Recep Tayyip Erdoğan

On July 4, 1978, he married Emine Gulbaran with whom he later had two daughters, Esra and Sümeyye; and two sons, Necmettin Bilal and Ahmet Burak.

Erdoğan is a member of the Community of İskenderpaşa, a Turkish Sufi community of Naqshbandi tariqah.

Erdoğan was born on 26 February 1954 in the Kasımpaşa neighborhood of Istanbul.

His father was a Turkish coast guard in Rize where the family lived till Erdoğan was 13 years old.

He had to sell lemonade and simit on the streets to make extra money.

In 1965, he graduated from Kasımpaşa Piyale primary school. Erdoğan also attended the İmam Hatip School and received his high school diploma from Eyüp High School.

In 1981, he received a Business Administration degree from the Aksaray School of Economics and Commercial Sciences (Marmara University).

In 1984, Erdoğan became the Beyoğlu district chair of Islamist Welfare Party. The next year, he became the chair of the Istanbul city branch of the party.

On 27th March 1994, he was elected as the Mayor of Istanbul in the local elections. He won 25.19% of the popular vote.

As a mayor, he ventured to tackle some of the long-drawn problems in Istanbul like traffic disorder, lack of water supply and pollution.

In December 1997, he was convicted of provoking religious hatred after he recited a slightly changed version of a poem by Ziya Gökalp, the pan-Turkish activist in Siirt. He had to serve a prison term from 24 March 1999 to 27 July 1999 and was subsequently banned from political activities.

In 2001, Erdoğan founded the Justice and Development Party (AKP) and led it to victory in the 2002 election. The party won about two-thirds of the seats. However, he could not seek higher office because he was still banned from politics.

When he was young, Erdoğan played semi-professional football at a local club, Kasımpaşa Spor Kulübü. The district of Kasımpaşa S.K. has its football stadium named after him.

In 1974, he wrote, directed and acted in a play ‘Maskomya’, an anti-communist piece.