In June 2016, in Ankara, shortly after the failed coup attempt against Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a law was signed aimed at strengthening Turkish influence abroad through the establishment of the Maarif Foundation. It stands as the sole official body, operating in cooperation with the Turkish Ministry of Education, authorized to establish and operate educational institutions abroad — ranging from preschools to universities.
Erdogan has seeded Europe with MIT imams and Islamic “schools”
In reality, the Turkish state was not simply establishing another educational body. It was laying the groundwork for a soft power operation and ideological infiltration targeting Muslim communities across the West — and particularly across Europe. According to a revealing report by the Belgian human rights organization “Solidarity with OTHERS,” published through the Visegrad 24 news network, Turkey has channeled nearly $1 billion into building an Islamic network operating under the guise of educational programs. Behind these initiatives lies a carefully coordinated strategy to export political Islam and impose Turkey’s ideological guardianship over the Muslim diaspora and, more broadly, over Europe as a whole.
Hundreds of educational institutions worldwide
Until 2016, Turkish education abroad was controlled by the movement of Fethullah Gülen (FETÖ). Today, through the Maarif Foundation, it is fully controlled by the Turkish presidency, which oversees hundreds of educational institutions around the world. The stated objective is to shape a new generation of Muslims imbued with the values of Turkish religious fundamentalism. And while Maarif serves as the spearhead of this effort, the Diyanet — Turkey’s Directorate of Religious Affairs — forms its backbone.
Operating with a budget that frequently surpasses that of many other Turkish ministries, the Diyanet has extended its reach across Western Europe. In Germany, its affiliated organization, DITIB, manages more than 900 mosques. Similar networks operate in Belgium, the Netherlands, France, and Austria. The imams staffing these mosques are not chosen by local communities. They are civil servants of the Turkish state, paid directly by Ankara, deployed to Europe for a few years at a time — often without even speaking the language of the host country — and they faithfully transmit the political line of the ruling AKP party. European intelligence agencies have repeatedly sounded the alarm. In several cases, most notably in Germany in 2017, it was revealed that some of these imams were operating as informants for Turkish intelligence (MIT), collecting information on dissident Turkish citizens, Kurdish activists, and Gülen supporters living in Europe.
Backlash and responses
The fact that Turkey uses religion and education as tools of geopolitical expansion has triggered strong reactions in European capitals. In France, legislation was passed restricting the autonomy of these Islamic centers, with the explicit aim of ending the program of imported imams. Austria closed mosques deemed dangerous to public safety and banned foreign funding of religious organizations. Meanwhile, Germany launched imam training programs at German universities in order to cut off the pipeline of imams arriving from Turkey.
In contrast to other Balkan countries — such as North Macedonia, Albania, and Kosovo — where the Turkish Maarif Foundation has established private schools and universities, it holds no license to operate schools in Greece. Greek legislation and the Treaty of Lausanne strictly govern the framework of minority education, effectively blocking Maarif’s expansion into Greek territory.
