The Sociological Analysis of Salafism as an Identifier of Origin in Iran's Kurdistan

The end of the cold war witnessed the retreat of socialism from the bourgeois system followed by the failure of modernization process among the Islamic countries. This laid the groundwork for developing an ideological and political thought known as Resistance Islam.This process, regardless of geographical borders, became a worldwide phenomenon, although it has been more effective in some regions because of their political and religious conditions. The region encompassing Kurd people in Iraq and Iran (after the coalition forces attacked Iraq in 2003) consists of areas that accepted this social and rational process under the rubric of Salafism. This article seeks, both, to introduce the above process and its internal divisions and to answer the question why Salafism was converted into an identity origin for some Sunni Kurds of Iran. The article collected the required information in semantics, ideological system and the social thoughts of Iran's Salafist Kurds by conducting a case-study method, combined with an observation technique accompanied by the interview, theoretical and content codification among the target population. The results of this article would represent that the Salafist idea is formed around some concepts such as monotheism, excommunication, Jihad, Idolater, idealism, religion inclusion and the like. The structure and the organization of Iran's Salafist Kurds can be categorized in four groups of Radical Jihadist, Middle Jihadist, Traditional Non-jihadist and Conservative Non-jihadist. Finally, the obtained information is indicative of the fact that it appears that Salafism by placing an emphasis on protest concept, objecting the present situation, compliance with an ideal past of Islam and by fundamentalism and by the label of extremism constitute a kind of resistance identity which is based on the conception of religious inclusion against the dominant and secular discourse of the Kurd, and thereby exhibits these characteristics for others to notice.