Kurdish Studies

Under the Banner of Islam: Turks, Kurds, and the Limits of Religious Unity analyses the role of religion in ethnic conflicts by focusing on Kurds in Turkey and the story of historical polarization between Kurds and Turks. Gülay Türkmen scrutinizes the constitution of religious and ethnic identities, and discusses how a supranational identity, Sunni Islam, fails in an ethnically motivated conflict. She bases her study on an account of Kurdish history in Turkey, and on in-depth interviews with the religious establishment of Turkey, mostly imams and meles, both Turkish and Kurdish. While imams are appointed by Turkey’s Presidency of Religious Affairs/Diyanet and are generally Turkish, the meles are not state appointed and ‘[prepare] their own sermons’ in Kurdish, ‘rather than reading the text prepared by the Presidency of Religious Affairs’ (p. 1). This dichotomy in Turkey’s religious establishment forms the basis for a discussion of the role of Sunni Islam in consolidating ethnic identities, in this case Turkish and Kurdish. In addition, Türkmen focuses on Civil Friday Prayers, that is, Friday prayers that are conducted in Kurdish and held on the streets rather than in state mosques, to trace political and religious challenges against the Turkish government by religious Kurds. The book concentrates on the current political atmosphere in Turkey but undergirds its argument through a historical account. It seeks to show why steps taken by the current ruling party, Justice and Development Party (AKP), to peacefully solve the Kurdish-Turkish conflict on the basis of ‘Muslim Fraternity’ have failed.