İngilizceye Çeviren: Murat Karin

Ekrem Malbat received his bachelor's degree in Sociology and his master's degree in Political Science and International Relations. With the field of study "The Relationship between Religion and Identity in Kurds", Malbat had previously published studies on Naqshbandism, Khalidism, Nurism and Madrassas in various publications and platforms. Ekrem Malbat also published a book titled "Society and Statute for the Rise of Kurdish Women " in 2019.

Ferhat Buğday: Let’s start with the term Kurdish Islam, if you would like. What should we understand from the concept of Kurdish Islam? Is the "Islamist Kurds" term, which has been in circulation quite recently, an accurate description?  What would you like to say about its history, figures and paradigm?

Ekrem Malbat:  Actually this is not an easy question for me to answer. Two years ago I was revising a file on religious Kurds and the most difficult part was to name the file. Eventually we reached an agreement on Kurdish Islam. Therefore, my definition of it will be vague to some extent. However we have to make a careful definition here, as "Religious Kurds" are back on the stage as a political figure after a long time. 

In my opinion, it wouldn’t be very accurate to define religious or conservative Kurds as "Islamists". The definition of "Islamist" term in political science may date back to Mawdudi and Jamalettin Afghani. After all, even Afghani came up with this idea in order to save the dying Ottoman Empire. From the Committee of Union and Progress until today, the ideology of Islamism has been used to reinforce nationalism. Islamism in practice in Turkey today is briefly the ideology of nationalism of the sovereign Muslim. We should also underline that religion has never been used as an ideology in this sense among Kurds. Even nationalist religious Kurds use religious references to express their own law rather than as a means of domination over others.  Therefore I find it more accurate to use the terms "religious Kurds" or "conservative Kurds" rather than "Islamist Kurds." In summary, I think what we call Islamist corresponds to a sociological phenomenon for Kurds, and more to an ideology for Turks.

As for the figures of Kurdish Islam, as I mentioned before, it is difficult to say that Kurds have organic figures since Islamic grasp among Kurds does not take an ideological shape like among Turks. However, from an institutional point of view, we can still consider Kurdish madrasas and the schools of Khalidism, Qadirism and partially Nurism as figures that shaped Kurdish Islam to some extent due to their distinctive features.

While the religious movements of the oppressed nations in the world produce an anti-colonial paradigm to some extent, do you think Kurdish Islam has developed a theory in this regard? What do you attribute the absence of an intellectual production such as 'liberation theology' identified with Latin America, for example?

Although I am not fully convinced that religious movements within all of the oppressed nations are on the right side, I can agree with what you say in the general sense. It is important that the movement in Latin America is a people’s movement and developed an objection to Catholic Christianity, which is seen as the religion of the master.  It was undoubtedly a very meaningful objection for the poor people to establish their own religious local communities over time and make their beliefs more like themselves. However, I think it may not be the right expectation to look for the reflection of this in Kurdistan in several ways. First, the liberation theology in South America took place in the 1960s and it was more of an objection based on economic inequality. Secondly, the socio-demographic structure of the Kurds, the dispersed Kurdish population, did not allow for this kind of mass organization. Of course, we should also underline the problem of leadership among the Kurds. In light of all of those, if we shine the spotlight on the Kurds of the 19th century, we can say a few meaningful things.

Within this framework, there is actually a Kurdish theology of liberation starting with Sheikh Ubeydullah and continuing until Sheikh Said. Sheikh Ubeydullah was located at the intersection of two great dominant states, Iran and the Ottoman Empire, and he had created an infrastructural sphere of power that could challenge both sides. For example, the madrasas in Sheikh Ubeydullah's hinterland openly objected to the Ottoman Sultan, the Islamic caliph. At the same time, he communicated this to hundreds of madrasas through his caliphs. From this point of view, the fact that he established his own administrative structure between the two poles of the Muslim world, Iran and the Ottoman Empire, and developed his own school of thought through the network of madrasas he sustained, actually revoked the liberation theology in South America. But of course, this objection did not turn into an anti-colonial barrier covering all Kurds due to the Qadiri-Nakshi rivalry that was widespread in Kurdistan at the time.

