Under the Banner of Islam: Turks, Kurds, and the Limits of Religious Unity (RELIGION AND GLOBAL POLITICS SERIES)

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. "How do religious, ethnic, and national identities interact in religiously homogenous ethnic conflicts? Is it possible for religion to act as a resolution tool in such conflicts? Why? Why not? In search for answers to these questions, Under the Banner of Islam focuses on the ambivalent role Sunni Islam has played in Turkey's Kurdish conflict-both as a conflict-resolution tool and as a tool of resistance-in the last two decades. Relying mainly on participant observation in Civil Friday Prayers and 62 interviews conducted in three different cities in Turkey (Istanbul and the majority-Kurdish Diyarbakir and Batman) between June 2012 and June 2013, it demonstrates that Sunni Islam has had a very limited impact as a conflict-resolution tool in Turkey. Blending interview data with a detailed historical institutional analysis that goes back as early as the nineteenth century, it argues that the strength of Turkish and Kurdish nationalisms, the symbiotic relationship between Turkey's religious and political fields, religious elites' varying conceptualizations of religious and ethnic identities, and the recent political developments in the region (particularly the establishment of an autonomous Kurdish region, Rojava, in Syria) have all contributed to this outcome. The resulting narrative is not only a record of religion, ethnicity, and nationalism in Turkey's Kurdish conflict, but also an investigation of how ethnic and religious identities are negotiated in conflict resolution and how symbolic boundaries are drawn in ethnic conflict zones"-- Provided by publisher Cover Under the Banner of Islam Copyright Dedication Contents Acknowledgments Prologue Introduction: Ethnicity and “Muslim fraternity” “Under the Banner of Islam”? “The Ambivalence of the Sacred”: Religion and Conflict Resolution The Porous Borders of Religion and Ethnicity The Shifting Borders of Religious and Political Fields Organizational Structure 1. “Green Kemalism”: The Evolving Role of Islam in the Kurdish Conflict Kurdish Revolts in the Late Ottoman Period: Against Centralization? Kurds in the Early Republican Period: Kurdish-​Islamic Synthesis? The Secularization of the Kurdish Movement: 1950–​1978 Bringing Islam Back In: 1990–​2002 2. “Islam as Cement”: The Way Out? “There Is Only One Nation and That Is the Nation of Abraham” The Ummah That Never Was AKP’s Kurdish Policy: Neo-​Ottoman Pan-​Islamism 3. Muslim Kurds: The Case for Religio-​Ethnic Identity “God Could Have Created Us All the Same”: Religious Roots of Ethnicity Kurdish Islam Embodied: Civil Friday Prayers Turkey’s Religious Field in the 2000s: A Bourdieusian Analysis Islam as a Tool of Resistance 4. “Only Turks Can Lead a Muslim Union”: The Case for Ethno-​Religious Identity Ottomanism, Islamism, Turkism: The Birth Pangs of Turkish Nationalism Turkish History Thesis and the Turkification of Islam Turkey’s Pending Dilemma: The Turkish-​Islamic Synthesis AKP’s Transformation: “From ‘the Kurd’s Qur’an’ to ‘the Turk’s Flag’ ” Conclusion: United in Religion, Divided by Ethnicity? The Way Forward: Whither Kurdish Conflict? Appendix: Methodology References Index