No CrossRef data available.
Article contents
Religion Meets Gender: The Impact of Sunni Islamic Discourse on the Jina Uprising in Eastern Kurdistan
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 August 2025
Abstract
The Jina uprising, ignited by the state-sanctioned killing of Jina (Mahsa) Amini in September 2022, marked a historic convergence of gender, ethnic, and religious resistance in Iran, particularly in Eastern Kurdistan (also known as Rojhelat or Iranian Kurdistan). Although the movement was initially framed as a feminist revolution, Sunni Muslim clerics and leaders played a pivotal role in shaping its trajectory. This article examines how religious discourse catalyzed and sustained the uprising, challenging conventional secular frames of social movement theory. Sunni-majority Eastern Kurdistan became a hub for both Kurdish nationalist and religious mobilization as clerics leveraged mosques and sermons to amplify the movement’s demands, intertwining gender-based struggles with calls for ethnic and religious recognition. Despite historical restrictions on political organization, networks of Sunni Islamic groups and clerical bodies provided leadership, solidarity, and moral legitimacy to protesters, even as state violence escalated. By contextualizing the Jina uprising within Iran’s Persian Shiʿi nationalist framework, this article demonstrates how religion, often sidelined in analyses of modern uprisings, remains a powerful force of resistance, uniting diverse grievances against multilayered systemic oppression. It also is a reminder of the duality of religion as both a site of state control and a transformative vehicle for recognition and liberation.
Information
- Type
- Special Focus Roundtable
- Information
- Copyright
- © The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Middle East Studies Association of North America
References
1 “Mamosta” is a respectful term in Kurdish used to address both teachers and religious leaders.
2 “The Supreme Court Confirmed the Death Sentence of Mohammad Khizrnejad, One of the Detainees of the Jin, Jiyan, Azadi Movement,” Hengaw, 6 June 2024, https://hengaw.net/fa/news/2024/06/article-33.
3 In the Sunni regions of Kurdistan, a government-appointed imam leads Friday prayers at the main mosque in the city. However, unlike Shiʿa, who say Friday prayers should happen in just one mosque per city, Sunni Kurds in Iran hold these prayers in many mosques throughout the city and in every village. The local religious leader, or mamosta, who leads daily prayers, usually also leads the Friday prayers. These Friday imams in local mosques are not selected according to Shiʿi rules. Instead, the community directly chooses them and pays their salaries.
4 See “Mamosta Luqman Amini Was Sentenced to 11 Years of Imprisonment,” Hengaw, 14 June 2023, https://hengaw.net/fa/news/archive/60002; “Mamosta Ebrahim Was Sentenced to 12 Years of Imprisonment,” Hengaw, 14 June 2023, https://hengaw.net/fa/news/archive/59996; “Mamosta Ibrahim Salimi Was Sentenced to 3 Years of Imprisonment,” Hengaw, 21 December 2023, https://hengaw.net/fa/news/archive/63407; and “Mamosta Saber Khodamoradi Was Sentenced to 15 Months in Prison,” Kurdpa, 29 August 2024, https://kurdpa.net/fa/news/2024/08/66.
5 Mehrabi, Tara, “Woman, Life, Freedom: On Protests in Iran and Why It Is a Feminist Movement,” Kvinder, Køn und Forskning 2 (2022): 114–21, https://doi.org/10.7146/kkf.v34i1.134480 Google Scholar; Moghaddam, Rezvan, “The Roots of the Revolutionary Women’s Movement in 2022 in Iran: Women, Life, Freedom,” Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies 20, no. 1 (2024): 132–40, https://doi.org/10.1215/15525864-10961860 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Homa Bazafkan, “‘Women, Life, Freedom’: A New Revolutionary Era in Iran,” Vienna Institute for Dialogue and Cooperation, 2022, https://www.vidc.org/en/detail/women-life-freedom-a-new-revolutionary-era-in-iran; Khosrokhavar, Farhad, “The Mahsa Movement: The First Feminist Movement in Iran?” Freedom of Thought Journal 14 (2023): 11–38, https://doi.org/10.53895/ftj1407 Google Scholar.
