This paper studies the global networks of Islamic learning by focusing on the Turkish schools and scholarships in sub-Saharan Africa. In tandem with the Justice and Development Party’s foreign policy towards Africa, these schools and scholarships have proliferated since the early 2000s. All across the continent, boarding schools funded and operated by Turkish Sufi communities teach religious curricula imported from Turkey along with the secular curriculum of the host country’s formal education system. Graduates of these schools sometimes continue religious education either in a formal high school or university in Turkey with funds from the Turkish state, or in an informal program run by Sufi communities. Through a multisited ethnography in Turkey, Tanzania and Senegal, I analyze the theories and practices of Islamic knowledge, the Turkish-Islamic civilizing mission and the subjectivities it intends to produce. My research findings show that the Turkish educators do not only see themselves as introducing better educational models for teaching Qur’an, Islamic sciences and secular subjects, but also teaching adab (proper behavior and conduct) where it is considered non-existing. Embracing the local Sufi traditions against the Salafi ideology yet aiming to transform the practices and expressions of religiosity emanating from these traditions, the objective of these educational endeavors is to introduce “Turkish Islam” to African students. This discussion makes a critical contribution to the study of neoliberal globalization, state-religion relations, and Islamic education in the Middle East and Africa, by bringing to light the racial, ideological and economic projects that undergird these very processes.