In this study, it is mentioned about the individualization of religious knowledge that
provides legitimacy to religious authority in Turkey depending on modernization. The
meanings of the concept of authority in various languages and in the historical process,
the types of authority, the relationship of authority with the religion of Islam, the
transformation of the religious individual’s way of obtaining religious knowledge in the
context of modernization are discussed with literature review and etymological
methods. In connection with the concept of authority, religious authority is defined as
“the authority to make a decisive judgment on the believers in terms of the basic
principles of religion”. According to the religion of Islam, this authority belongs to Allah
and belongs to his representative the Prophet Mohammed. Apart from that, there are
representatives of “religious authority” who see themselves as “heirs of the Prophet”
and who have the way of producing religious knowledge with the methods of “ijma”
and “qiyas” based on revelation and sunnah. The meaning that modernization gives to
knowledge and the individual makes it possible to criticize the representatives of
religious authority who cannot overcome traditionalism. This situation is clearly seen
in the attitudes of individualized religious people in Turkey. The easy access to
information in the modern period facilitates the abandonment of the “traditional”
interpretations of the representatives of religious authority and the individualized
religious people to obtain religious knowledge themselves with the opportunities
provided by modernization.