İbrahim Kalın

İbrahim Kalın (born 15 September 1971) is a Turkish bureaucrat and academic who is the current director of the National Intelligence Organization (MİT).^[1] An academic specialising in Islamic philosophy, Kalın received his doctorate under the supervision of Seyyed Hossein Nasr. As a member of the Justice and Development Party (AKP), he previously served as the presidential spokesperson and senior advisor to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan from 2014 to 2023 and as the Deputy Chairman of the Council of Security and Foreign Policy in the Presidential Complex.^[2][3]

İbrahim Kalın
Official portrait, 2018
Director of the National Intelligence Organization
Incumbent
Assumed office 5 June 2023
President	Recep Tayyip Erdoğan
Preceded by	Hakan Fidan
Spokesperson of the Presidency of Turkey
In office 11 December 2014 – 4 June 2023
President	Recep Tayyip Erdoğan
Preceded by	Ahmet Sever
Assistant Secretary to the Prime Minister of Turkey
In office 2012 – 11 December 2014
Prime Minister	Recep Tayyip Erdoğan
Senior Advisor to the Prime Minister of Turkey
In office 2009–2012
Preceded by	Ahmet Davutoğlu
Succeeded by	Kemal Ökem
Personal details
Born	(1971-09-15) 15 September 1971 (age 53) Istanbul, Turkey
Political party	Justice and Development Party
Children	3
Alma mater	Istanbul University (BA) George Washington University (PhD)

Education and academic career

İbrahim Kalın was born in Istanbul into a family from Erzurum. Kalın received his B.A. in history from the University of Istanbul and M.A. from International Islamic University Malaysia.^[4][5] In 2002, Kalın received a Ph.D. in Islamic studies from George Washington University under the supervision of Islamic philosopher Seyyed Hossein Nasr.^[6][7][5] His dissertation was later published as Knowledge in Later Islamic Philosophy: Mullā Ṣadrā on Existence, Intellect, and Intuition.^[4]

From 2002 to 2005, he was a faculty member at the Department of Religious Studies at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts.^[8] He lectured on Islamic philosophy at Ibn Haldun University between 2019 and 2022, becoming a professor in 2020.^[5] He is a founding member and former director (2005–2009) of the SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research based in Ankara, Turkey.^[9] His academic interest is in post-Avicennan Islamic philosophy.^[10]

Bureaucratic career

Kalın with Andriy Yermak, head of Office of the President of Ukraine, 2020

Kalın entered government in 2009 at the behest of fellow academic and then-Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu,^[4] serving as Chief Foreign Policy Advisor to the Prime Minister.^[7] He became the first coordinator of the Prime Ministry Public Diplomacy Coordinatorship established in January 2010. In 2012, he became Assistant Secretary of the Prime Ministry. On December 11 2014, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan announced that Kalın would be the first official Turkish Presidential Press Secretary. In November 2018, he was appointed as Senior Advisor to Erdoğan.^[11] On June 5 2023, Erdoğan appointed Kalın as director of the National Intelligence Organization.^[5]

Personal life

His parents are from İspir, Erzurum.^[12] He is married and has three children.^[5] His hobbies include music, especially folk music. He professionally plays the bağlama, sings and has music on YouTube with millions of views.^[13] He speaks English, Arabic, Persian and French.^[7]

Selected works

As author

• Knowledge as Light. Critical Remarks on M. Hairi Yazdi's Principles of Epistemology in Islamic Philosophy: Knowledge by Presence. In: American Journal of Islamic and Social Sciences. Vol. 16 (1999), pp. 85–97 (online).
• Islam and the West, 2007 (2007 Writers Association of Turkey award for best book)^[6]
• Knowledge in later Islamic philosophy. Mullā Ṣadrā on existence, intellect, and intuition. Oxford University Press, Oxford 2010. ISBN 978-0-19-985277-2
• Islam in Turkey. Oxford Bibliographies Online Research Guide. Oxford University Press, Oxford 2010. ISBN 978-0-19-980651-5

As editor

• with John L. Esposito: The 500 Most Influential Muslims annual, Amman, Jordan: Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Centre, 1st edition, 2009.^[14]
• with John L. Esposito: Islamophobia. The Challenge of Pluralism in the 21st Century. Oxford University Press, Oxford 2011. ISBN 978-0-19-980651-5
• The Oxford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Science, and Technology in Islam, Oxford University Press, 2014. ISBN 978-0-19-981257-8

As contributor^[6]

• MacMillan Encyclopedia of Philosophy 2nd Edition
• MacMillan Encyclopedia of Religion 2nd Edition
• Biographical Encyclopedia of Islamic Philosophy
• Oxford Encyclopedia of the Islamic World