Abdulrahman Fattahi

Abdulrahman Fattahi (Persian: عبدالرحمان فتاحی; Kurdish: عەبدوڕەحمان فەتاحی, romanized: Ebduřeḧman Fettaḧî), also known by his nom de guerre Abu Safiya al-Kurdi (Arabic: أَبُوْ صَفِيَّةُ ٱلْكُرْدِيّْ), is a Kurdish Sunni cleric from Iran. He was a member of Al-Nusra Front and later Tahrir al-Sham. After the Fall of the Assad regime, he was appointed as the advisor for Iranian affairs. He was the first Kurd to hold a Syrian governmental position after the dissolution of Ba'athist Syria.^[1][2]

Biography

Fattahi was born in the early 1950s in Sulgheh, a village near Mahabad in Iranian Kurdistan. In the 1970s, he travelled to Iraqi Kurdistan and began his studies under Abdulqadir Tawhidi. While completing his studies, Fattahi was a member of the Kurdistan Islamic Movement of Osman Abdulaziz, and lived in the Islamic Emirate of Kurdistan. Fattahi completed his studies in 1996, afterwards he returned to Iran and earned his clerical license from Shafi Burhani, and became the imam of Khalifan, Mahabad. In Iran, he was arrested for ties to the Kurdistan Brigades, and detained numerous other times. In 2011, he was sentenced to three years in Gohardasht Prison. After his release in 2014, he left for Syria. Around 3,000 Islamist Kurds had travelled to Syria at that time, and were divided between Ansar al-Islam and the Islamic State. However, Fattahi took a different route and joined Al-Nusra Front. Fattahi founded the "Sunni Muhajireen Movement of Iran", which was a predominantly Kurdish group within Al-Nusra Front. There were around 300 Kurds in Al-Nusra Front before its disbandment.^[3][4] He was critical of the Kurdish factions, but he also criticized Turkish-backed factions, accusing them of committing crimes against Kurds for the sake of Turkey, and turning a shared struggle against Bashar al-Assad into an ethnic conflict.^[5]

Fattahi accompanied Abu Mohammad al-Julani after his split with Al-Qaeda and creation of HTS. Throughout the Syrian civil war, Fattahi lived in Idlib, where he served as a Sharia judge. After the Fall of the Assad regime, he was appointed by Abu Mohammad al-Julani as his deputy and advisor for Iranian affairs, becoming the first Kurd to hold a position in the new Syrian government. Fattahi later gave a speech in Kurdish at the Umayyad Mosque, where he wished for the "freedom of Jerusalem" after Syria, and threatened the Iranian government.^[6][7] His usage of Kurdish drew attention, as there were much restrictions on the Kurdish language in Syria during the Assad regime.^[8] While the government attempted to appeal to the Kurds with his appointment, most Kurds were suspicious as to whether it was actual change or "the same tokenism that they saw frequently in Turkey under Recep Tayyip Erdoğan."^[5] After the appointment of Fattahi, al-Julani assured that there would be Kurdish participation in the new Syrian government, claiming that "there will no longer be oppression to our Kurdish people", who he referred to as an "essential part" of Syria who have endured "great oppression". Al-Julani also stated that he sought to return displaced Kurds back to their communities.^[9]