Ali Bapir, A.K.A Mamosta Ali Bapir ( ku, عه‌لی باپیر) is a Kurdish

Islamic scholar In Islam, the ''ulama'' (; ar, علماء ', singular ', "scholar", literally "the learned ones", also spelled ''ulema''; feminine: ''alimah'' ingularand ''aalimath'' lural are the guardians, transmitters, and interpreters of reli ...

and politician in

Iraqi Kurdistan Iraqi Kurdistan or Southern Kurdistan ( ku, باشووری کوردستان, Başûrê Kurdistanê) refers to the Kurdish-populated part of northern Iraq. It is considered one of the four parts of "Kurdistan" in Western Asia, which also incl ...

. He is the founder and current president of the Kurdistan Justice Group (formerly known as the Islamic Group of Kurdistan). He was born in 1961 in the Pshdar district, Iraqi Kurdistan. He has written over 150 books on politics, Islam, society, Kurds, and Kurdistan. He is the most popular politician with the

Kurdish Islamism Kurdish-Islamic nationalism, () also known as Kurdish-Islamic synthesis, is a form of religious nationalism that combines Kurdish nationalism with Islamism. History The ideology emerged after the abolition of the Caliphate and the creation of Tur ...

ideology. In the 2009 Iraqi general elections for the

Council of Representatives The Council of Representatives (''Majlis an-nuwab''), sometimes translated as the "Chamber of Deputies", is the name given to the lower house of the Bahraini National Assembly, the national legislative body of Bahrain. The council was created ...

, he was one of the 10 candidates with the most votes in the country. Bapir fought against Saddam Hussein's regime in the 1980s as a Peshmerga fighter. Bapir also notoriously killed his own brother, who worked with Saddam Hussein's regime to kill an IMK member. After splitting from Islamic Movement of Kurdistan (IMK) in 2000 and establishing the Kurdistan Justice Group, he stayed in the Halabja area adjacent to the Iranian border where extremists had established an

Islamic emirate An emirate is a territory ruled by an emir, a title used by monarchs or high officeholders in the Muslim world. From a historical point of view, an emirate is a political-religious unit smaller than a caliphate. It can be considered equivalen ...

. When the Americans attacked extremists of the Ansar al-Islam group in March 2003, approximately two dozen soldiers loyal to Bapir were killed as well. Ali Bapir is one of the first Kurdish politicians from Iraqi Kurdistan to speak against Turkey’s treatment of its Kurdish citizens while on an official visit to Turkey. In 2016, Bapir participated in a discussion panel in Turkey and stated that “Turkey must stop oppressing the Kurds in the North” and that “the issue of the Muslim world is that they have let go of Islam and tradition to play by the rules of the Sykes Picot agreement in 1916 which has divided the nations along illegitimate borders.” Shortly after the emergence of ISIS, Bapir released a series of books named "Denunciation of Extremism and Refutation of Extremist Ideas" in which he wrote that the teachings of Quran encourage tolerance and coexistence. When ISIS attacked the Kurdistan in 2015, Ali Bapir released a statement urging the people to defend the region, saying “Defending religious life, people, and land, is a religious obligation, for that reason I urge all of you to be completely prepared and to do whatever it takes to protect the urdistanregion,” On April 5, 2014, the Garmian Center for Referendum awarded Bapir a medal for his efforts in promoting reform and re-conciliation between the political parties in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. A debate with the title “Kurdistan between Democracy and Secularism” was held on April 10, 2016 in Tawar Hall in the Kurdish city of Sulaymaniyah between Ali Bapir and Mala Bakhtiyar, the Chief of the Executive Body of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, under the supervision of the Department of Humanities of a French university. The debate was later printed as a book of the same title in 2016. It was translated and published in Arabic and English.

Literary career

In his initial writings Bapir has inspired the poet

Khider Kosari ckb:کۆساری Khider Mohammad Rasheed, better known as Khider Kosari ( ku, خدر کۆساری; 1969–1993) was a Kurdish Islamist rebel and poet. Early life Kosari was born in 1969 in Ranya, Kurdistan Region and was not nationalistic or re ...

Criticism

In 2015, after the

Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant An Islamic state is a State (polity), state that has a form of government based on sharia, Islamic law (sharia). As a term, it has been used to describe various historical Polity, polities and theories of governance in the Islamic world. As a t ...

(ISIL) made advances into the Kurdistan region, Bapir called for the defense of the Kurdish region and urged ISIL to not attack, Kurdistan Justice Group and Kurdistan Islamic Movement were among the first to congratulate the

Taliban The Taliban (; ps, طالبان, ṭālibān, lit=students or 'seekers'), which also refers to itself by its state (polity), state name, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is a Deobandi Islamic fundamentalism, Islamic fundamentalist, m ...

when they took control of

Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is bordere ...

. MPs of the group said that they are "sending them congratulations and prayers". Ali Bapir and the some of the members of Kurdistan Justice Group have refused to stand to the Kurdish national anthem on numerous occasions, which caused fierce debate and criticism against him and the political faction he represents. While defending himself, he said in a statement that "nobody has the right to criticize us for not standing for the anthem, because we cannot respect an anthem which disrespects our religion", referring to part of the anthem which states: "our only religion is our nation." This controversy led to a lawsuit against Ali Bapir's son-in-law, who was also a member of Kurdistan Justice Group.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bapir, Ali Iraqi Kurdistani politicians Living people 1961 births Kurdish nationalists Iraqi Islamists Kurdish Islamists People from Sulaymaniyah Province