İstanbul 29 Mayıs University, which was established by the Turkish Religious Foundation (Türkiye Diyanet Vakfı - TDV) in 2010, is a private university dedicated to the pursuit of excellence in social studies.
Students benefit from small classes and research opportunities.
The University offers multilingual education and has the highest number of foreign students in Türkiye.
The University is also strengthened by its collaboration with the ISAM library, which holds one of the most important collections in Türkiye for the study of the Middle East and Islam.
The University offers undergraduate and graduate programs in three faculties, the Faculty of Arts, the Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences, and the Faculty of International Islamic and Religious Studies.
The Faculty of Arts has departments in History, Philosophy, Psychology, Translation and Interpretation (with English or Arabic as major), and Turkish Language and Literature. They offer BA and MA degrees. The Department of History has also a PhD program specializing in Ottoman history. From the academic year of 2015-2016 the teaching language in all departments is to be Turkish and English.
The Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences has departments in Political Science and International Relations (offering BA and MA degrees), Economics and Social Services. The teaching language in the departments of Political Science and Economics is English, and in the Department of Social Services it is Turkish.
The Faculty of International Islamic and Religious Studies, which is one of the top theology faculties in Türkiye, offers a BA degree, Turkish and Arabic being the teaching languages. It also has MA and PhD programs.
The University has been awarded with the European Charter of Higher Education (ECHE) in 2014 and is an active participant in the Erasmus exchange program.
The University also has the Centre for Training and Research for Arabic Teaching (Arapça Öğretim Uygulama ve Araştırma Merkezi, ARÖMER), which is the first institution in Türkiye designed to provide training for Arabic learning and teaching.