As a follow-up to the previous question, where do you think the religious segment of Kurds has stood in the Kurdish political movement throughout its history? What are the similarities and differences between where they stood in the past and where they stand today? What have Kurdish religious people contributed to the Kurdish political movement with their pros and cons?

Before answering this question, it’s important to point out when we start the “Kurdish political” movement term, from whom and which process. I think it might be more functional to address the issue in accordance with this historical background.

This is clear I suppose: The Kurds' objection to ethnic identity virtually started with religious Kurds. In fact, if we take Ahmadî Xanî's texts as a basis, it is clear that we are talking about a text of nationalism even earlier than the nationalist movements in the West. Nevertheless, Ahmadî Xanî's texts are more of a reproach to the problem Kurds are experiencing within themselves rather than an objection to oppressive external authorities. It is a quest to instill self-confidence. Xanî himself was a scholar and these texts of his became one of the main texts of Kurdistan's madrasas for many years and influenced many Kurdish politicians after him.

However, since Kurdish madrasas were long governed by the tradition of the Qadiri sect, an ascetic sect that distanced itself from politics and in which the leadership passed from father to son, the influence of Xanî's texts was limited. The Khalidic version of Naqshbandism, which began with Mevlana Xalid after the 1800s, certainly changed this process. The facts that Khalidism was more action-oriented, did not distance itself from politics and most importantly, instead of selecting caliphs/mudarrises from populous tribes or privileged families, as in Qadirism, it selected them from any student who had received his scientific ratification; were extremely important and these were important changes for Kurdish madrasas. It is also noteworthy that Mawlana Xalid chose all 28 of his caliphs from Kurds. This new tradition in Khalidism further nationalized the Kurdish madrasas, in today's classical terms. As such, Kurdish madrasas became the bearer of Kurdish cultural identity for many years, and we can say that they partially became like a Kurdish organization. But unfortunately, as long as Mevlana Xalid was alive, Xalidism did not have a concrete and active political stance on behalf of the Kurds, especially against the Ottomans. The reason for this was that Mawlana Xalid, originally a Kurd from Sulaymaniyah, received his sectarian education in India from Abdullah Dehlawi. On his way back from India to Kurdistan, Xalid brought something he should not: hatred for the British.  India was a British colony in those years and Muslim ulema in India had a stern anti-British sentiment, and this was carried to Kurdistan by Mevlana Xalid and made him pro-Ottoman. Although the Ottomans implemented similar policies in Kurdistan like the British did in India, Mawlana Xalid either did not see this or ignored it. He saw the Ottomans as the last bastion of Islam, challenging the British. This imported Ottoman favoritism continued until Sheikh Ubeydullah. Sheikh Ubeydullah's objections to the Ottoman policy in Kurdistan and his eventual revolt both politicized the Kurdish madrasas and made the Nehri family one of the main figures in Kurdish politics. This madrasa-based revolt was sustained until Sheikh Said. Until this time, Kurdish religious people organized around madrasas, and while the madrasa education system preserved Kurdish literacy and Kurdish cultural identity, they also maintained the existence of the madrasa as the only place where Kurds could organize. Therefore, the Kurdish madrasas in a sense functioned as local administrative centers in Kurdistan for many years.

Realizing this function of the madrasas among Kurds, the state enacted the Law on Unification of Education in 1924 and closed the madrasas, the only places where Kurds could organize. As you know, one year later the Sheikh Sait rebellion broke out. Speaking of which, I would like to provide another side note here. These points should be taken into account in discussions on whether the Sheikh Sait movement was a religious movement or a national movement. You know, one of the things that Sheikh Sait objected to was the closure of the madrasas, for example. If you think of the Kurdish madrasas as a place where they give lessons on the alphabet and the catechism, then you would call the Sheikh Sait movement a religious movement. But if we realize that the madrasas were the only place of organization, consultation and education for Kurds, then we can more easily understand what Sheikh Sait's movement objected to.

