The Kurds are an Iranian ethnic group in the Middle East. They have historically inhabited the mountainous areas to the south of Lake Van and Lake Urmia, a geographical area collectively referred to as Kurdistan. Most Kurds speak Northern Kurdish Kurmanji Kurdish (Kurmanji) and Central Kurdish (Sorani).
There are various hypotheses as to predecessor populations of the Kurds, such as the Carduchoi of Classical Antiquity. 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. The Battle of Chaldiran of 1514 is an important turning point in Kurdish history, marking the alliance of Kurds with the Ottomans. The Sharafnameh of 1597 is the first account of Kurdish history. Kurdish history in the 20th century is marked by a rising sense of Kurdish nationhood focused on the goal of an independent Kurdistan as scheduled by the Treaty of Sèvres in 1920. Partial autonomy was reached by Kurdistan Uyezd (1923–1926) and by Iraqi Kurdistan (since 1992), 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.
Etymology There are several theories regarding the origin of the name Kurd. According to one theory, it might be derived from "Cyrtii" (Kurti), a term first recorded in the 2nd century BCE to describe slingers who inhabited the Zagros Mountains. In the 13th century, an Italian monk and preacher who visited Kurdistan also used the term "Curti" to refer to the Kurds. Alternatively, it might be derived from "Guti." According to Safarastian, the "r" was assimilated after the "u" (Guti > Gurti), following a common linguistic rule in Indo-European languages, particularly those of the East, such as Kurdish, Greek, and Armenian.
According to The Cambridge History of the Kurds:
By the time of the Islamic conquests in the 7th century, and possibly earlier, the term 'Kurd' was used with a socio-economic meaning to describe nomadic groups on the western edge of the Iranian plateau and, possibly, tribes aligned with Sassanian authority in Mesopotamia.Asatrian, Prolegomena to the Study of the Kurds, Iran and the Caucasus, Vol.13, pp. 23–24, 2009. During this period, Kurds were also already present in eastern Anatolia.
Early Islamic writings mention the Kurds across a wide geographical area. However, due to the ambiguity of these accounts, scholars have debated the meaning of the term "Kurds," considering whether it referred to a group defined by ethnicity and language, nomadic lifestyle, or a specific environment in which they lived. A recent study by Boris James, the first scholar to carefully analyze and interpret these writings, focusing on the 12th to 14th centuries, concluded that 12th-century sources show the Kurds had become a unified ethnic group, although divided into several tribes.
Antiquity
Predecessor groups
Origin legends
Medieval Period Early Kurdish dynasties From Islamic conquest up until the 10th century, Kurdish groups played a marginal role in the regions politics, being mentioned from that era as mercenaries and rebels. the period of 950-1050s, has been called the Kurdish interlude by scholars. As various Kurdish tribes seized vast territories and formed their own states. The independent Kurdish principalities were: Hadhbani (900?-1144, in Erbil and eastern Adharbayjan) Shaddadids (951–1199, in parts of Armenia and Arran) Rawadids (900?–1071/1115) in Tabriz and Maragheh Hasanwayhids (959–1015) Annazids (990–1117, in western Jibal) Marwanids (983–1085) of Diyarbakır.
The Kurdish principalities relied on Kurdish tribesmen and nomadic kurds as backbone for their principality's army and military prowess. They never needed Turkic ghilman for mounted troops like the Buyids, because they provided mounted troops from their own ranks.
Later in the 12th century, the Kurdish Hazaraspid dynasty established its rule in southern Zagros and Luristan and conquered territories of Kuhgiluya, Khuzestan and Golpayegan in the 13th century and annexed Shushtar, Hoveizeh and Basra in the 14th century.
One of these dynasties may have been able, during the decades, to impose its supremacy on the others and build a state incorporating the whole Kurdish country if the course of history had not been disrupted by the massive invasions of tribes surging out of the steppes of Central Asia. Having conquered Iran and imposed their yoke on the caliph of Baghdad, the Seljuq Turks annexed the Kurdish principalities one by one. Around 1150, Ahmad Sanjar, the last of the great Seljuq monarchs, created a province out of these lands and called it Kurdistan. The province of Kurdistan, formed by Sanjar, had as its capital the village Bahar (which means lake or sea), near ancient Ecbatana (Hamadan). 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. An autochthonous civilization developed around the town of Dinawar (today ruined), located 75 km North-East of Kermanshah, whose radiance was later only partially replaced by that of Senna, 90 km further North.
Marco Polo (1254–1324) 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. The Italian Kurdologist Mirella Galetti, sorted these writings which were translated into Kurdish.
Ayyubid period
One of the periods where Kurds were at the peak of their power was during the 12th century, when Saladin, who belonged to the Rawadiya branch of the Hadabani tribe, founded the Ayyubid dynasty, under which several Kurdish chieftainships were established. The dynasty ruled areas extending from the Kurdish regions to as far as Egypt and Yemen.
