The reappearance of Kurdish Muslims in Turkey: the articulation of religious identity in a national narrative

The Kurdish Muslim has been formed through a binary code combining attachment to the Islamic international Ummah with Kurdish local tribal (eshiri) values while Kurdish Islamic agents have been reinvigorated by an Islamic identity articulated within a Kurdish national mobilization. This inner counter-hegemonic articulation within a new antagonism has redrawn Kurdish political frontiers and Kurdish common sense. This article analyses the structure of Kurdish Islamic identity and discourse through its diverse agents in Turkey and in the Middle East in general. In probing the complex conceptual relationship between religious identity and national will, the article identifies four main actors within Kurdish Muslim politics by mapping their sub-identities and strategies to allow a detailed and critical appraisal. Moreover, it critically examines how the Muslim Kurds have (re)appeared in the Kurdish political realm as an institutional expression and re-conceptualization of collective Kurdishness in terms of Islamic values. A social constructivist approach is employed as a useful theoretical device to understand the role of Muslim Kurds and their sub-identity in Kurdish society and their relationship with the hegemonic Kurdish political movement.