İsmail Kahraman was born in İkizdere in 1940 and graduated from Istanbul University Faculty of Law. During his youth, he was the president of the Student's Community and of the National Turkish Students' Union. He was a founding member and a chairman of the board of trustees of the Unity Foundation and the Voluntary Foundation of Turkey. In the private sector, he worked as the chairman of the board of directors of numerous companies and became the Undersecretary of the Ministry of Labour. He was one of the founding members of the Recep Tayyip Erdoğan University development foundation and is still the chairman of the board of trustees.[2]
Political career
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On 13 February 2015, Kahraman attended a career's day at a girls' school in Rize. In his speech, he argued that students should avoid turning to fashion and instead be faithful and devout. He argued that students should follow the example of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's mother, Tenzile Erdoğan.[6]
As Speaker of Parliament, one of Kahraman's duties is to pen the new draft constitution for Turkey, which since the founding of the republic after the collapse of Islamic Ottoman Empire has been based on the ideas of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk—Turkish nationalism and Western-style secularism, or separation of the state and religion. On 25 April 2016, Kahraman told a conference of Islamic scholars and writers in Istanbul that "secularism would not have a place in a new constitution," as Turkey was "a Muslim country and so we should have a religious constitution".[7] His call was met with "opposition condemnation and a brief street protest" dispersed with tear gas by riot police.[7] Kahraman later stated these were "personal views" and that the new constitution "should guarantee religious freedoms".[7]
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