**2. Evaluation of Mosque Fund Management**

Expenditures, such as construction, repair, heating and lighting costs, and payment of mosque staff's salaries are the main cost items that need to be satisfied for mosques to continue their service. Throughout history, these expenses have been sometimes met with the state budget, sometimes with the rent or crop income of real estate, such as fields and shops, by giving income to the mosque, and sometimes with cash aid provided directly by the public (Yediyıldız 1982). Today, associations continue their activities in line with this purpose

Onay (2009) listed the expenses in three different groups in his study on the financing of mosques, as follows:


Covering the expenses of mosques differs according to the construction of mosques both in the Ottoman period and in the Republican period. During the Ottoman period, the expenses of the mosques, such as heating and lighting, were covered by the income generating sections in fused and annexed waqfs, while the expenses of the mosques that had no such income were generally covered by the general public. However, in case of financial difficulties, mosque expenses were paid with financial aid received from the treasury.

Waqfs are institutions of philanthropy and a type of spirituality pious icon in ˙ Islamic cities. Many services required in the city, such as religious and cultural services, education services, health services, infrastructure and public works, social security and support services, and philanthropy services, have been provided through funds established as waqfs (Çöteli 2016). The commercial sources (revenue sources), which were built in detail with the waqf system in the Ottoman period, sometimes located on different floors of the mosque structure and sometimes as independent structures from the mosque, started to be built on the lower floor for reasons, such as space shortages, in order to generate income for the mosque and its association (Figures 5–8).

**Figure 5.** (**a**) Altınta¸s Mosque, Balıkesir; (**b**) Piri Türkistan Mosque, Ankara.

**Figure 6.** (**a**) Tezkireci Osman Efendi Mosque, ˙ Istanbul; (**b**) ¸Serefiye Mosque, Sakarya.

**Figure 7.** (**a**) Sokullu Mehmet Pa¸sa Mosque, ˙ Istanbul; (**b**) Sö ˘gütlü Mosque, Malatya.

**Figure 8.** (**a**) Eminettin Mosque, Rize; (**b**) Tepecik Aksa Mosque, ˙ Istanbul; (**c**) Derince Yeni Merkez Mosque, Kocaeli.

The mosque management resorts to various methods, such as collecting donations from the congregation to meet their expenses, generating rental income by building commercial units, such as shops under the mosque, and charging fees for toilet use. According to the regulation on mosques, masjids, and Quran school outbuildings, published by the Directorate of Religious Affairs dated 2014 and numbered 28,893, 10% of the gross revenue of the mosques generated in such ways must be paid as the Directorate's share. It was decided that two-thirds of the remaining amount should be allocated to mosque expenses, and the remainder should be left to the relevant associations or waqfs, provided that they are used for the purposes specified in their statutes or endowment or waqf deed. According to the same regulation, the tasks of a five-person commission, chaired by the mufti in each province and district and consisting of a preacher, auditor, imam, and the head of the association or a waqf representative, include detection of mosques, masjids, or Quran schools built through their own resources or donations collected, identification of commercial or religious uses of supplementary parts of these structures, and allocation of revenues from these buildings, after the president's share is deducted, to the association or waqf for mosque expenses (Presidency of Religious Affairs 2014) However, not every mosque has an income source from its commercial units. Currently, the repair, maintenance, cleaning, environmental arrangement, lighting, water needs, and security expenses of mosques and masjids are covered by the Directorate of Religious Affairs. Electricity expenses for the lighting of such places are covered by the appropriation allocated from the budget of the Directorate of Religious Affairs, while heating and cooling expenses belong to the mosque administration and mosque associations. However, mosques often experience problems in meeting such expenses. The news stories about power cuts in mosques, such as Said Nursi Mosque in Gaziantep (Koçyi ˘git 2013), Ye¸sil Kubbe Mosque in Diyarbakir (˙ Ilkha 2022), and Solakzade Mosque in Erzurum (Zirve 2022), which also offers Quran learning courses, have been in the headlines of various newspapers. Likewise, the news that the electricity meters of the historical Yavuz Sultan Selim Mosque in Istanbul were also removed due to unpaid electricity debt and its subscription was canceled (NTV 2022) confirms that the remaining expenses could not be met.