Kurdish quarters In the Middle Ages, in many cities outside of Kurdistan, Kurdish quarters were formed as a result of an influx of Kurdish tribal forces, as well as scholars. In these cities, Kurds often also had mosques, madrasahs and other edifices. In Aleppo, the Haret al-Akrad. The city of Aleppo also had Kurdish mosques like al-Zarzari, al-Mihrani, al-Bashnawayin. In Baghdad, Darb al-Kurd, recorded since the 11th century. In Barda, Bab al-Akrad, recorded in the 10th century. In Cairo, Haret al-Akrad, at al-Maqs. In Damascus, Mount Qasyun at Rukn al-dîn and Suq al-Saruja. Kurdish notables had also built mosques and madrasahs by name of al-Mudjadiyya, Sab' al-Madjânîn, al-Mihrani. Some other notables who patronized buildings were Balâchû al-Kurdî, Musa al-Kurdi, Habib al-Kurdi. There also was a Kurdish cemetery. In Gaza, Shuja'iyya, named after Shuja' al-Din Uthman al-Kurdi, who died in 1239. In Hebron, Haret al-Akrad: associated with the Ayyubid conquests. In Jerusalem, Haret al-Akrad (later Haret esh-Sharaf, named after a certain Sharaf ad-Din Musa, who died in 1369). The city also had a madrasah-ribat by the name of Ribat al-Kurd, built in 1294 by Amir Kurd al-Mansuri (Kurt al-Manṣūrī).
Kurdish principalities from 13th century to 19th century Kurds established several independent states or principalities such as Ardalan, Badinan, Baban, Soran, Hakkari and Badlis. 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. The most prominent among these was Ardalan which was established in the early 14th century. The state of Ardalan controlled the territories of Zardiawa (Karadagh), Khanaqin, Kirkuk, Kifri, and Hawraman, despite being vassals themselves of the various in Persia centred succeeding Turkic federations in the region, namely that of the Kara Koyunlu, and the Ak Koyunlu specifically. The capital city of this state of Ardalan was first in Sharazour in Iraqi Kurdistan, but was moved to Sinne (in Iran) later on. The Ardalan Dynasty was allowed to rule the region as vassals by many of the sovereign rulers over the wider territory, until the Qajar monarch Nasser-al-Din Shah (1848–1896) ended their rule in 1867.
Safavid period
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. It started off with the rule of Ismail I, who ruled over all regions that encompass native Kurdish living areas, and far beyond. During the years 1506–1510, Yazidis revolted against Ismail I (who had Kurdish ancestry himself). Their leader, Shir Sarim, was defeated and captured in a bloody battle wherein several important officers of Ismail lost their lives. The Kurdish prisoners were put to death "with torments worse than which there may not be".
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. Even so, firearms were incorporated neither wholesale nor wholeheartedly among the Kurds, apparently for the same reasons that hindered their acceptance in iran proper. 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.
Displacement of the Kurds Removal of the population from along their borders with the Ottomans in Kurdistan and the Caucasus was of strategic importance to the Safavids. Hundreds of thousands of Kurds were moved to other regions in the Safavid empire, only to defend the borders there. Hundreds of thousands of other ethnic groups living in the Safavid empire such as the Armenians, Assyrians, Georgians, Circassians, and Turkomans, were also removed from the border regions and resettled in the interior of Persia, but mainly for other reasons such as socio-economic, and bureaucratic ones. During several periods, as the borders moved progressively eastward, with the Ottomans pushing deeper into the Persian domains, entire Kurdish regions of Anatolia were at one point or another exposed to horrific acts of despoliation and deportation. These began under the reign of the Safavid Shah Tahmasp I (ruled 1524–1576). Between 1534 and 1535, Tahmasp, using a policy of scorched earth against his Ottoman arch rivals, began the systematic destruction of the old Kurdish cities and the countryside. When retreating before the Ottoman army, Tahmasp ordered the destruction of crops and settlements of all sizes, driving the inhabitants before him into Azerbaijan, from where they were later transferred permanently, nearly 1,600 km (1,000 miles) east, into Khurasan.
Shah Abbas inherited a state threatened by the Ottomans in the west and the Uzbeks in the northeast. He bought off the former, in order to gain time to defeat the latter, after which he selectively depopulated the Zagros and Caucasus approaches, deporting Kurds, Armenians, Georgians, North Caucasians and others who might, willingly or not, supply, support or be any use in an Ottoman campaign in the region. Shah Abbas forcibly depopulated much of the Kurdish lands ahead of the Ottoman expansion. He made it lucrative and prestigious for Kurds to become military conscripts, and raised an army of tens of thousands of predominantly Kurdish soldiers. Abbas also razed villages to the ground and marched the people into the Persian heartland.