Under the Banner of Islam: Turks, Kurds, and the Limits of Religious Unity
Sunni Islam has played an ambivalent role in Turkey's Kurdish conflict--both as a conflict resolution tool and as a tool of resistance. Under the Banner of Islam uses Turkey as a case study to understand how religious, ethnic, and national identities converge in ethnic conflicts between co-religionists. Gülay Türkmen asks a question that informs the way we understand religiously homogeneous ethnic conflicts today: Is it possible for religion to act as a resolution tool in these often-violent conflicts? In search for answers to this question, in Under the Banner of Islam, Türkmen journeys into the inner circles of religious elites from different backgrounds: non-state-appointed local Kurdish meles, state-appointed Kurdish and Turkish imams, heads of religious NGOs, and members of religious orders. Blending interview data with a detailed historical analysis that goes back as far as the nineteenth century, she argues that the strength of Turkish and Kurdish nationalisms, the symbiotic relationship between Turkey's religious and political fields, the religious elites' varying conceptualizations of religious and ethnic identities, and the recent political developments in the region (particularly in Syria) all contribute to the complex role religion plays in the Kurdish conflict in Turkey. Under the Banner of Islam is a specific story of religion, ethnicity, and nationalism in Turkey's Kurdish conflict, but it also tracks a broader narrative of how ethnic and religious identities are negotiated when resolving conflicts.
1138125235
Under the Banner of Islam: Turks, Kurds, and the Limits of Religious Unity
Sunni Islam has played an ambivalent role in Turkey's Kurdish conflict--both as a conflict resolution tool and as a tool of resistance. Under the Banner of Islam uses Turkey as a case study to understand how religious, ethnic, and national identities converge in ethnic conflicts between co-religionists. Gülay Türkmen asks a question that informs the way we understand religiously homogeneous ethnic conflicts today: Is it possible for religion to act as a resolution tool in these often-violent conflicts? In search for answers to this question, in Under the Banner of Islam, Türkmen journeys into the inner circles of religious elites from different backgrounds: non-state-appointed local Kurdish meles, state-appointed Kurdish and Turkish imams, heads of religious NGOs, and members of religious orders. Blending interview data with a detailed historical analysis that goes back as far as the nineteenth century, she argues that the strength of Turkish and Kurdish nationalisms, the symbiotic relationship between Turkey's religious and political fields, the religious elites' varying conceptualizations of religious and ethnic identities, and the recent political developments in the region (particularly in Syria) all contribute to the complex role religion plays in the Kurdish conflict in Turkey. Under the Banner of Islam is a specific story of religion, ethnicity, and nationalism in Turkey's Kurdish conflict, but it also tracks a broader narrative of how ethnic and religious identities are negotiated when resolving conflicts.
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Under the Banner of Islam: Turks, Kurds, and the Limits of Religious Unity

Under the Banner of Islam: Turks, Kurds, and the Limits of Religious Unity

by Gülay Türkmen
Under the Banner of Islam: Turks, Kurds, and the Limits of Religious Unity

Under the Banner of Islam: Turks, Kurds, and the Limits of Religious Unity

by Gülay Türkmen

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Overview

Sunni Islam has played an ambivalent role in Turkey's Kurdish conflict--both as a conflict resolution tool and as a tool of resistance. Under the Banner of Islam uses Turkey as a case study to understand how religious, ethnic, and national identities converge in ethnic conflicts between co-religionists. Gülay Türkmen asks a question that informs the way we understand religiously homogeneous ethnic conflicts today: Is it possible for religion to act as a resolution tool in these often-violent conflicts? In search for answers to this question, in Under the Banner of Islam, Türkmen journeys into the inner circles of religious elites from different backgrounds: non-state-appointed local Kurdish meles, state-appointed Kurdish and Turkish imams, heads of religious NGOs, and members of religious orders. Blending interview data with a detailed historical analysis that goes back as far as the nineteenth century, she argues that the strength of Turkish and Kurdish nationalisms, the symbiotic relationship between Turkey's religious and political fields, the religious elites' varying conceptualizations of religious and ethnic identities, and the recent political developments in the region (particularly in Syria) all contribute to the complex role religion plays in the Kurdish conflict in Turkey. Under the Banner of Islam is a specific story of religion, ethnicity, and nationalism in Turkey's Kurdish conflict, but it also tracks a broader narrative of how ethnic and religious identities are negotiated when resolving conflicts.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780197511831
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Publication date: 01/22/2021
Series: Religion and Global Politics
Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Format: eBook
Pages: 272
File size: 2 MB

About the Author

Gülay Türkmen is a sociologist and current postdoctoral fellow at the University of Goettingen. Her work examines how macro-scale historical and political developments inform questions of belonging and identity-formation in multi-cultural societies. She has published in several academic outlets including the Annual Review of Sociology, Qualitative Sociology, Sociological Quarterly, and Nations and Nationalism. She has written about developments in Turkish politics for Open Democracy and Jadaliyya.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ix

Prologue xiii

Introduction: Ethnicity and "Muslim fraternity" 1

"Under the Banner of Islam"? 5

"The Ambivalence of the Sacred": Religion and Conflict Resolution 11

The Porous Borders of Religion and Ethnicity 14

The Shifting Borders of Religious and Political Fields 20

Organizational Structure 21

1 "Green Kemalism": The Evolving Role of Islam in the Kurdish Conflict 24

Kurdish Revolts in the Late Ottoman Period: Against Centralization? 29

Kurds in the Early Republican Period; Kurdish-Islamic Synthesis? 37

The Secularization of the Kurdish Movement: 1950-1978 44

Bringing Islam Back In: 1990-2002 51

2 "Islam as Cement": The Way Out? 54

"There Is Only One Nation and That Is the Nation of Abraham" 56

The Ummah That Never Was 61

AKP's Kurdish Policy: Neo-Ottoman Pan-Islamism 70

3 Muslim Kurds: The Case for Religio-Ethnic Identity 77

"God Could Have Created Us All the Same": Religious Roots of Ethnicity 80

Kurdish Islam Embodied: Civil Friday Prayers 85

Turkey's Religious Field in the 2000s: A Bourdieusian Analysis 91

Islam as a Tool of Resistance 97

4 "Only Turks Can Lead a Muslim Union": The Case for Ethno-Religious Identity 101

Ottomanism, Islamism, Turkism: The Birth Pangs of Turkish Nationalism 110

Turkish History Thesis and the Turkification of Islam 119

Turkey's Pending Dilemma: The Turkish-Islamic Synthesis 125

AKP's Transformation: "From 'the Kurd's Qur'an' to 'the Turk's Flag'" 130

Conclusion: United in Religion, Divided by Ethnicity? 135

The Way Forward: Whither Kurdish Conflict? 141

Appendix: Methodology 145

References 151

Index 175

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