A comprehensive history of these states and their relationship with their neighbors is given in the famous textbook of Sharafnama written by Prince Sharaf al-Din Biltisi in 1597. In a Persian statistical overview of tribes dating from the period of Shah sultan Husayn in the early 18th century, it is said that the Kurds of Zafaranlo tribe refused to carry the Tufang, because they considered it unmanly to do so, as a result of which most continued to fight with lance and sword, and some with arrow and bow.[60]. P. 135, Emeri van Donzel, Islamic Desk Reference compiled from the. [59], In the mid-17th century the Kurds on the western borders disposed of firearms, According to Tavernier, the mountain people between Nineveh and Isfahan would not sell anything but for gunpowder and bullets. [124] Instead, the Kurdish area was divided by modern Turkey, Syria and Iraq. [14], The Kurdish people are believed to be of heterogeneous origins, both from Iranian-speaking and non-Iranian peoples. Techniques used to suppress the ethnic identity of Kurds in Syria include various bans on the use of the Kurdish language, refusal to register children with Kurdish names, the replacement of Kurdish place names with new names in Arabic, the prohibition of businesses that do not have Arabic names, the prohibition of Kurdish private schools, and the prohibition of books and other materials written in Kurdish. The largest Kurdish diaspora community is in Europe. Kurdistan | History, Religion, Map, & Facts | Britannica [103] Included in the region are Mount Judi and Ararat (both prominent in Kurdish folklore), Zagros, Qandil, Shingal, Mount Abdulaziz, Kurd Mountains, Jabal al-Akrad, Shaho, Gabar, Hamrin, and Nisir. [128] During the reign of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi some members of parliament and high army officers were Kurds, and there was even a Kurdish Cabinet Minister. [113] Between 1975 and 1978, 200,000 Kurds were deported to other parts of Iraq. 15 October 2019 AFP Between 25 and 35 million Kurds inhabit a mountainous region straddling the borders of Turkey, Iraq, Syria, Iran and Armenia. They have historically inhabited the mountainous areas to the south of Lake Van and Lake Urmia, a geographical area collectively referred to as Kurdistan. Until the Russo-Turkish War of 18281829 there had been little hostile feeling between the Kurds and the Armenians, and as late as 18771878 the mountaineers of both races had co-existed fairly well together. in Iran, 65,000km (25,000 sq. [75], The modernizing and centralizing efforts of Sultan Mahmud II antagonized Kurdish feudal chiefs. The Kurds, an ethnic group numbering around 30 million people, is widely recognized to be the . Animals found in the region include the Syrian brown bear, wild boar, gray wolf, the golden jackal, Indian crested porcupine, the red fox, goitered gazelle, Eurasian otter, striped hyena, Persian fallow deer, long-eared hedgehog, onager, mangar and the Euphrates softshell turtle. [170], Nebel et al. Kurdistan, the Middle East The Kurdish people are an ethnic group native to western Asia whose population of around 30 million people is divided chiefly between four Middle Eastern countries - Iraq, Turkey, Iran and Syria. [59][60][61] The words "Kurds", "Kurdistan", or "Kurdish" were officially banned by the Turkish government. In the 1830's, Bedr Khan was defeated by the united Assyrians of Hakkari. T. A. Sinclair, "Eastern Turkey, an Architectural and Archaeological Survey", 1989, volume 3, page 360. The suffix -stan (Persian: , translit. [84] In Southern Kurdistan there are Christian (Assyrian and Armenian) and Turkish (Turkmen) minorities as well. The Italian Kurdologist Mirella Galetti, sorted these writings which were translated into Kurdish. [Note 1] After the Muslim conquest of Persia, this term was adopted into Arabic as kurd-, and was used specifically for nomadic tribes. When the Iraqi Army withdrew from most of the disputed areas in mid-2014 following the Islamic State's invasion of Iraq , Kurdish Forces entered the areas and held . P. 12. [47] Other Kurdish areas were assigned to the new British and French mandated states of Iraq and Syria. Kurdistan is not a country, but the map of the Kurdish region includes the geographical region in the Middle East wherein the Kurdish people have historically established a prominent population and unified cultural identity. Except for the short Iranian recapture under Nader Shah in the first half of the 18th century, the system of administration introduced by Idris remained unchanged until the close of the Russo-Turkish War of 182829. . [126][141] Iranian national identity is questioned only in the peripheral Kurdish Sunni regions.[148]. Who are the Kurds and why are they under attack? | CNN Ottoman sultan Abdul Hamid responded by a campaign of integration by co-opting prominent Kurdish opponents to strong Ottoman power with prestigious positions in his government. Lower Curdistan comprises all the level tract to the east of the Tigris, and the minor ranges immediately bounding the plains and reaching thence to the foot of the great range, which may justly be denominated the Alps of western Asia.