Paper short abstract:

The article is the result of one-year fieldwork in Istanbul different neighbourhoods attending the sermons and religious sessions of female preachers (vaizeler) employed by the Turkish Presidency of Religious Affairs.

Paper long abstract:

The article is the result of one-year fieldwork in Istanbul different neighbourhoods attending the sermons and religious sessions of female preachers (vaizeler) employed by the Turkish Presidency of Religious Affairs (Diyanet). Starting from the early 2000s, the latter, a bureaucratic agency considered one of the emblems of Turkish secularism (laiklik), has increased the number and competences of the vaizeler working all over the country. Investigating the forms and meaning of this policy, this contribution casts light on the vaizeler's everyday engagement providing women with official religion knowledge and moral guidance. In this sense, the observations of the vaizeler's sessions and the dialogues originating within such a female-only spaces would enhance the debate on the heterogeneous female religious participation in contemporary Turkey. Moreover, it would contribute in questioning how piety as a set of practices is publicly performed through daily exercises.