[1][2] Initially, in 1939,[1] the İA was proposed to be a translation of the first Encyclopaedia of Islam (EI1, 1913–1938) into the Turkish language because the EI1 had only been introduced in English, French and German.

However, while preparing the İslâm Ansiklopedisi many articles of the EI1 were revised, expanded and corrected, and the work ultimately "had the dual purpose of amending Orientalist scholarship and elaborating on the Turkish contribution to Islamic tradition".

[4] From 1966 until 1987, the editor-in-chief of İslâm Ansiklopedisi was the Tahsin Yazıcı, a Turkish scholar of Persian literature, who personally contributed more than 150 articles to the work.

[citation needed] The academic quality of DİA is recognized by Turkologists and Turkish-speaking scholars of Islamic studies.

[8] Another transliteration system is that of the Deutsche Morgenländische Gesellschaft (DMG), which handles any Turkic language written in the Arabic script.