[98]. The number of speakers is clearly less than the 15 million or so persons who identify themselves as ethnic Kurds. Some historians have correlated a connection between Corduene with the modern names of Kurds and Kurdistan;[19][24][25] T. A. Sinclair dismissed this identification as false,[26] while a common association is asserted in the Columbia Encyclopedia. A Kurdish woman takes a selfie during a rally for the Kurdistan independence referendum . In the following years, the capital was transferred several times, first from Ahlat to Van, then to Mu and finally to Diyarbakr. Roughly defined geo-cultural region in the Middle East; homeland of the Kurds, Kurdish-inhabited areas (according to the, 19th-century map showing the location of the Kingdom of Corduene in 60 BCE, Kurdish independent kingdoms and autonomous principalities. [56][57][58], In an attempt to deny their existence, the Turkish government categorized Kurds as "Mountain Turks" until 1991. In 1609, the ruined structure was rebuilt by "Emr Xan Lepzrn" (Golden Hand Khan), ruler of Beradost, who sought to maintain the independence of his expanding principality in the face of both Ottoman and Safavid penetration into the region. In Jerusalem, Haret al-Akrad (later Haret esh-Sharaf, This page was last edited on 9 July 2023, at 00:43. (1905) The Lands of the Eastern Caliphate. Amid the withdrawal of Iraqi forces from three northern provinces, Kurdistan Region emerged in 1992 as an autonomous entity inside Iraq with its own local government and parliament. [115], A typical Kurdish village in Hawraman, Kurdistan, Canyon in Rawanduz in northern Iraqi Kurdistan. [80], Kurdish nationalism emerged at the end of the 19th Century around the same time as Turks and Arabs began to embrace an ethnic sense of identity in place of earlier forms of solidarity such as the idea of Ottoman citizenship or membership of a religious community, or millet. Asatrian, Prolegomena to the Study of the Kurds, Iran and the Caucasus, Vol. What are sanctions and how are they enforced? - USAFacts Despite their production with political aims related to specific claims on the demographic and ethnographic structure of the region, and their questionable methodologies, they have become 'Kurdistan in the minds of Kurds' and the boundaries they indicate have been readily accepted. Iraqi Kurdistan first gained autonomous status in a 1970 agreement with the Iraqi government, and its status was re-confirmed as the autonomous Kurdistan Region within the federal Iraqi republic in 2005. [31], Marco Polo (12541324) met Kurds in Mosul on his way to China, and he wrote what he had learned about Kurdistan and the Kurds to enlighten his European contemporaries. They are the majority in at least three provinces in Northern Iraq which are known as Iraqi Kurdistan. Kurds subsequently faced many repressive measures, including deportations. [12] Many disparate Kurdish dynasties, emirates, principalities, and chiefdoms were established from the 8th to 19th centuries. It included the vilayets of Sinjar and Shahrazur to the west of the Zagros mountain range and those of Hamadan, Dinawar and Kermanshah to the east of this range. Iraqi Kurdistan profile - BBC News Azerbaijan defeated Armenia in yet another. [10] Certain Kurdish nationalist organizations seek to create an independent nation state consisting of some or all of these areas with a Kurdish majority, while others campaign for greater autonomy within the existing national boundaries.[11]. For many centuries, starting in the early modern period with Ismail I, Shah of Safavid Persia, and Ottoman Sultan Selim I, the Kurds came under the suzerainty of the two most powerful empires of the Near East and staunch arch rivals, the Sunni Ottoman Empire and the various Shia Empires. The Kurds' Long Struggle With Statelessness - Council on Foreign Kurds - Wikipedia It started off with the rule of Ismail I, who ruled over all regions that encompass native Kurdish living areas, and far beyond. [111], As of July 2007, the Kurdish government solicited foreign companies to invest in 40 new oil sites, with the hope of increasing regional oil production over the following five years by a factor of five, to about 1 million barrels per day (160,000m3/d). During the relatively open government of the 1950s, Kurds gained political office and started working within the framework of the Turkish Republic to further their interests but this move towards integration was halted with the 1960 Turkish coup d'tat. Revue des tudes armniennes, vol. They told him that they would make him king if he killed Bedr Khan. P. 93, Nimrod Luz. From 1915 to 1918, Kurds struggled to end Ottoman rule over their region. in length by 30 km. [73] The word 'Kurdistan', whether written or spoken, can still lead to detention and prosecution in Turkey. More than twenty million Kurds live in parts of . Ali Pasha managed to escape and was later pardoned and appointed governor of province of Temesvr in Hungary. Kurdish has in turn emerged as a group within Northwest Iranian during the Medieval Period (roughly 10th to 16th centuries). 