The state eventually turned the Sheikh Sait movement into an opportunity to destroy the political cadres of the religious Kurds and they did destroy them. Ninety percent of those executed were madrasa scholars. The rest were scattered and exiled. This caused the religious Kurds to remain silent for a long time and the madrasas to go underground, and this made the madrassas more silent and at the same time and even more politicized. After all, even our most Communist poet Cegerxwîn was a madrassa student and was popularly known as "Seydayê Cegerxwîn".

We know that Fanon used the metaphor "white church" to criticize Christianity's appetite for colonialism. What can be said about the self-colonial attitudes peculiar to Kurdish Islam? In this sense, what would you like to say considering the relations of the Norşin-Adıyaman ecole with the statist elites?

Yes you are right, Religion has always been used against the oppressed in the exploited-colonizer relationship in world history. Every colonizer has always had a holy book in their toolbox, it is true.  The “white church” metaphor of Fanon is certainly an accurate description.

At this point, it is clear that it is not easy to answer the question if the state has "white madrasas" in Kurdistan as Fanon's answer. There is a different style of communication between the state and the Kurdish religious. It should be emphasized that the state did not try to explain religion to the Kurds, neither in the Ottoman Empire nor in the Republic. Because they did not know religion better than Kurds and even learned the basic beliefs of religion from Kurds. For this reason, they chose to make the religious and religious authorities in Kurdish society dependent on themselves. This policy worked out considerably and created their own madrasas over time in shades of gray, if not completely white.

It would be useful to go a little back and broach this issue. Kurdish madrasas suffered their first qualitative blow with the elimination of the Kurdish Mirliks by the Ottomans. The elimination of the Mirliks radically dried up the economic-political resources of the madrasas and thereby the scholars. Consequently they lost their economic independence. In the following period, the madrasa students and the teaching scholars spent most of their time collecting the food they needed, called ration. This pulled the carpet out from under both madrasa students’ and scholars’ feet and reduced them to practically beggars and, also affected the quality of education in madrasas.  The only exceptions were the madrasas of the Nehri branch headed by Sheikh Ubaydullah. He maintained his economic independence thanks to his own tax system and the tobacco from Shemdinli, which he sold over a wide area, and eventually rebelled with the power he attained.

However the Hizan and Norşin branch did not solve this problem before the First World War. The state established an authority over this weak point of the Kurdish madrasas. For example, Sheikh Abdurrahman-i Taghi (Seyda), founder of the Norşin branch of Khalidism, frankly received his first salary in 1896. He was paid a monthly salary of 500 kurus from the provincial treasury, despite the fact that neither he nor his madrasa had any official status. Later, his son Sheikh Ziyaeddin received this salary. In addition, the Armenian lands left unclaimed after 1915 were largely appropriated by the Norşin madrassas. Likewise, during the reign of Sheikh Jaladettin, son of Sheikh Subğatullah Arvasi, many Armenian properties were confiscated. In addition to those, a large amount of foundation lands were also given by the state. And unfortunately, the economic affiliation emerged from this point has sustained until today. The fate of the Arvasi family has unfortunately led to far-right nationalism today. Except for Şefik Arvasi, who was a student of Said-i Kurdi (Şefik Arvasi always stood by the Kurds' just struggle), the other members of the family today are completely statist.

What I want to emphasize here is, how vital it is for an educational institution not to be able to meet its own needs. Let us not forget that those who give money give orders and those who take money take orders.

For example, it is interesting to note that when Said-i Kurdi talks about the Medreset-ü Zahra he planned to establish in Van in the 1910s, he says, "One of my aims in realizing this project is to ensure the future of Kurdish scholars". This is a vital point. If Kurds do not ensure the future of their own scholars or intellectuals and leave them in dependent and straitened, then they cannot prevent the construction of white churches in their own homes.

