With the 1933 University Reform, Istanbul Darülfünun Faculty of Theology was closed, and the Institute of Islamic Studies was established within the Faculty of Letters. The professors of the Faculty of Theology were assigned to this Institute, and Şerefettin Yaltkaya¹ was appointed as the principal. The field of study of the newly opened Institute was determined as Islamic beliefs, Islamic history, Islamic culture and civilization. The Institute, which had no students, disappeared on its own after a while, with the retirement of the professors.

Zeki Velidi Togan², professor of Turkish history at the Faculty of Letters, has started efforts to reactivate the Institute since the late 40s. As a result of these efforts, the Institute was re-established in 1953 as the Institute of Islamic Studies. In this second facility, the manager was Zeki Velidi Togan, and the assistant manager was Fuat Sezgin³ . The purpose of this second organization was to conduct research and publications on Islamic culture and civilization.

¹ Mehmet Şerefettin Yaltkaya (d. 1947) taught the History of Kalam and Philosophy of Islamic Religion since the establishment of Darülfünun in 1924. He published articles on various subjects in the Faculty Journal. He was appointed to the Presidency of Religious Affairs in 1942. He died in 1947 while on duty. (About his life, see İsmail Kara, “Mehmet Şerefettin Yaltkaya”, Türkiye Diyanet Foundation Encyclopedia of Islam, XLIII, pp. 308-310.)

² Zeki Velidi Togan (d. 1970) was born in the Bashkir Autonomous Republic of the Russian Federation in 1890. Togan pioneered the establishment of the Bashkir Autonomous government and was the chairman of the aforementioned government. In 1927, Togan was appointed as the Turkish History Professor of the Faculty of Letters of the Istanbul Darülfünun. After performing various duties, he led the establishment of the Institute of Islamic Studies and became the first director of the Institute. Togan, who worked at Istanbul University until 1970, passed away in the same year. (See Tuncer Baykara, “Ahmet Zeki Velidi Togan”, Turkish Diyanet Foundation Encyclopedia of Islam, XLI, pp. 209-210.)

³ Born in 1924 in Bitlis, Fuat Sezgin graduated from Arabic-Persian Philology in 1947 with his thesis titled "The Evolution of Bedîʻ Science". Fuat Sezgin received his doctorate on 26 November 1950 with the thesis titled "Mecâzu'l-Kur'an," which he prepared under the supervision of Hellmut Ritter (d. 1971). On 20 July 1955, with his thesis titled "Research on the Sources of Bukhari," he was awarded the title of Associate Professor at Istanbul University Faculty of Letters, Institute of Islamic Studies. After the military coup of 12 May 1960, Fuat Sezgin, who was among the 147 faculty members who were pardoned with “the Law No. 114,” published on 28 October 1960, continued his studies at Frankfurt University. He submitted his second associate professorship thesis on Jabir b. Hayyân to Frankfurt University Institut für Geschichte der Naturwissenschaften in 1965 and gained the title of professor a year later. Sezgin, who published the first volume of Geschichte des arabischen Schrifttums (GAS) (History of Arabic-Islamic Sciences) in 1967, the most comprehensive work (17 volumes) ever written in its field, was awarded the King Faisal Prize for Islamic Sciences in 1978. For details, see https://fuatsezginletmeleri.istanbul.edu.tr/tr/content/prof-dr-fuat-sezgin/prof.-dr.-fuat-sezgin.

From the beginning, the Institute used most of its budget to enrich its library. Especially the works published in the West between 1953-1981 and before were meticulously identified and purchased. Thus, the Library of Institute of Islamic Studies, which served the theology community until the 90s, was established. The Institute started to publish the Journal of Islamic Review in 1953. 9 issues of the journal were intermittently published until 1995.

After Zeki Velidi Togan; Tayyib Gökbilgin⁵, Salih Tuğ⁶, Bekir Kütükoğlu⁷, and Mahmut Kaya⁸ served as directors respectively.

In accordance with the Higher Education Law No. 2547 enacted in 1982, the Institute was renamed “the Center for Islamic Studies”. Due to its new status as a research center, the Institute did not have a budget and staff.

