IranWire:

Ever since the terrorist group ISIS claimed responsibility for attacks on Iran’s parliament and the mausoleum of Ayatollah Khomeini on June 7th, Iranian officials have pointed the finger at members of Iran’s Kurdish minority.

A video released by Amaq, the new agency affiliated with ISIS, also refers to Kurdish militants active in Iran.

While Iran’s Kurds have long identified more with their own national identity struggle than with international ideologies, many Kurds are also members of Islam’s Sunni sect, and observers fear that some Kurds may be susceptible to the violent strain of Salafism, an ultra-conservative branch of Islam that has emerged from the Arabian Peninsula. Iranians are now asking what roots this ideology may have in Kurdistan, and what Iran’s Shia Islamist government has done to challenge it.

IranWire put these questions to Mokhtar Houshmand, a former Kurdish political prisoner who now lives in Germany and researches the spread of jihadist ideologies among Kurds.

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When did Salafism begin to take root in Iranian Kurdistan?

Jihadi Salafism first entered Iranian Kurdistan 20 years ago, around the mid-1990s, when the ideology found supporters in the Sunni areas. Three important developments were crucial to the spread of this ideology: The establishment of Taliban’s Islamic Emirate in Afghanistan, the formation of Al-Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan, and eventually, the emergence of Ansar al-Islam in the Iraqi Kurdish region of Oraman, next to Iranian Kurdistan.

We also have ershadi (“guidance”) Salafism that believes is peaceful proselytizing, unlike the jihadi Salafism that believes jihad is the only way to carry out Islamic law. What is the influence of this version in Kurdistan? Does ershadi Salafism have historical roots in Iranian Kurdistan like Sufism? Or does it have its origins in movements inspired by the Muslim Brotherhood founded in Egypt?

“Guidance” Salafism entered Kurdistan through a group called Tablighi Jamaat, or "the Proselytizing Group," which entered Iran from Pakistan and initially found some support among Iran’s Baluchi minority since the group carried out extensive activities in Iran’s eastern Sistan and Baluchistan province. But it was only after the introduction of jihadi Salafism among Sunnis in Iranian Kurdistan that guidance Salafism found supporters. Of course, the guidance Salafists, too, might decide for jihad under certain conditions.

Historically, Salafism goes back to Muhammad ibn al-Wahhab [1703-1792], the founder of the Wahhabi school of Islam in Arabia. His ideas evolved into guidance Salafism. Major figures of this branch of Salafism include the Albanian Islamic scholar Muhammad Nasir Uddin al-Albani [1914-1999] and the Saudi scholar Abdul Aziz bin Baz [1910-1999]...

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