Returning to the main idea of the question, the inflated size of Norşin in the past, and of Menzil today, is of course linked to the above-mentioned relationship of timely lairdship. When this is the case, they are destined to turn into structures that isolate themselves from the fundamental problems of their own society in the end, let alone the development of a self-colonial attitude.

The mainstream Kurdish political movement has recently been expanding its intellectual scale, strengthening its ties with modern groups and ideas, and producing a new politics that strives to expand to include different ethnic and sexual identities. How do you think Kurdish Islamists view this situation and secular forms of Kurdish politics?

It is normal for a political movement to have contacts with different political groups and ideologies.  But if these secondary ideas or groups push your main agenda into the background over time, this is not normal. I think the main shortcoming of the Kurdish political movement at this point is that, while establishing these contacts, it does not take its own sociological base into account sufficiently. For example, if you imagine a problem in another society as if it exists in its own society and spend all your energy and organizational capability on it, this may end up all your efforts to be fruitless. For years, the Kurdish movement raised the slogan of workers' rights in Kurdistan, where there were almost no factories. However, this problem was a problem of industrial societies. For example, Dr. Qasimlo says, "We have been hostile to capital for years in Kurdistan, where there was no capital". Ecological society which attracted a much-touted insistence is another example.  Kurdish society still uses dung as fuel for baking bread. Is there a more ecological society than this? I think it is debatable

I don't want to be misunderstood. I am most certainly not saying we don't have any problems in these problematic areas, there are problems, but it is not an ecological one, it is a political problem. Wildfires in Muğla and Şırnak may have the same cause, but if the fire in Muğla is extinguished by airplane intervention while in Şırnak even civilians are not allowed to intervene, the problem is not ecological, it is political. A solution cannot be found here by being more environmentalist, but by showing a clear political stance against the discrimination. Similarly, Kurdish politics' approach to gender issues often takes a route that ignores its own sociology.

If there is a problem in this sense, it can certainly be discussed and victimizations can be relieved, but addressing this by imitation slogans or posters that are not accepted by the society leads to opening of trenches between the base and the roof.

Especially Kurdish conservatives keep their distance when they see their sensitivities are not taken into account on these issues. However (excluding the "prosthetic religiosity" such as the Hezbollah), in general terms, Kurdish religiosity is open to dialogue and consultation. In short, despite the very difficult conditions in the post-1960 period, the religious class around the madrasas largely stood by the Kurdish political movement.    

There are communities and movements with very different representations today among Kurdish Islamist. If we include the Zehra group, which you are personally close to, where do you think these religious movements stand in Kurdish politics? Do they have a liberating discourse and paradigm for the Kurdish people?

In fact, when look back, there are not many groups among Kurds in terms of congregations and sects. For many years, Qadirism and then Naqshism became widespread with Mevlana Xalid. So the religious groups among Kurds generally originated from these two movements. But in the early 1900s, a new actor emerged in Kurdistan who attracted attention at an early age and became famous in a short time. This actor was Said-i Kurdi, later known as Said Nursi. Nursi had unique interpretations in both the social and political spheres that deserved to be referred as a new religious group.

But what really made Said Nursi important was that, from an early age he was deeply concerned with the Kurdish identity problem and made dangerous attempts to find a solution. But when this side of him was carefully distorted, particularly by his Turkish followers, some Kurdish Nurists stood against it and left mainstream Nurism. This is also briefly how the story of Zehra and the Med-Zehra group began. This is why, in fact, the Zehra circle was subjected to double denial.  In addition to the state's denial of Kurdish identity, they were also targeted and accused of being "separatists" by Nurists themselves, which led to a difficult process for them. In the end, İzzettin Yıldırım, the founder of the Zehra Foundation, paid a heavy price when he was pointed as a target by the state and killed by Hezbollah.

What makes the Zehra group important for the Kurdish question is their intellectual heritage from Said Nursi. His most important distinctive characteristic was that he diagnosed the Kurdish question in the most concrete sense at the earliest time. He told the Kurds that they should receive education in their mother tongue, establish modern educational institutions where positive sciences would be taught, have a national army, etc. He told these issues both to the Kurds and to the state. Moreover, he did not only formulate these in the form of advice, but also formulated them into texts.

