Turkey’s Religious Affairs Directorate to print ‘gold-gilded’ Qurans worth $118K

Turkey’s Religious Affairs Directorate initiated a tender worth 23.2 million Turkish Liras ($118K) for the printing of "gold-gilded" Qurans. In defense, the Directorate stated that "there was no real gold in the content of the books.”

Thursday September 21 2023 04:23 pm

Duvar English

Turkey’s Religious Affairs Directorate (Diyanet) held a tender worth 23.2 million Turkish Liras ($118K) to print 160,000 Qurans "gilded and leafed with gold, changing color in the heat.”

After facing public backlash, the Diyanet stated that “the allegations that the institution did not avoid luxury and splendor were false,” and that the “the gold” expression refers to color.

Diyanet İşleri Başkanlığı'nın sıcakla renk değiştiren, altın yaldızlı, varaklı Kur’an-ı Kerim basmak suretiyle şatafattan kaçınmadığı iddiasına ilişkin basın açıklamasıhttps://t.co/6nb2NQKJDg pic.twitter.com/5sN5LnAAaQ
— Diyanet (@diyanetbasin) September 21, 2023

The Diyanet stated that the "color change" feature was used to explain a printing term named “thermal printing” and added, "The book does not have a color change feature under normal weather conditions or on demand."

The Diyanet often comes to the fore with its extravagant expenditures. With a budget of 36.4 billion liras ($1.3B) in 2023, it surpassed six ministries.

The Directorate spent 29.9 billion TL between January-August, 2023. Total printing expenditure in the same period period reached 150 million liras. Of this, 44.15 million liras was spent on 2024 calendars.