While the Kurdish encounter with Islam is presented in most historical narratives as a simple process of “conversion”, in reality this transformation is a very comprehensive political engineering targeting the thousands of years of cultural continuity of Mesopotamia. The pre-Islamic world of Kurdish communities, shaped by Zoroastrian and Yazdani beliefs, local Iranian cultures and the ancient nature-centered cultures of Mesopotamia, was transformed through blood, oppression, domination and changing the demographic structure with the centralizing pressure that began with the Arab conquests and continued with the Sunni-Islamic ideology of the Ottoman Empire and the Turanian-Turkish ideology of the Republic. This transformation has created deep ruptures not only in the field of belief but also in social organization, tribal structure, hearth system, sacred places and oral culture.
The Kurds“ encounter with Islam was not a ”voluntary acceptance" but a historical necessity determined by military conquest, tax regime, the interests of local elites and the State-Sect alliance. Therefore, the Kurdish transition from Zoroastrianism to Sunni-Islam is a complex historical scene in which both political oppression and cultural continuity are intertwined.
During the period of Arab conquest and expansionism, the Kurdish geography, exhausted by the Sassanid-Byzantine wars, faced the rise of a new political power. The entry of the Rashidun and Umayyad armies into the region meant not only military domination, but also a redefinition of taxation, population movements and local authorities. Muslim communities were freed from the burden of exile and tribute, and tribes aligned with the State were granted new status. While this encouraged local beys and sheikhs to convert to Islam and become part of the new order, the population, as a natural extension of this hierarchical structure, was directed to Sunnization through force and oppression. Thus, the spread of Islam in the Kurdish geography proceeded as a process determined by both compulsory conformity and pragmatic alliances. In this process, elements of the old beliefs did not completely disappear, but continued to live on, transformed in Sufism, hearth culture and local rituals.
During the Seljuk and Ottoman periods, the Sunnization of the Kurds became more institutionalized with the influence of orders and sheikhs. The Naqshbandi and Qadiri orders reshaped the social structure in the region by assuming the role of both religious authority and political mediation. The Ottoman Empire organized the Kurdish geography as a Sunni buffer zone against Safavid Shiism, therefore Sunni Sheikhs were supported while Alevi-Kizilbash communities were coded as a “threat”. These policies accelerated the convergence of a significant part of the Kurdish tribes with Sunni-Islam, but this convergence had the character of a political contract established in the triangle of the State-Tarikat and the Tribe. On the other hand, the Alevi-Kizilbash communities in Dersim, Koçgiri and the surrounding areas resisted this centralizing oppression and were targeted for massacres, genocide and changes in the demographic structure and constant hardships during both the Ottoman and Republican periods.
The Koçgiri movement of 1920-1921 was not just a “rebellion” but represented a unique political line between Kurdish national demands and the protection of Alevi-Kizilbaş identity. The tribes in the region demanded their rights from the Ankara government under the influence of the autonomy discussions envisaged by the Treaty of Sèvres, but the newly established Republic saw these demands as a threat to the State authority. The suppression of Koçgiri was not only a military operation, but also a purge targeting the hearth structure, tribal authority and Alevi-Kurdish identity in the region. This purge was a precursor to the Republic's more comprehensive “Tame and Tenkil” policies in Dersim in the years to come. Koçgiri was one of the first major breaking points in the centralizing reflex of the state against the plural identities of Mesopotamia.
Dersim 1937-38 was both a demographic and cultural extermination process beyond the official discourse. The Alevi-Kizilbash belief system, the Ocak and tribal organization, the matriarchal social structure and the sacred sites centered on the Mountain-Ziyaret were in clear contradiction with the monist Nation-State project of the Republic. The state coded Dersim as a “Region in Need of Civilization” and aimed to break the social fabric of the region through methods such as forced resettlement, exile, village burnings, mass executions and the separation of children from their families.
The liquidation of the Sayyids and tribal leaders aimed to destroy not only political authority, but also spiritual memory. Dersim went down in history as one of the most dramatic examples of the state's interruption of Mesopotamia's ancient cultural continuity. In other words, HTS and its main ideological line Epstein have always existed in this geography, and now that their interests have conflicted, page after page of their filth has surfaced.
The difference between Sunni-Islamic sheikhs and Alevi-Kizilbash seyyits is often presented as “two different traditions”, but their historical roots lie in the different political fates of the same social structure. Both sides are shaped by lineage, Ocak, Keramet and community leadership, but their relationship with the State distinguishes them.
During the Ottoman and Republican periods, Sunni-Sheikhs often assumed a harmonious role with the State, becoming part of the political structure with functions such as collecting taxes, providing soldiers and maintaining social order. On the other hand, Alevi-Kizilbash Sayyids were seen by the State as “deviations”, “threats” and “potential rebels”, and were therefore the target of repression, exile and massacres. This divergence should be read as two different political interpretations of the same cultural root.
The common line of the Islamic, Ottoman and Republican eras is that they saw the plural, autonomous and layered culture of Mesopotamia as a “Danger that is difficult to manage”. For this reason, each period invented “Opposite Cultures” in its own ideological language. Social engineering has been carried out through dichotomies such as Sunni-Alevi, Turkish-Kurdish, Center-Rural. These dichotomies both legitimized violence and targeted Mesopotamia's thousands of years of civilization.
Koçgiri and Dersim are the most visible links of this long-term plan, but the root cause of the massacres is the systematic erasure of the cultural memory of not only the two regions, but the entire Mesopotamia. The identity debates that still rage today are the contemporary reflections of these historical ruptures, and it is vital for the future of this geography that Mesopotamia's pluralist heritage is remembered again.