Imam Hatip school

In Turkey, an Imam Hatip school (Turkish: İmam Hatip Lisesi, 'hatip' coming from Arabic 'khatib', meaning the one who delivers the "khutba" (Friday sermon) is a secondary education institution. As the name suggests, they were founded in lieu of a vocational school to train government employed imams; after madrasas in Turkey were abolished by the Unification of Education Act (Turkish: Tevhid-i Tedrisat Kanunu) as a part of "Atatürk's reforms".

During the Ottoman Empire, a key objective of education was to raise 'good Muslims'. Thus there was a need for Islamic clerics, which was sustained through Islamic Theology Schools, called Madrasa. In 1913 the Medresetü-l Himmeti ve Hutaba (Schools for Education of Islamic Clerics) and Medresetü-l Vaizin (Schools for Preachers) were combined to form the tangible origins of today's Imam Hatip high schools.

In 1924 the Tevhid-Tedrisat (Law of Unification of Educational Instruction) was passed, replacing the existing, mostly sectarian educational system with a secular, centralist and nationalist education one. The new law brought all educational institutions under the control of the Ministry of National Education. A Faculty of Theology at the Darülfünun (Istanbul University), special schools for training imams and hatips (ministers and preachers) were opened by the new Ministry of National Education. However, in 1933 the Faculty of Theology was abolished and Imam Hatip schools were discontinued due to a lack of student interest.

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