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30 Jan. 2020 -
16:00 - 17:00
NIAS
Conference Room
By invitation

The Political Function of Religion in Nationalistic Confrontations

NIAS Seminar

Political scientist Sabah Mofidi, current scholar-at-risk fellow, will discuss his project on religion and nationalistic confrontations, particularly in Kurdistan and Iran.

The relationship between religion and politics has always been one of the most controversial social issues throughout modern history. Despite the separation of state and church in many countries, the separation of religion and politics has practically been impossible. Although the growth of secularism led to the reduction of the political functions of religion, but it still has some functions and roles in politics even in the secular and liberal democracies of both Western and Eastern societies. In this regard, the most important division of this relationship is the relation between religion and nationalism so that most of the nationalist forces in Middle East use the political functions of religion.

In this relation, this research explains the political function of religion in nationalistic confrontations in Kurdistan with a focus on the Kurdish and Iranian nationalisms in Eastern Kurdistan. Studying the relationship between religion and politics in Kurdistan as the junction region of different nationalisms can help to answer the question, since the different aspects of the relationship are seen in the region that its political arena has been affected by different nationalisms.