Ahmet Mahmut Ünlü

Ahmet Mahmut Ünlü, known as Cübbeli Ahmet Hoca ("Ahmet the Robed Hodja"), is a Turkish preacher, hafiz and writer, born on 27 February 1965 in the Çarşamba quarter of Fatih, Istanbul¹². He was trained by Mahmut Ustaosmanoğlu within the İsmailağa community, the Turkish Khalidi branch of the Naqshbandi order²³, and his lessons spread through books, television and a YouTube channel of about 1.71 million subscribers in figures of May 2026¹.

Ünlü was born to factory-owning parents, and his family, of Bukharan Turkic origin, had settled in Görele, Giresun¹. He was nicknamed "Ahmet in the robe" from childhood for his love of wearing the cübbe, the traditional robe he still wears in public¹. He received his religious education at the İsmailağa Mosque madrasa until the age of eleven, with special training from Ustaosmanoğlu², and began preaching in Istanbul's great mosques, such as Yavuz Selim and Kasım Paşa, at the age of twelve¹.

Ünlü founded the Fatih Hak ve Hizmet Vakfı foundation in 1990, and became known for hadith evenings and collective prayer gatherings later broadcast by Lalegül TV, and for many devotional books in Turkish¹. Today he teaches through his "Cübbeli Ahmet Hoca" YouTube channel and his posts on Instagram and X, addressing a broad conservative audience in Turkey and the Turkish diaspora¹.

Positions are reported here as the sources give them; they are their holders' statements, not the museum's verdict. Ünlü was imprisoned and sentenced to two years and seven months in prison over his remarks after the 1999 Gölcük earthquake¹. In 2024 he left the İsmailağa community after refusing the leadership of Hasan Kılıç, Ustaosmanoğlu's successor; the community announced on 27 March 2024 that he no longer had any tie to it², and on 16 April 2024 he co-founded the "Müceddid Mahmud Efendi Hazretleri Cemaati", which he leads together with Mustafa Erenoğlu².

Ünlü is among Turkey's most widely followed conservative preachers on the platforms, with about 1.71 million YouTube subscribers in platform figures of May 2026 — platform figures that change constantly and are not presented by the museum as fixed facts¹.

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