This study is an attempt to examine how Turkish Islamist intellectuals theorize, formulate and particularize their own version of exceptionalism. Exceptionalism in the Turkish Islamist discourse relates mostly to their reading of the historical and actual/latent role, identity and superiority of Turkey in the course of the international relations of the “Muslim world”. In fact, the discourse of exceptionalism is frequently encountered in international relations. It is commonly associated with the United States while a burgeoning literature has started to draw attention to the exceptionalist discourses of several other actors, such as China, Russia, India, and France. When it comes to the “Muslim world”, one can encounter the Arab, Iranian and Pakistani versions of exceptionalism with their particular claims to a Pan-Islamist leadership. Turkish Islamists have long propagated for a Pan-Islamist re-organization of the international relations of the “Muslim world”, and their Pan-Islamist proposal revolves fundamentally around Turkish exceptionalism. While several aspects of Turkish Islamists’ exceptionalist discourse have been highlighted as part of a set of discussions on “neo-Ottomanism”, its central elements have remained far from systematically identified. Building on a discourse analysis of Islamist journals published in Turkey from the 1940s to the 2010s, this study breaks down Turkish Islamists’ exceptionalist discourse into its components, and argues that the exceptionalism of Turkish Islamism has five main characteristics: historical status of leadership, belief in benignity and paternalism, sense of orthodoxy, magnification of comparative material power, and missionary zeal. First, the conception of historical status of leadership attributes both a role identity and a historical legitimacy to Turkey to lead the “Muslim world”. Second, belief in benignity and paternalism offers a narrative of the Ottoman benevolence and the Muslim advocacy of Turkish leadership. Third, sense of orthodoxy is provided in two main ways: the perfection of the Ottoman experiment, and a silent and an outspoken sectarian self-esteem. Fourth, magnification of Turkish power is justified on two main grounds: geopolitics and modernization. Last, missionary zeal entails the enhancement/recovery of Turkish status and power, and the messianism of Turkish responsibility. Accordingly, Turkish Islamist intellectuals portray Turkish leadership as inevitable, legitimate, benign, orthodox, feasible, and missionary. As such, Turkish exceptionalism emerges as one major way to overcome the tension between the umma and the nation and to mitigate the imperatives of the nation-state and states-system.