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Ideological and Organisational Roots in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq

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Ideological and Organisational Roots in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq DOSYA: KürdiSTAN’DA iDEOLOji Kurdish Salafism: ıdeological and Organisational Roots in the Kurdistan Region of ıraq Deniz çifÇi Introduction Religion, and specifically Islam, has, since its arrival in the Kurdish regions during the 7th and 8th centuries, been one of the leading factors in determining the Kurds’ socio-cultural and political affiliations and theiremic and epic identification. The Kurds, however, have not followed or performed a homogeneous form of Islam. The changes and variations in Islamic thought and the formation of various re- ligious schools and movements have been reflected in the Kurds’ own complex practices of engagement. The Kurds follow diverse faiths, madhhabs (the Sunni school of jurisprudence) and tariqas (in particular Naqshbandiyya and Qadiri- yya—two significant Sunni spiritual ways of Sufism), though the overwhelming majority have adopted Orthodox Sunni Islam (according to van Bruinessen, ap- proximately 80 percent of the Kurds in general)1 or heterodox Alevism (according to Romano, approximately 20 percent of the Kurds in Turkey).2 There are also Shiite Kurds (around 5 cent of the Kurds, mostly in Iran and to lesser extent in Iraq), 3 and adherents of the Yazidi (mostly in Iraq) and Ahl-i-Haq (People of the Truth, also known as Kakai and Yarsanism) religions. Ahl-i-Haq followers mostly live Iran and Iraq. Some associate Ahl-i-Haq with Shi’ism, but these faiths both doctrinally and in terms of their rituals and practices show certain differences.4 Sayı 1 Güz 2019 143 Deniz Çiftçi The overwhelming majority of Sunni Kurds follow the Shafi’i madhhab. Some Kurds, such as those of the ethno-religious Kurdish Zahra religious movement, use Shafi-i jurisprudence to draw clear boundaries between Kurdish society and that of their Turkish and Arab neighbours, as the latter follow Hanafi jurispru- dence. Of the Sunni Kurds, a considerable number follow the Naqshbandiyya and Qadiriyya Sufi tariqas, even though some Salafi Kurds, such as Abdul Latif Salafi, consider these tariqas—and Sufism in general—to be a deviant path.5 Some of the Kurdish Naqshbandiyya and Qadiriyya leaders, such as the Naqshbandiyya adherent Sheik Ubeydullah, Sheik Said and Mullah Mustafa Barzani, and the Qadiriyya follower Sheik Mahmoud Barzanji, organised the Kurdish national movements in the late 19th and 20th centuries. Salafism is another school of thought that has found sympathy with some Kurds, but, compared with the other schools of thought and the Naqshbandiyya and Qa- diriyya tariqas, Salafism arrived late in the Kurdish regions. Salafism’s appearance among the Kurds in Turkey can be dated back and/or linked to the formation of the [Kurdish] Hezbollah, founded around some bookstores in Diyarbakir and Batman in the Kurdish regions of Turkey in the late 1970s and early 1980s.6 However, Hez- bollah’s relationship with Salafism is quite pragmatic and controversial. Hezbol- lah’s rejection of secular lifestyles and regimes and its call for the formation of an Islamic state (during its initial years), or at least the establishment of a Sharia-based religious system in Turkey, 7 and its demands for social and religious puritanism, allow us to consider the group within a broader Salafi framework. Doctrinally, Hezbollah’s refusal to accept an extreme application of takfir (excommunication) and militant jihad, its use of ta’wil (allegorical interpretation of religious texts), and its over emphasis on the concept of Sunnah8 are also decisive factors pro- viding a grounds for identifying the group within a moderate Salafi context in general. However, certain factors blur the boundaries between Hezbollah and the mainstream Salafi trend. These include Hezbollah’s relations with the Shiites and Sufis, its celebration of Mawlid (the observance of the birthday of the Prophet Mohammed (PBUH)), its relations with the secular systems, its involvement in politics (with the formation of Huda-Par in 2012), and the reduced emphasis it puts on the creation of an Islamic state (at least not officially). Hezbollah in this regard is neither a completely a Salafi group nor a non-Salafi group.9 Hezbollah and its affiliated groups also avoid providing clear answers regarding whether they can be defined within Salafism’s boundaries or not. This means that it is possible to findnurcu Said-i Nursi’s and the takfiri jihadist Sayyid Qutb’s books on the same shelves in Hezbollah’s or its related group-affiliated houses, a fact which I person- ally witnessed during my fieldwork visits in 2014. In my personal communication with the Hûda-Par and some former Hezbollah members in 2013-2015 in Istanbul and Batman, for example, none of them mentioned the term Salaf or Salafism in 144 Kürd Araştırmaları Dergisi Kurdish Salafism: Ideological and Organisational Roots in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq response