How did the Diyanet's staff housing disappear?!

For days, there has been commentary on the statement made by Necmeddin Bilal Erdoğan, the son of Erdoğan and Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the İlim Yayma Foundation: “We must strengthen the judgment that ‘a religious person is a good person’ in this society again. I believe that the way for us as Muslims to represent our religion correctly is to ensure and establish, in a certain and absolute way, that the source of goodness in this society comes from Muslim people, from religious people.”

We are all aware of when and why the great loss of altitude in the judgment that “a religious person is a good person” occurred most significantly. We also face the painful reality that the Presidency of Religious Affairs (Diyanet) has become the most debated institution during the AKP government.

While those words of Bilal Erdoğan, which serve as self-criticism, are on the agenda, let us recount a housing battle that took place in one of our mosques and reached all the way to the Presidency.

There are two staff housing units in the annex of the mosque in question in one of our large districts. One of the units is allocated to the mosque's imam-hatip. The other, since it operates on a 24-hour basis, should be allocated to the muezzin as a matter of priority. However, that is not what happens; it is given to a Quran Course Instructor. A female instructor named N.Y. lived there until 2018, and a female instructor named E.K. has been living there from 2018 to the present.

The so-called Quran course consists of lessons given for a few hours in the evenings to three or four women aged 70-80.

HOW IT WAS DELETED FROM THE RECORDS

In March 2022, a muezzin was appointed to this mosque. When he took steps to have the housing unit given to the instructor allocated to himself, he discovered the following:

In 2021, with the verbal instruction of the General Directorate of Management Services of the Presidency of Religious Affairs, this housing unit was removed from the Information Management System; in a sense, it was evaporated. However, no notification was given to the Quran Course Instructor saying, “There is no such housing unit anymore,” meaning she was not asked to vacate the premises.

When the muezzin deepened his research, he learned that the official from that general directorate at the time—who ordered this action and was recently appointed to the staff of Presidential Advisor after the change of the President of Religious Affairs—is the husband of the Quran Course Instructor to whom this evaporated housing unit was allocated.

Another detail: While the Regulation of the Presidency of Religious Affairs stipulates that those who are not mosque staff but live in staff housing must pay a certain amount of rent, it turns out that they have not paid a single penny for 7 years.

In short, according to all these allegations, a Diyanet official and his wife, a Quran Course Instructor, have been living in a housing unit that “does not exist” for years, both unfairly and unlawfully.

The muezzin reported the situation to the mosque imam and the district mufti and asked for permission to take the necessary actions to eliminate this illegality. First, he was advised to meet with the Diyanet official who is the husband of the Quran Course Instructor. He met with him and said that they should vacate the housing, otherwise he would file a lawsuit and demand the compensation of their 4-year financial losses. The Diyanet official replied, “I will not leave here. Do whatever you want.”

Upon this, last November, he first applied to the District Mufti M.O. with a petition; he requested that the housing unit, which had been removed from the records, be re-entered into the Presidency of Religious Affairs system and that the instructor be evicted so that the housing could be allocated to him.

However, 1 month later, the Mufti's Office replied, “Your request could not be evaluated positively.” This time, he wrote to CİMER (Presidential Communication Center), explained the situation in detail, and said, “I beg His Excellency the President to ensure that this situation, which will cast a shadow on the reputation of the Presidency of Religious Affairs in the Republic of Turkey, is resolved without being taken to the judiciary.”

Let's see how the CİMER application will turn out...