page_title: Islam in Turkey
section_title: Ottoman Caliphate
hierarchical_section_title: Islam in Turkey / History / Ottoman Caliphate
caption_attribution_description: English: Inside Süleymaniye Mosque, Istanbul, Turkey. Ελληνικά: Εσωτερικό Τεμένους Σουλεϊμανιέ, Κωνσταντινούπολη, Τουρκία.
context_page_description: Islam is the most practiced religion in the country. The established presence of Islam in the region that now constitutes modern Turkey dates back to the latter half of the 11th century, when the Seljuks started expanding into eastern Anatolia.
  According to some religiosity polls conducted in Turkey, 97% of the population identifies as Muslim, and more than 3% is non-religious. Most Muslims in Turkey are Sunnis, forming about 78% of the overall Muslim denominations. The remaining Muslim sects forming about 22% of the overall Muslim population consist of Alevis, Ja'faris and Alawites which is about 1% of the overall Muslim population in Turkey.
  Figures on NDM's or Non-denominational Muslims vary with estimates ranging from 5 percent of the population to 19 percent of the population.
  According to the government, 99.8% of the Turkish population is Muslim with the most popular school of thought being the Hanafi school of Sunni Islam. There are also a minority of Sufi and non-denominational Muslims.
context_section_description: Beginning in the twelfth century, new waves of Turkic migrants many of whom belonged to Sufi orders, some of which later incorporated heterodox beliefs. One Sufi order that appealed to Turks in Anatolia after 1300 was the Safaviyya, an order that was originally Sunni and non-political but later became both Shi'a and political based in northwest Iran. During the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the Safavid and similar orders such as the Bektaşi became rivals of the Ottomans—who were orthodox Sunni Muslims—for political control of eastern Anatolia. Although the Bektaşi order became accepted as a sect of orthodox Sunni Muslims, they did not abandon their heterodox beliefs. In contrast, the Safavids eventually conquered Iran, shed their heterodox religious beliefs, and became proponents of orthodox Twelver Shi'a Islam.
  The conquest of the Byzantine capital of Constantinople—which the Turks called Istanbul—in 1453 enabled the Ottomans to consolidate their empire in Anatolia and Thrace. The Ottomans later revived the title of caliph during the reign of Sultan Selim. Despite the absence of a formal institutional structure, Sunni religious functionaries played an important political role. Justice was dispensed by religious courts; in theory, the codified system of şeriat regulated all aspects of life, at least for the Muslim subjects of the empire. The head of the judiciary ranked directly below the sultan and was second in power only to the grand vizier. Early in the Ottoman period, the office of grand mufti of Istanbul evolved into that of Şeyhülislam (shaykh, or "leader of Islam"), which had ultimate jurisdiction over all the courts in the empire and consequently exercised authority over the interpretation and application of şeriat. Legal opinions pronounced by the Şeyhülislam were considered definitive interpretations.
caption: Süleymaniye Mosque, Istanbul.
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