According to KurdPress, Dr. Muslim Abdul Talas, a Kurdish researcher from Syria, wrote in a note about the forgotten functions of monasteries in Kurdish areas, especially the city of Kobani, Syria: “Since childhood, I knew that my grandfather, the sheikh, was one of the Sufi monasteries in the Kobani region. This topic did not occupy my mind much and was mostly part of the family’s oral memory; like stories about relatives, years of drought or migration.I had heard the names of the disciples and caliphs of the monastery many times, and I knew that every Thursday night a zikr gathering was held, and people from different villages attended. Sometimes I would go with my father or mother to these gatherings, which were held at my uncle's house.

I still remember the melodious sound of the drums, the zikr circles, and the people coming and going. But that experience, unlike my elders, had no spiritual aspect to it. I neither felt that I had found a connection with the spiritual atmosphere of the gathering, nor did the narration of the miracles of the saints have any particular appeal to me.

What caught my attention was something else; I enjoyed the rhythm of the tambourines, was amazed by the sight of that unique human community – especially for a child who had grown up in a village with a family of seven – and was happy to spend the night at the home of my younger uncle, who had a special affection for me.Like many children, we sometimes secretly imitated the behavior of some disciples and laughed at their childish mischief. For this reason, what remained in my mind from those nights was not a mystical experience, but a social memory; a memory of faces, relationships, voices, and the presence of people that was much more vivid in my mind than the religious aspects of the ceremony.

The village of “Kharkheri” where my uncles lived and where the khanqah was located was a small settlement of five or six houses; about thirty kilometers south of Kobani and on the border between the “Qaraji Sheikhan” region and the “Baraziye” pastures. In such an environment, where the villages were scattered and communication routes were limited, the weekly gathering of people at the khanqah was not only considered a religious ceremony, but also one of the most important platforms for meeting, interacting, and maintaining social ties.

Institutional Economics: A New Look at Traditional Institutions

I later found the answer to this question in political economy, studying the works of thinkers such as Douglas North, Joel Migdal, and James C. Scott. I concluded that institutions do not survive simply because of their beauty, moral legitimacy, or antiquity, but because they meet the real needs of society.They may do so with primitive mechanisms or limited efficiency, but their continued existence shows that at some point in history they were a response to a social need, a need for which society had no better alternative.

From this perspective, the persistence of an institution does not necessarily mean that it is just or perfect, but rather that it has been able to solve a real problem in its time. Therefore, scientific research should not begin by judging whether an institution is good or bad, but should first ask what problem it was solving.

It was here that I realized that we had committed a methodological error. Our attention was focused more on the appearance, discourse, and relationship to the past or the future than on the function of institutions.We asked whether these institutions belonged to the modern era or were a legacy of the past, but we rarely asked what role they played in the context of society. This error was not limited to the khanqahs; we had taken the same approach with the tribe, traditional councils, and local social networks; institutions that gradually weakened or disintegrated under the pressure of the modern state, political parties, the education system, and immigration.

Shifting Functions; When Institutions Disappear but Needs Remain

Khanqahs were never hidden or marginal institutions; rather, in many areas, they formed part of people's daily lives. However, the dominance of ideological views - such as the opposition between progress and backwardness or enlightenment and superstition - caused the real functions of these institutions to be ignored.Our focus was primarily on building modern states, parties, and unions; a goal that is inherently defensible, but the mistake was to assume that with the emergence of modern institutions, the need for traditional institutions would automatically disappear.

We thought of traditional institutions as simply sets of beliefs and ideas, when in practice they were networks for generating trust, organizing social relations, and building solidarity. Eliminating an institution does not mean eliminating the need it served. A monastery may close, but the need for social belonging does not disappear. Circles of remembrance may no longer form, but the need for solidarity, mediation, and connection remains.In such circumstances, the functions of old institutions are transferred to new forms; sometimes in political parties, sometimes in mosques, civil associations, or even social media groups. But this transfer is not always healthy and balanced, and sometimes it causes transformation or even deviation of the functions of these new institutions.

According to the author, part of the current crisis of trust in our societies - including the continuous splits in political parties and the fragility of civil institutions - is the result of this rupture; that is, the collapse of traditional institutions before modern institutions can fill the void left behind.

History also teaches us the same lesson; just as an engineer must make sure that the wall does not support the roof before demolishing it, a social scientist should not demand the elimination of an institution before understanding its function.Perhaps the secret of modernity's success was not in the destruction of these functions, but in their transfer to new institutions such as schools, courts, hospitals, associations, unions, political parties, and later media and social networks.

Therefore, the success of any modernization project should not be measured by the number of traditional institutions it has eliminated, but rather by the extent to which the new institutions have been able to take over the tasks and functions of the previous institutions.

Kurdish Studies Center