The flexibility of the process of appointment sometimes created real
dynasties of imams officiating in the same local mosque and sons often succeeded fathers as leaders of small Istanbulite local communities. Although the
appointment procedure for imams in republican Turkey has greatly changed—the imams are nowadays no more than ordinary government officials and
their appointment procedure obeys the rules that apply to all civil servants—
even in the present-day Kasap İlyas mahalle, a father and his son have been
the officiating imams of the mosque since 1970. Local dynasties of imams
may therefore have survived to a certain extent.