The Zehra group took over this political legacy and has tried to keep it alive despite many difficulties since its establishment. With Nubihar, the publishing house it founded, it has been preserving and promoting Kurdish cultural heritage for more than 30 years. The Zehra group, which has also contributed a lot to my personal intellectual capital, is a group without political ambitions, so it is not as well known among Kurds as it deserves.

As for where they stand in mainstream Kurdish politics, we mentioned other groups a bit in the answers above, but if we talk about the Zehra group, as I mentioned above, since they have considered this issue as one of their main agendas for many years, they do not have a perspective of being in or out of a movement that developed later. It is a movement of ideas and has a strong intellectual approach to solving this problem makes, and this makes them one of the main actors. They see the issue not as an ideological issue, but as a matter of the fundamental rights and freedoms of a people. However, despite having such a strong intellectual foundation, in my opinion, the Zehra group has not or could not produce the intellectual production with its full potential.

Let's continue with a question from within the agenda of the search for a union. Do you think it is possible to bring Kurdish Islamists and secularists together on a common ground and produce politicies? If so, in what conditions? If not, what should be done for it?

It is possible without a doubt. But this is something that both sides can do by reaching a common political line. As of today, if the mainstream Kurdish politics, which we call the HDP milieu, can free itself from the ideological hegemony of the Turkish left and make the national demands of the Kurds the first agenda, and if, on the other hand, the conservative Kurds can free themselves from the "ummah" discourse, which is the emotional blackmail apparatus for Turkish Islamism, a common ground will be found.

As for who should take the first step here, I think the Kurdish left should. Because the Kurdish left despised and marginalized its own religious people for a long time. If you remember, even an artist like Şivan Perver made a poem in the early 80s saying, "We will decapitate sheikhs". Was it really necessary to be this stern ideologically? Fortunately Kurdish politics took positive steps on these issues in the 2010s and these steps were well received. For example, we can mention the period of civil Fridays[1] in this sense.

But later, the process of Turkification got out of kilter again. Kurdish political actors positioned their opposition solely against the current government rather than the denialist state, and the Kurdish politics approached with the Turkish left without maintaining a distance, and those had a negative impact on the process.

Why are you so hopeless for the rapprochement between the Kurdish left and the Turkish left to produce a result in favor of the Kurds?

No, I am not completely hopeless; they can act together where politically necessary. What we call politics should already be flexible in a relational sense. But there is a deeper incompatibility between the Kurdish left and the Turkish left. For example, the Turkish left is Kemalist. In my opinion, this is where the problem arises. Because Kemalism is essentially a right-wing ideology and does not see inequality as a problem. Another important point is that Kemalism divides Kurdish society through the Turkish left. When the Kemalist Republic was founded, there was no Kurdish left, the Kurdish political elite were religious Kurds and they paid the full price of being marginal in the new regime. Hangings, exile, closure of madrassas etc. Therefore, there is justified a trauma of Kemalism in the Kurdish conservative neighborhood and this trauma is pushing Kurds into the embrace of political Islamism today. In short, the Kemalist Turkish left's contact with the Kurdish left is pushing the Kurdish conservatives away from its own left. Kurdish political actors should not confuse acting together in politics with embracing ideologies at this point. We should all see repercussions of the Kurdish electorate's objection to this point in the last election.

I would like to ask one last question on your area of expertise, Said Nursi. What do you think Said Nursi said for the Kurdish people in the past, what he get right and wrong? How would you evaluate what he said in his time in the light of today? If we adapt what he said in the past to today, what impact do you think it can have in terms of understanding the zeitgeist?

This is an issue much mumbled but little talked about. But I can easily say that Kurds, especially political actors, persistently treat Said-i Kurdi as the other. They do not research and read about him from primary sources. Today, even in the Philippines, Said-i Kurdi is better known than in Kurdistan. As far as I am concerned, the problem is first and foremost caused by those who know him well, and then by those who do not bother to read his texts. If you ask who knows him well, the Kurdish Nurist groups like Zehra and Med-Zehra, whose names I mentioned above. I am also including myself in this.

