The Kurdish Movement in Turkeyamp8217s growing alliance with Islam ampnbspampnbspOne of the fault lines of Turkish politics traditionally has been the divide between religious and secular movements. However as Zeki Sarigil argues the secular Kurdish movement in Turkey has increasingly become aligned with Islam. As a result Islam has become part of the movementamp8217s political discourse strategies and actions. ampnbspampnbspEthnic Boundaries in Turkish Politics traces the evolving relations between the leftist secular Kurdish movement and Islam from an apathetic andor antagonistic attitude in the 1970s and 1980s to an increasingly Islamfriendly approach in the 1990s to an attitude of accommodation and the rise of KurdishIslamic synthesis in the early 2000s. Based on 104 interviews in several provinces in Turkey primarily Ankara Diyarbakir Istanbul and Tunceli between 2011 and 2015 as well as ethnographic data public opinion surveys and statements from the Kurdistan Workersamp8217 Party PKK and Kurdish leaders Sarigil shows how the secular Kurdish movement increasingly has been endorsing Islam and Islamic actors. The reasons for this Islamic opening are global national and local Sarigil demonstrates that a group of strategic and ideological factors have encouraged andor forced Kurdish leaders to redraw symbolic and social boundaries of the movement. Namely with the end of the Cold War support for Marxist ideas collapsed creating increasingly more favorable responses towards religion. In addition the movementamp8217s need to expand its social basis and popularity electoral politics and legitimacy struggles against rival political actors were other major factors which triggered the Kurdish movementamp8217s boundary expansion i.e. its Islamic opening. The study also shows that the Kurdish boundary making was not without any tension or contestation. The boundary expansion by Kurdish ethnopolitical elites triggered both internal and external boundary contestations. ampnb