Religious Affairs Directorate [i.e. the Diyanet] to teach our religion to our people in the most correct, clear and concise way and steer them away from superstition".

[20] The Diyanet has been criticized for following the Hanafi school and being "indifferent to the diversity of other Turkish Islamic creeds", i.e. the non-Hanafi who make up "a third to two fifths" of Turkey's population.

[10] Diyanet chairman Ali Bardakoğlu, who had been appointed by a secularist president, was fired in late 2010 and replaced by Mehmet Görmez.

[10][7][8] Reforms undertaken in the administration of the İmam Hatip schools in 2012 have led to what one Turkish commentator called “the removal, in practice, of one of the most important laws of the revolution, the Tevhid-i Tedrisat (unity of education)".

[10][24] The Diyanet has been accused of serving for the ruling AKP party,[10] and of lavish spending (an expensive car and Jacuzzi for its head Mehmet Görmez).

[25] Following the July 2016 coup attempt, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan removed 492 religious officials from the Diyanet.

[29][30][31][32][33] In 2017, some argued that "Diyanet’s implication in Turkish domestic and foreign politics opens a new chapter on Erdoğan’s increasing authoritarianism".

[36] The DRA has been accused of eroding the secular constitution of Turkey with the appointment of hardline religious clerics and the promotion of Islam into civil society.

[10] Among the activities it found forbidden (haram) in Islam over a one-year period ending in late 2015 were: "feeding dogs at home, celebrating the western New Year, lotteries, and tattoos".

In an April 2015 fatwa that made news outside of Turkey's borders,[10] the Diyanet ruled its usage permissible within Islam though it emphasized that water should be the primary source of cleansing.

A "social media storm" ensued with "scores of users appealed to the Telecommunications Presidency’s Internet Hotline accusing Turkey’s top religious body of `encouraging child abuse`.” The Diyanet subsequently removed the answer from its website, posting that the fatwa page was “under repair.” It later issued an official statement to the press, insisting that its response was distorted through “tricks, wiliness and wordplay” aiming to discredit the institution, and that it would take legal action against news reports of the response.

[46] The Avusturya Türk Islam Kültür ve Sosyal Yardımlaşma Birliği (abbreviated ATIB) is the largest Muslim organization in Austria and in 2018 had between 75 and 100 thousand members.

The goal of its foundation was to create a Turkish-nationalist movement of Islam and to prevent adherents from joining mosques run by the Millî Görüş.

[47] The Diyanet, under Fondation religieuse islamique turque de Belgique, controls 70 out of the 300 mosques in Belgium and forms the largest network of Muslim communities.

Diyanet implements the political ideology of the Turkish AKP party and employ imams trained in Turkey in mosques under its control.

After the failed coup in 2016, many of them wrote strongly worded posts on social media condemning the Gülen movement and other opponents of the Erdoğan rule.