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Although the Kurds have attracted widespread international attention, Iranian Kurdistan has been largely overlooked. This book examines the consequences of modernity and modernisation for Iran s Kurdish society in the 20th century. Marouf Cabi argues that while state-led modernisation integrated the Kurds in modern Iran, the homogenisation of identity and culture also resulted in their vigorous pursuit of their political and cultural rights.Focusing on the dual process of state-led modernisation and homogenisation of identity and culture, Cabi examines the consequences of modernity and modernisation for the socioeconomic, cultural, and political structures as well as for gender relations. It is the consequences of this dynamic dual process that explains the modern structures of Iran s Kurdish society, on the one hand, and its intimate relationship with Iran as a historical, geographical, and political entity, on the other. Using Persian, Kurdish and English sources, the book explores the transformation of Kurdish society between the Second World War and the 1979 Iranian Revolution, with a special focus on the era of the 'White Revolution' during the 1960s and 1970s

This PhD study examines the consequences of modernity and modernisation for Kurdish-Iranian society in the twentieth century. It identifies a dual process of socio-economic transformation and homogenisation of culture and identity, the dialectics of which (re)formed the economic, social, political and cultural structures of modern Kurdish society in Iran. As a result, socio-economically, Kurdish society became integrated in modern Iran, whereas it vigorously resisted homogenisation of identity and culture; at the same time, it maintained porous cultural borders with other societies in Iran, and continued to be shaped by mechanisms of modern cultural encounters. The socio-economic transformation of Iran strengthened and created new bonds between societies in Iran, while at the same time resistance and struggle for political and cultural rights became permanent characteristics of Kurdish-Iranian society. During the modernisation of Iran, the era of the 'White Revolution' is distinguished for the profound transformation of Iran it entailed. Therefore, an interpretation of the era constitutes the main concern of this thesis because, building on previous attempts to modernise Iran, the era of the White Revolution was crucial in engendering profound changes in Kurdish society. The theoretical framework of this study is informed by theories of social change and transformation against modernisation theories, and by theories of nation and nationalism which theoretically enable this research to distance itself from national narratives. Significantly, this framework includes a range of cultural critiques, benefits from studies of homogenisation and state formation, and relies on rich scholarly works on the formation of modern Iran, which, when combined, accentuate the cultural, political and social dimensions of modern nation-building in Iran. The result is a multi-dimensional approach to social change in Kurdish society. It is the dynamics of the dual process which continue to (re)form the foundations of Kurdish society in Iran; and it is this approach which I regard as a crucial contribution to both Kurdish and Iranian studies.

This article examines in a Kurdish-Iranian context the origins of Iranian and Kurdish national narratives that go back to the process of the transformation of historical consciousness in the nineteenth century. At the same time, it aims at making central to Iranian history a perception of Kurdish-Iranian history, which has largely remained both a marginalized and an understudied subject. In contrast to these national narratives' construction of the past and their definitions of people, "Kurdish-Iranian" refers to an approach that simultaneously attempts to demarginalize Kurdish (social) history and highlight the impact of almost a century of socioeconomic transformation of Iran on the Kurdish society. An analysis of these narratives' origins is required to understand the way they interpret history and define concepts. This approach and the absence of such an analysis in both Kurdish and Iranian studies provide for the originality of this article and, inspired by what I hold to be the ascendancy of national narratives due to recent regional and political developments, its immediacy. Methodologically, it is based on theories of nation and nationalism, in general, and the accompanying literature on the formation of modern Iranian national identity, in particular.

This article analysis Ali Ezzatyar's The Last Mufti of Iranian Kurdistan, which aims to prove how the Kurds' supposed indisposition towards political Islam qualifies them to be the natural allies of the West and the Western powers. Supported by the two theses of shared social values and shared rivalries between the Kurds and the West, and centred around its main protagonist Ahmad Muftizadeh's supposedly alternative form of political Islam, the book is based on two premises: a declining relationship throughout the twentieth century between Kurdish identity and Islamism, and the inconsequential nature of the relationship between Iranian Islamism and Kurdish Islamism. In contrast, and in order to save history from merely serving policy-making, this article argues that the relationships involved were determined in the wider context of the process of the modernization of Iran, in which political Islam emerged and, albeit to a limited extent, influenced the development of a religious Kurdayeti or Kurdishness represented by Muftizadeh.

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