6 Ghaderi, Farangis, “Jin, Jiyan, Azadi and the Historical Erasure of Kurds,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 55, no. 4 (2023): 718–23, https://doi.org/10.1017/S002074382300137X CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Mohammadpour, Ahmad, “Decolonizing Voices from Rojhelat: Gender-Othering, Ethnic Erasure, and the Politics of Intersectionality in Iran,” Critical Sociology 50, no. 1 (2024): 85–106, https://doi.org/10.1177/08969205231176051 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
7 “Hengaw Statistical Report on the Killing of at Least 134 Kurdish Citizens during the Jina revolution,” Hengaw, 11 March 2023, https://hengaw.net/fa/news/archive/58742.
8 Ahmad Mohammadpour, “The Invention of Iran: From ‘Iranianness’ to ‘Persianness,’” Asian Studies Review 2024, https://doi.org/10.1080/10357823.2024.2355110.
9 Fateh Saeidi and Ahmad Mohammadpour, “Nationalizing the Religion: Sufism in the ‘Persianate World,’” Asian Ethnicity 2024: 1–26, https://doi.org/10.1080/14631369.2024.2410839.
10 Fateh Saeidi and Davoud Osmanzadeh, “Colonial Sovereignty and Religious Necropolitics: The Sacred Victimization of Infidel Kurds in the Middle East,” Ethnicities 2024, https://doi.org/10.1177/14687968241287204.
11 Ghaderi, “Jin, Jiyan, Azadi.”
12 Smith, Christian, Disruptive Religion: The Force of Faith in Social Movement Activism (London: Routledge, 1996), 2–4 Google Scholar.
13 Ibid., 9–13.
14 See Tarrow, Sidney, Power in Movement: Social Movements and Contentious Politics, 3rd ed. (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2011)10.1017/CBO9780511973529CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
15 Call and Reform Organization, “Member List,” IDSB, Union of NGOs of the Islamic World, accessed 10 March 2025, https://idsb.org/en/member-list/call-and-reform-organization.
16 “Jamaat’s Public Relations Statement on the Death of Ms. Mehsa Amini,” Islah, 17 September 2022, https://www.islahweb.org/fa/post/بیانیه-ی-روابط-عمومی-جماعت-به-مناسبت-درگذشت-خانم-مهسا-امینی.
17 See https://fa.maktabquran.com/%D9%85%D8%B9%D8%B1%D9%81%DB%8C; and Mofidi, Sabah, “Religion and Politics in Eastern Kurdistan (With a Focus on Maktab Qur’an during Iranian Revolution, 1979),” Journal of Politics and Law 8, no. 3 (2015): 36–50, https://doi.org/10.5539/jpl.v8n3p3 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
18 Khabat Organization, “The Internal Section of the Khabat Organization Supports the Kurdistan General Strike,” Sazmanixebat, 18 September 2022, https://www.sazmanixebat.com/kurdi/articles.php?id=5249; Yzaki, “Support the Call of the Cooperation Center of Iranian Kurdistan’s Political Parties for a Strike and Protest against the Martyrdom of Jina Amini,” 18 September 2022, https://yzak1350.blogspot.com/2022/09/blog-post_18.html.
19 Hassan Amini, “A Message to the Shiite Clergy,” 27 November 2022, https://t.me/kakhasanamini; “Statements of Friday Imams and Clerics of Dehgolan and Qorve Cities,” 24 November 2022, https://t.me/delsozani_nishteman.
20 Yemame, “The Official Telegram Channel of Yekyati Mamostayani Ayini Meriwan Wa Hewraman,” 2024, https://t.me/delsozani_nishteman.
21 Allan Hassaniyan, “On the Second Anniversary of the Jin, Jiyan, Azadi Uprisings: Violent Collective Punishment in Rojhelat, and Authoritarian Resilience in Iran,” Center for Kurdistan Studies, 2024, https://tishk.org/blog/kurdistanagora/on-the-secondanniversary-of-the-jin-jiyan-azadi-upris-ings/#:~:text=. This article examines the violent collective punishment enacted,the murder of Jina Amini in September 2022.
22 Yemame, “Telegram Channel.”
23 Hassan Amini, “The Official Telegram Channel of Kak Hassan Amini,” 20 September 2022, https://t.me/kakhasanamini.