Sufi Islam in Kurdistan and the issue of official and popular Islam

Ebrahimzadeh, Saman; Shariati, Sara; Akhzariyan Kashani, Mohammad Reza

doi:10.22034/jsi.2025.2022800.1706

Sufi Islam in Kurdistan and the issue of official and popular Islam

Authors

Saman Ebrahimzadeh ¹

Sara Shariati ²

Mohammad Reza Akhzariyan Kashani ³

¹ PhD in Cultural Sociology, Faculty of Social and Human Sciences, Science and Research Branch (Islamic Azad University), Tehran, Iran

² Assistans Professor, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran

³ Assistant Professor of Political Sciences, Faculty of Law and Political Sciences, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran

10.22034/jsi.2025.2022800.1706

Abstract

The most common theory in religious studies regarding official and popular religion considers the former as the view of the official religious institution, and the latter as the beliefs and practices prevalent among the masses. Given the lack of official religious organizations in Islamic societies, a different formulation has been proposed that considers official religion as the normative opinions of religious scholars. In the case of Kurdistan, we are faced with a different form of Islam called Sufi Islam, which poses different problems in applying the former mentioned theory. Accordingly, we have attempted to use a different analytical framework that defines the distinction between popular and official based on the form of religious experiences. To this end, we have first examined the historical processes that influenced the formation of Sufi Islam, and finally we undertook a theoretical analysis of a new formulation of the distinction between popular and official Islams

Keywords

Popular Islam

Official Islam

Sufi Islam

the Islam of ulama

Subjects

Historical Sociology,

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