Mullas, Sufis, and Heretics. The Role of Religion in Kurdish Society: Collected Articles

Description

This book comprises a selection of articles by Martin van Bruinessen, professor at Utrecht University, about the role of religion and religious organisations in Kurdish society. As the outcomes of a quarter century’s work including long and laborious field work, research and direct contact with the cultures in focus, the articles present an extensive discussion of religious history of Kurdistan in the recent past. Religious orders such as Sufism, Naqshbandiyya and Qadiriyya as well as heterodox religious formations like Yezidism and Ahl-i Haqq are discussed in detail as important social and political influences in the Kurdish society. The author also follows the traces of religious life of Kurdistan in the writings of the famous 17th century Turkish traveller Evliya Çelebi. In addition, he refers to examples from as far as Indonesia and South Africa to illustrate the role of Kurdish ulama in the transmission of learning between the great cultural regions of the Muslim world. Introduction TABLE OF CONTENTS PREFACE The religious mosaic 1. "Religion in Kurdistan" 2. "The Kurds and Islam" 3. "The Christians of Eastern Turkey, the state and the local power structure" Learning and mysticism in the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries 4. "Religious life in Diyarbekir: religious learning and the role of the tariqats" 5. "The Naqshbandī order in 17th-century Kurdistan" 6. "The impact of Kurdish 'ulama on Indonesian Islam" 7. "A nineteenth century Kurdish scholar in South Africa" The social and political roles of sufi orders in Kurdistan 8. "Popular Islam, Kurdish nationalism and rural revolt: The rebellion of Shaikh Said in Turkey (1925)" 9. "Vom Osmanismus zum Separatismus: Religiöse und ethnische Hintergründe der Rebellion des Scheich Said" 10. "The Sâdatê Nehrî or Gîlânîzade of Central Kurdistan" 11. "The Qadiriyya and the lineages of Qadiri shaykhs in Kurdistan" 12. "Sȗfîs and sultans in Southeast Asia and Kurdistan: a comparative survey" Heterodox religious formations in Kurdistan 13. "When Haji Bektash still bore the name of Sultan Sahak. Notes on the Ahl-i Haqq of the Guran district" 14. "Haji Bektash, Sultan Sahak, Shah Mina Sahib and various avatars of a running wall" 15. "The Shabak, a Kizilbash community in Iraqi Kurdistan" 16. General Bibliography