to my question how do you identify yourself and the manhaj of your cause? They simply said they were Muslim. Defining Hezbollah entirely within or outside Salafism’s boundaries is therefore problematic. On the other hand, although their precise number is not yet known, there are some Kurdish individuals who share the Salafi ideology have joined various Salafi groups in Turkey, such as the ISIS-related Halis Bayancuk’s group (known as the Abu Hanzala group). In fieldwork research carried out in Istanbul in 2015, I met five members of this group—two of them were of Kurdish origin. Some of them had been in Syria throughout 2012-2014 and had joined Japhat al-Nusra’s (Nusra Front) ranks for a while. They told me that Abu Hanzala’s group and Salafi Jihadi groups in Syria had recruited many Kurds from Turkey, particularly from the cities of Bingöl, Adiyaman, Agri, Batman, Konya, Bursa, Izmir, and Istanbul.10 In some ISIS-related videos and publications, too, there were Kurdish jihadists who spoke with a Kurmanji accent and called on the Kurds to join the Islamic State of Iraq and Sham (ISIS) and to fight against the Democratic Union Party (PYD), the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), and secular Kurdish parties in Iraq.11 Aar- on Stein’s study has also confirmed that some Kurdish individuals have joined global Salafi groups, such as al-Qaida’s Syria affiliate Jabhat al-Sham (previously known as Japhat al-Nusra), the Salafi Ahrar al-Sham group, and ISIS.12 Though it is not at the collective level, it is safe to say that; Salafi jihadi ideology has found sympathy within some Kurdish individuals in Turkey. Salafism also appeared quite late among the Kurds in Syria and Iran, compared with the Kurds in Turkey and Iraq. Salafism failed to receive much support in these regions; nonetheless, some did join al-Qaida and ISIS, especially in Iran. Following the US occupation of Iraq in particular, Iran turned a blind eye to the Salafi groups’ activities in order to encourage the Salafi Jihadi groups to fight against the US forces. Iran allowed Salafi Jihadis to cross Iraq and Afghanistan through its lands; for example, Iran permitted a high number of al-Qaida’s and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s militants to cross the Kurdistan region in 2001.13 Fur- thermore, Iran tolerated Salafi groups’ activities among the Sunni Kurds in order to counter-balance the activities of the secular and nationalist Kurdish political parties the Komala Party of Iranian Kurdistan (Komala) and the Democratic Par- ty of Iranian Kurdistan (PDKI).14 Iran’s policies in this regard provided a grey zone for Salafi Jihad group activities through interactions with the Sunni Kurds, as Hemn Sayyedi, a former Kurdish politician and researcher, told me.15 Iran’s ethno-religious pressure has also driven some Kurdish individuals to join ISIS in recent years.16 For example, there were Kurdish Iranians who participated in the ISIS attacks on the Iranian parliament on June 7, 2017.17 Salafism is nonetheless quite weak and lacking a strong base and significant grassroots membership among the Kurds in Syria and Iran. Sayı 1 Güz 2019 145 Deniz Çiftçi In contrast, Salafism has extensive and deep ideological and organisational roots in the Kurdistan region of Iraq (KRG), as will be discussed in detail in the follow- ing section. Under various names and structures, Salafi groups have existed and become influential among some Kurds in the KRG since the late 1950s. Inspired by the Muslim Brotherhood (MB), some Kurdish sheiks—in particular those who received an education in Egypt and/or who interacted with the MB’s Iraq affili- ates—organised in and around the Halabja region. Certain local and regional po- litical developments—internally, the Kurdish national struggle against the Ba’ath regime, by the Kurdistan Democratic Party’s (KDP), by the Patriotic Union Party’s (PUK) attempts to prevent the conversion of religion into ideological activism, and by the formation of an Islamic state—and externally—by the Soviet-Afghan war, and by the emergence and dissemination of Salafi Jihadi ideology—provided a fertile environment for the formation of the Kurdish Salafi movement, the Islamic Movement of Kurdistan (IMK, also called the Islamic Movement in Iraq Kurdistan or IMIK) in 1987. The IMK initially admitted purist Salafis, Ikhwanis, Salafi Jihadis, and moderates into its ranks; however, it failed to keep all of them under its control after the late 1990s. Most Salafi Jihadi groups were Kurdish veterans of the Afghan war (Kurd-Afghan veterans) who had split from the IMK, and they initially formed Jund al-Islam (JAI, Soldiers of Islam) on September 1, 2001, and later Ansar al-Islam (AAI, Supporters of Islam) on December 10, 2001. The latter declared the formation of an Islamic emirate in the Kurdistan Mountains and imposed ultra-conservative Salafi Jihadi doctrines on the territories under its control. The AAI was driven out of Kurdistan following the US occupation of Iraq in 2003, but the group has continued to have influence over some Kurdish individuals.
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