The number of villages Said-i Kurdi visited, the number of articles he wrote, and the number of Kurdish organizations he was involved in to identify and treat Kurdish problems one hundred years ago were more than the number of Kurdish Nurists do today.

More importantly, Kurdish Nurists have not even written a proper biography of Kurdi as of today. Ninety percent of what has been written or done about him consists of either the modification propaganda of the statist Nurists or the reactionary and Kurdish accusations of Kemalist writers. In short, Kurdish Nurists are primarily responsible for the lack of information and misinformation about who Said-i Kurdi was and what he did.

As for what Kurdi did, Said-i Kurdi was a man who embarked on many adventures in a short period of time. At a young age, he traveled to many parts of Kurdistan through madrassas and identified very fundamental deficiencies about the Kurds. He summarized these deficiencies in his own words as poverty, ignorance and lack of national unity. For example, he says that the lack of positive sciences in the education system in Kurdish madrassas deprives Kurds of modern sciences, and this leaves them behind neighboring nations. As a solution, prepared a university project called Medresetul Zahra, which will be headquartered in Van province and where positive sciences such as physics, chemistry, biology and mathematics will be taught in addition to religious sciences. According to Kurdi, one of the indispensable aspects of this project is that education must be provided in Kurdish, the mother tongue of the Kurds. He even wrote an article explaining why it was necessary for a child to receive education in his/her mother tongue.

The second point he insists on is the lack of unity among Kurds. He associates this with the Kurds' weak consciousness of being a nation, and he spent months traveling among the tribes, explaining the importance of acting as a nation. In 1909, he traveled among the Kurdish tribes for six months and then gathered the tribal leaders in Van and told them about Constitutionalism, Civilization and Freedom. His work “Münazarat” describes this process. He did not fight this struggle only in Kurdistan. He also came to Istanbul during the Constitutional Monarchy and actively participated in the Kurdish lobby. He took part in the establishment of associations such as Kurdish Solidarity and Progress, Kurdish Education Journal and Kurdish Rise. He published daily political texts in nine different newspapers and magazines. He had countless initiatives for the Kurds, which I cannot go into detail here. He harshly criticizes the policies of the Ottoman Empire in Kurdistan. He addressed Sultan Abdulhamid himself, saying that the administration consciously wanted to destroy the Kurds through ignorance. Of course, the response to his demands was to send him first to prison and then to a mental hospital to discredit him. While Said-i Kurdi was in prison, the Sultan himself did not neglect to bribe him to keep quiet. But Kurdi said "I did not come here for myself; I did for my nation" and refused. At the same time, he got close to the Committee of Union and Progress, which was the active opposition front of that period, but later on, the committee’s pursuit for a nationalist Turanist policy caused him to part ways with them.

While Said-i Kurdi was involved in Kurdish societies in Istanbul, he also had problems with some Kurdish figures and intellectuals at the time. He voiced his objections, especially in the Kurdish societies regarding the damage caused to the Kurds by the rivalry between families like Bedirhani and Nehri. I think he was accused of "not being Kurdish enough", to which he responded with the following statements in his work “Speech”: "I resign from the artificial Kurdishness that consists of individualism, conflict, self-righteousness, making the people work for themselves, the tendency to lordship, deception and deception. I am proud of Kurdishness, which is the symbol of loyalty, courage and honesty". As we can see, Kurdi also resigned from Kurdishness at some point, but not due to indifference, but from real artificial Kurdishness.

In summary, Said-i Kurdi needs to be read in detail by Kurds today from his own texts without any prejudice. After this fair and detailed reading, Kurds can discuss and evaluate him with his pros and cons.

[1] Around 2011 friday sermons targeted Kurdish politics and the ruling party AKP had begun to organize within mosques. Kurdish political movement in return began to perform Friday prayers in large squares instead of mosques, with an imam they appointed.