Department of Turkish Religious Music deals with a distinctive type of music composed by Muslims in Turkish societies. It reflects the rich cultural and musical synthesis that came into existence with the Turkish conversion to Islam and its later developments. The program covers various forms of music including mawlid, salat, tawshih, na‘t, ilahi, and qasida. The program offers courses on the theoretical and practical aspects of all these musical forms. Students get basic knowledge about Turkish Music, signs, simple mods, the migrated and combined mods, musical literature, rhythms, and distinguished musicians. In addition to that, students gain the ability of reading and deciphering the notes to learn the religious compositions from the main sources. İsmail Baha Sürelsan, Gültekin Oransay, and Ruhi Kalender are among the noteworthy scholars in the history of the Department.
