Emrullah İşler MP Ph.D
Deputy Prime Minister of Turkey
In office 25 December 2013 – 29 August 2014
Prime Minister	Recep Tayyip Erdoğan
Serving with	Bülent Arınç Beşir Atalay Ali Babacan
Preceded by	Bekir Bozdağ
Succeeded by	Yalçın Akdoğan
Member of the Grand National Assembly
Incumbent
Assumed office 12 June 2011
Constituency	Ankara (II) ( 2011, June 2015, Nov 2015, 2018)
Personal details
Born	(1960-01-07) 7 January 1960 (age 64) Kuşcuören, Kızılcahamam, Ankara Province, Turkey
Political party	Justice and Development Party (AK Party)
Children	3
Education	Theology, Law
Alma mater	King Saud University Ankara University
Occupation	Politician, academic

Emrullah İşler (born 7 January 1960) is a Turkish theologian, university lecturer, and politician. On 25 December 2013, he was appointed as a deputy prime minister in the third cabinet of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

Early life

Emrullah İşler was born to Abdullah and Zeliha İşler in the village of Kuşcuören in the Kızılcahamam district of Ankara Province on 7 January 1960. ^{[1] [2]}

After receiving a Bachelor's degree in Islamic Science from the Faculty of Education at King Saud University in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, he completed his education with a Master's degree, and earned later a PhD degree in Tafsir (Interpretation of the Qur'an and Hadith) at the Basic Islamic Science Department of the Institute of Social Science in Ankara University. ^{[1] [2]}

He is married and has three children. ^{[1] [2]}

Career

Academics

İşler worked as associate professor for Tafsir at the Faculty of Theology of Cumhuriyet University in Sivas, and then in Arabic language at Gazi University's Faculty of Education in Ankara, where he was later promoted to full professor. He served also as visiting professor at universities in Kazakhstan and Saudi Arabia. ^{[1] [2]}

Politics

He entered politics through the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), and was elected into the Grand National Assembly of Turkey in the 2011 general election as an MP from Ankara Province. He was appointed head of the Nigeria-Turkey Interparliamentary Group. ^[3] İşler served as chief advisor to the prime minister. ^{[1] [2]} He was Erdoğan's interpreter for Arabic language and was part of his close circle. ^[4]

On 26 December 2013, Emrullah İşler assumed office as a deputy prime minister, replacing Bekir Bozdağ during Erdoğan's cabinet reshuffle with ten new names that was announced the day before, on 25 December, following the 2013 corruption scandal in Turkey. ^{[5] [6] [7]}

In 2014, İşler claimed that the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant in Iraq did not amount to torture. ^[8]

References