Abstract
<jats:p>Mullah, People and State An Ethnography of Eastern Madrasas Mullah, People and State: An Ethnography of Eastern Madrasas is a study that examines the relationships between religion, tradition, modernization, and the state shaped around madrasa culture in Turkeys Eastern and Southeastern Anatolia regions from an ethnographic perspective. The book examines how madrasas survived in the face of the Republics modernization and secularism policies, how the social status of mullahs, sheikhs, and seydas transformed during this process, and what dynamics shaped their relationships with the people and the state. The study approaches the madrasa not only as an educational institution, but also as a structure that shapes the religious life, traditional social order, and cultural continuity of the region. Despite the banning of madrasas, their continued existence is analyzed in the context of public support, traditional prestige, and the relationship between Sufi orders and madrasas. Within this framework, the decline in prestige, diminishing political influence, and transformation of religious authority experienced by traditional religious status categories such as mullah, mullah, and sheikh during the modernization process are examined in detail. The study analyzes the tense relationship between madrasa culture and modernity, demonstrating that traditional religious institutions have lost their function in the face of the modern cognitive and social universe. The book provides a detailed analysis of the transformation in the prestige of traditional religious authorities such as sheikhs, seyda, and mullahs in the face of modernization, examining this phenomenon through the prism of politics, economics, education, media, and everyday life practices. While madrasa students maintain a traditional approach in terms of curriculum, jurisprudence, and religious interpretation, their inevitable contact with the demands of modern life constitutes one of the central points of discussion in this study. In this context, the book uses field-based data to reveal the tension between traditional consciousness, defended at a theoretical level, and modernity, experienced in practice. Based on ethnographic observation and in-depth interviews, Mullah, People and State analyzes the effects of modernization on regional religiosity within the context of Kurdish ethnic identity, popular Islam, and traditional institutions. It aims to make an original contribution to the literature on the sociology of religion, anthropology, the Kurdish question, traditional forms of authority, and secularization. At the same time, it offers readers interested in understanding the social transformation of religion in modern Turkey the opportunity to take a close look at the internal dynamics of a region far from the center. Keywords: Madrasa; Sufi Order; Kurdish; Sheikh; Seyda</jats:p>