Benedict XVI visited the Diyanet, where he met with its then president, Ali Bardakoğlu, and with various Turkish Muslim leaders, among them the Grand Muftis of Ankara and Istanbul. A 2021 academic publication summarized the Diyanet's growing activities as such: it launched its own 24-hour satellite television channel, Diyanet Television, in 2012, alongside presence on social media, the preschool Qur’an courses it offers went from 3,000 in 2000 to 16,200 in 2018, employing 24,463 instructors by the end of 2019, with nearly 4 million attending the summer Qur’anic courses in 2018 and aiming for 24 million for 2023, having published 1,734 books as of 2019 and distributing 9 million books free of charge as of 2018. Turkish Muslims outside the Diyanet Diyanet has been criticized for following mainstream Sunni Islam but of Hanafi school and being "indifferent to the diversity of other Turkish Islamic creeds", i.e. the non-Hanafi who make up "a third to two fifths" of Turkey's population. Non-Hanafi self-identified Muslims in Turkey include "about 9 million Alevis, perhaps two million Shi’a, and over a million Nusayris (Alawites)", plus the 15 million Sunni Kurds who follow the Shafi’i school and not the Hanafi school as well as many Quranists. The Diyanet and the Alevi The Diyants relations with the Alevi was ambiguous. During the Government of Süleyman Demirel, the Diyanets approach towards the Alevi became of a denialist nature as Ibrahim Elmali was opposed to the mere existence of the Alevi stating "There is no such thing as Alevis". Still during the early 2000s, during a trial in the Turkish Court of Cassation, the Diyanet was strongly opposed to the recognition of Alevi associations or to research on Alevi heritage as it would lead to "separatism". The Ministry of Culture and also the Council of State criticized this approach as the Alevi represented a part of the Turkish culture. The Diyanet responded denying any existence of an Alevi religion. The Alevi were much more on the political agenda during the tenure of Mehmet Görmez, in which for the first time in the Diyanets history, an Alevi question was acknowledged. 2010 and after In 2010–2011, Diyanet began its transformation to "a supersized government bureaucracy for the promotion of Sunni Islam". Diyanet chairman Ali Bardakoğlu, who had been appointed by a secularist president, was fired in late 2010 and replaced by Mehmet Görmez. In 2010, while the AKP was involved in