Pro-Kurdish Mevlid Commemorations in Turkey: The Ritual Expression of Political Rivalry

On April 30, 2023, the leader of the pro-Kurdish Islamist Free Cause Party (Hüda-Par), the successor of Kurdish Hizbullah, addressed tens of thousands who gathered in Diyarbakir’s Newroz Park to commemorate the birth of Prophet Muhammed. Referring to their main political rival, the secular pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM), he declared: “This gathering sends a message to those attempting to distance the Kurds from their faith. It also sends a message to those spreading false propaganda about us.” Pro-Kurdish Mevlid commemorations in Diyarbakir, held annually since 2006, not only reveal the political rivalry between different factions within the Kurdish movement in Turkey but also serve as a platform to present an alternative vision of Islam and Muslim identity, distinct from the state-endorsed narrative. This study explores how a popular Islamic ritual has become a contested political space in Turkey’s predominantly Kurdish region, where competing political imaginaries contend for dominance and legitimacy. Based on a fieldwork in Diyarbakir, this study employs an ethnographic approach to analyze various public expressions of Kurdish and Muslim identities, and how they reproduce power relations and political rivalries in the ritual environment. Particular attention will be paid to local power structures and everyday practices that shape actors’ sense of identity and belonging. Drawing upon Bell’s theoretical framework of “ritualization,” the main objective is to investigate the ritually created collective agency in both individuals’ narratives (“ways of seeing the world”) and practices (“ways of acting in the world”). The methodological novelty of this study lies in its attempt to combine ethnographic inquiry with political science to shift the analytical focus from organizational and structural level explorations to the daily human practices and interactions.