1. Kurdish History in the 20th Century With the advent of the Twentieth Century, nationalist movements gained traction in the Middle East. Paul (2008) notes that the 16th-century usage of the term Kurd as recorded by Bidlisi, regardless of linguistic grouping, might still reflect an incipient Northwestern Iranian "Kurdish" ethnic identity uniting the Kurmanj, Kalhor, and Guran. [134] In particular case of the Kurds, these policies partly contributed to developing revolts among some tribes. September 22, 2017 at 7:40 p.m. EDT. The earliest known Kurdish dynasties under Islamic rule (10th to 12th centuries) are the Hasanwayhids, the Marwanids, the Rawadids, the Shaddadids, followed by the Ayyubid dynasty founded by Saladin. Because although currently in discussions the Kurdistan region of Iraq has not actually declared independence, which is an act that would be required for it to be seen as a . Al-Sheikhly, O.F. [126] As a result, when the Soviets withdrew from Iran in December 1946, government forces were able to enter Mahabad unopposed when the tribes betrayed the republic. Kurdish language is today used more than at any other time since the Revolution, including in several newspapers and among schoolchildren. [4] Officially, the territory involved was under the jurisdiction of the British Mandate of Mesopotamia . [126], Several Marxist insurgencies continued for decades (1967, 1979, 198996) led by KDP-I and Komalah, but those two organization have never advocated a Kurdish country as did the PKK in Turkey. The name would be continued in classical antiquity as the first element in the toponym Corduene, and its inhabitants, mentioned by Xenophon as the tribe of the Carduchoi who opposed the retreat of the Ten Thousand through the mountains north of Mesopotamia in the 4th century BC. He divided the territory into sanjaks or districts, and, making no attempt to interfere with the principle of heredity, installed the local chiefs as governors. [164], A study by Richards and colleagues of mitochondrial DNA in the Near East found that Kurds, Azerbaijanis, Ossetians and Armenians show a high incidence of mtDNA U5 lineages, which are common among Europeans, although rare elsewhere in the Near East. [50], An academic source published by the University of Cambridge has described maps of greater Kurdistan created in the 1940s and forward as: "These maps have become some of the most influential propaganda tools for the Kurdish nationalist discourse. The Battle of Chaldiran of 1514 is an important turning point in Kurdish history, marking the alliance of Kurds with the Ottomans. [158], In 1920, two Kurdish-inhabited areas of Jewanshir (capital Kalbajar) and eastern Zangazur (capital Lachin) were combined to form the Kurdistan Okrug (or "Red Kurdistan"). [128] During Pahlavi reign Kurds allegedly received many favours from the authorities, for instance to keep their land after the land reforms of 1962. [13] There is also a Kurdistan Province in Iran, but it is not self-ruled. "[85] In 1932, Garo Sassouni, formerly a prominent figure of Dashnak Armenia, defined the borders of "Kurdistan proper" (excluding whole territory of Wilsonian Armenia) as: " with a line from the south of Erzincan to Kharput, incorporating Dersim, arsancak, and Malatya, including the mountains of Cebel-i Bereket and reaching the Syrian border", also adding, "these are the broadest boundaries of Kurdistan that can be claimed by Kurds. [55], Various sources have reported that Al-Nusra has issued a fatw calling for Kurdish women and children in Syria to be killed,[78] and the fighting in Syria has led tens of thousands of refugees to flee to Iraq's Kurdistan region. Moreover, in March 1975, Iraq and Iran signed the Algiers Accord, according to which Iran cut supplies to Iraqi Kurds. ; MacKenzie, D. N.; Bois, Th. [100] Following there were established three regional Inspectorates Generals comprising the Kurdish provinces, the Inspectorates General were ruled with Martial Law and Kurdish notables in the areas were meant to be resettled to the west of Turkey. Kurds took part in the advance into Hungary and the invasion of Japanese-held Manchuria. Mountains are important geographical and symbolic features of Kurdish life, as evidenced by the saying "Kurds have no friends but the mountains. The Kurdistan Region Parliament is situated in Erbil, but the constitution of the Kurdistan Region declares the disputed city of Kirkuk to be the capital of the Kurdistan Region. Partial autonomy was reached by Kurdistan Uyezd (19231926) and by Iraqi Kurdistan (since 1991), while notably in Turkish Kurdistan, an armed conflict between the Kurdish insurgent groups and Turkish Armed Forces was ongoing from 1984 to 1999, and the region continues to be unstable with renewed violence flaring up in the 2000s.