This chapter analyses the Kemalism’s tolerated citizen creation project via the state’s powerful Presidency of Religious Affairs (Diyanet) that controls all mosques and employs all imams and preachers in Turkey. Kemalism wanted to keep Islam under its strict control to prevent its potential use for opposition. Thus, it made it illegal to have private mosques or to function as a non-state employer of imams. However, the Kemalist state also wanted to use Islam as a helping hand to build the nation based on the majority’s sectarian as well as ethnic identity. Thus, it worked to create a secularist and Turkish nationalism-friendly Islam –what I call ‘Diyanet Islam’. Before AKP came to power there were about 75,000 mosques in Turkey. The Diyanet used these mosques as adult education and indoctrination centres by politically instrumentalising weekly Friday sermons that are attended by about 60 per cent of the nation’s adult males. After elaborating on and defining Diyanet Islam, the chapter proceeds to discuss the Kemalist construction of a tolerated citizen category that I call ‘Homo Diyanetus’. Homo Diyanetus refers to a practising Sunni Muslim citizen of Turkey who follows the state manufactured Diyanet Islam, reveres the state and Atatürk, is Turkish nationalist, militarist and is definitely not a member or participant of any other religious group, brotherhood or movement.

This chapter analyses the Diyanet’s Friday sermons delivered in the last two decades between January 2001 and July 2020. Attending Friday prayers is obligatory for Muslim adult males and, according to surveys, about 60 per cent of males attend Friday prayers. The state has always seen this as an adult education and indoctrination tool to propagate its religious doxa, the Diyanet Islam. To trace the change in the content and perspective of the sermons from pre-AKP times to the AKP 3.0 period, and also to investigate the worldview that is disseminated through these sermons, I have looked at topics and themes on ‘Love of Homeland’, ‘Turkish Nationalism, National Unity and Solidarity’, ‘Reconstructing History: From Nationalism to Islamist Populism’, ‘Disappearance of Atatürk’s Personality Cult’, ‘Conspiracies, Victimhood, and the Crusader West’, ‘Militarism and Sacrificing Life for Allah, Islam and Ummah’, andthe ‘Turkish Army’s Jihad’, Each of these are analysed in a separate section in this chapter. Each section starts with the last decade of Diyanet 1.0 (2001–2010); it then moves on to the Diyanet 2.0 period (2010–2020). The analysis shows that Diyanet Islam has significantly moved towards an Islamist, populist, Ottomanist with a restorative nostalgia and more intense resentment, ummatist, anti-Westernist, jihadist, conspiratorialist, and more militarist direction.

This chapter elaborates on the state’s Presidency of Religious Affairs (Diyanet) under AKP rule. Even during the AKP’s democratisation and human rights reforms, the Diyanet remained untouched and the AKP kept the Diyanet under its direct control. This chapter shows that, along with the rising Islamist populism and Muslim nationalism in Turkish politics, the Diyanet has gradually embraced a populist Islamist and Muslim nationalist rhetoric, paving the way for the emergence of Diyanet Islam 2.0. Via its centrally prepared Friday sermons that are delivered in Turkey’s 90,000 mosques attended by60 per cent of Turkey's adult males, the Diyanet propagated its new version of Diyanet Islam 2.0. Thus, in the sermons, glorification of martyrdom, anti-Western conspiracy theories, existential threats posed to the Muslim nation and the ummah by external and internal enemies, politics of victimhood, reverence of military, ummah and jihad, and enthusiastic support of the Turkish military’s incursions to other countries and framing it as jihad have become prominent themes. Similar to the earlier version, Diyanet Islam 2.0 too has its own corresponding version of the tolerated citizen, Homo Diyanetus 2.0.The chapter concludes with the definition of Homo Diyanetus 2.0.