⁴ Born in 1908 in Hyderabad, India, Muhammed Hamidullah completed his doctorate on Islamic state law at Rheinische Friedrich Wilhelms University in Bonn, Germany. He also did another doctoral study on the early period of Islam at the Sorbonne University in Paris. Since 1952, he gave lectures at the Institute of Islamic Studies at Istanbul University. Hamidullah, who has many works, passed away in 2002. (See. Salih Tuğ & Kamil Yaşaroğlu, “Muhammed Hamidullah”, Turkish Diyanet Foundation Encyclopedia of Islam, XXX, s. 531-534.)

⁵ M. Tayyib Gökbilgin (d. 1981) worked in various chairs of the History Department of the Faculty of Letters at Istanbul University and became the head of the chair of Ottoman Institutions and Civilization History established in 1961. After Zeki Velidi Togan, he was appointed as the Director of the Institute of Islamic Studies.

⁶ Salih Tuğ joined the Institute of Islamic Studies in 1956. He became a doctor in 1953 with his thesis titled "The Emergence of Islamic Tax Law". Salih Tuğ, who was the director of our Institute between 1976-1987, is also the founding dean of Marmara University Faculty of Theology.

⁷ Bekir Kütükoğlu graduated from Istanbul University, Faculty of Letters in 1948. He became a doctor in 1957 with his thesis titled "Ottoman-Safavid Political Relations 1578-1590". Kütükoğlu became a professor in 1974 and was the director of the Center for Islamic Studies between 1982-1990. He passed away in 1990.

⁸ Born in 1945 in Tokat, Mahmut Kaya graduated from Istanbul University, Faculty of Letters, Department of Arabic and Persian Philology in 1972. Kaya became an assistant at the Department of Turkish-Islamic Philosophy in the Department of Philosophy of the Faculty of Letters in 1977, and became a professor at the same chair in 1992. Kaya was the director of the Center for Islamic Studies between 1990 and 2012.

The Center for Islamic Studies was within the Faculty of Letters until 2018.; It continued its activities, respectively, under the directorates of Mahmut Kaya (1990-2012), Hüseyin Sarıoğlu⁹ (2012-2013), Abdurrahman Aliy¹⁰ (2013- 2016), Cüneyt Kaya¹¹ (2016-2019).

It was decided to elect the director of the center, which was transferred to the rectorate with the change in the regulation made in 2018, among the faculty members of the Faculty of Theology. After this new decision, Ahmet Hamdi Furat¹², a faculty member of the Faculty of Theology, was appointed as the first director.

In 2020, the Institute's aforementioned journal started to be published again as the Journal of Islamic Review. The journal has started to be scanned rapidly in field indexes and is currently being indexed by TR Index and Scopus.

The Institute Library was reopened in December 2021 in the courtyard of the Kuyucu Murat Paşa Madrasa, where the Institute is now located. On 4 March 2022, with the Presidential decision, the Institute of Islamic Studies was re-established at Istanbul University. On the same date, Mürteza Bedir¹³ was appointed as the director of the Institute.

⁹ Hüseyin Sarıoğlu was born in 1962 in Kastamonu. He graduated from Ankara University Faculty of Theology in 1986. After working as a research assistant at Istanbul University, Faculty of Literature Department of History of Turkish-Islamic Thought, he became an assistant professor in 1995, an associate professor in 1998, and a professor in 2007.

¹⁰ Abdurrahman Aliy, who graduated from Ankara University Faculty of Theology in 1997, completed his doctorate at Ruhr University in Germany. After working at TUBITAK between 2007-2010, he joined the Philosophy Department of Istanbul University. Between 2013 and 2016, he worked as the Director of the Center for Islamic Studies at Istanbul University.

¹¹ Cüneyt Kaya graduated from Marmara University Faculty of Theology in 2000. He completed his doctorate at Istanbul University in 2008 (2008). Kaya, who became a professor in 2018, still works as a faculty member at Istanbul University, Faculty of Letters, Department of Philosophy, Department of Turkish-Islamic Intellectual History.

¹² Ahmet Hamdi Furat graduated from Istanbul University Faculty of Letters in 1998. Furat, who completed his doctorate at Istanbul University in 2006, was appointed as a professor in 2020. He served as the Director of the Center for Islamic Studies between 2019-2022.

¹³ Born in Sivas/Suşehri in 1968, Mürteza Bedir completed his undergraduate education at Marmara University Faculty of Theology in 1992. He received his PhD from the Department of Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Manchester in 1999. Bedir, who was the dean of the Faculty of Theology at Istanbul University between 2013 and 2020, was appointed as the Director of the Institute of Islamic Studies on 4 March 2022.