Kurdish people
Encyclopedia : K : KU : KUR : Kurdish people
The Kurds are a people indigenous to the contiguous geocultural region which includes adjacent parts of Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey that is often referred to as Kurdistan. Smaller communities can also be found in Lebanon, Armenia, Azerbaijan (Kalbajar and Lachin, to the west of Nagorno Karabakh) and, in recent decades, some European countries and the United States (See Kurdish diaspora). Ethnically related to other Iranian people groups[link] [link] they speak Kurdish, an Indo-European language of the Iranian branch.
Historically, the Kurds have continuously sought self-determination, and have fought the Sumerians, Assyrians, Persians, Mongols, European crusaders, and Turks[link]. Estimated at about 30 million people, the Kurds comprise one of the largest ethnic groups in the world without a separate country. In the 20th century, Turkey, Iran, and Iraq have put down many Kurdish uprisings [link].
History
Ancient period
The earliest known evidence of a unified and distinct culture in the Kurdish mountains dates back to the Halaf culture of 8,000-7,400 years ago. This was followed by the Hurrian period which lasted from 6,300 to about 2,600 years ago. The Hurrians spoke a language which was possibly part of the Northeast Caucasian (or the proposed Alarodian) family of languages, akin to modern Chechen and Lezgian. The Hurrians spread out and eventually dominated significant territories outside their Zagros-Taurus mountainous base. However, like their Kurdish descendants, they did not expand very far from the mountains. As they settled, the Hurrians divided into a number of clans and subgroups, founding city-states, kingdoms and empires with eponymous clan names. These included the Gutis, Kurti, Khaldi, Nairi, Mushku, Mannaeans (Mannai), Mitanni, Urartu, Lullubi and the Kassites among others. All these tribes were part of the larger group of Hurrians (Khurrites), and together helped to shape the Hurrian phase of Kurdish history [link][link].
It is assumed that this people's original language was influenced and/or gradually replaced by the west Iranic, with the arrival of the Medes to Kurdistan A. Arnaiz-Villena, , J. Martiez-Lasoa and J. Alonso-Garcia,The correlation Between Languages and Genes: The Usko-Mediterranean Peoples, Human Immunology, vol.62, issue 9, p.1057, 2001 . The Medes themselves are believed by some scholars to be closely related to the earlier Mitannis Theses for the Reconstraction of Ancient Histroy; From the End of the Middle Kingdom in Egypt to the Advent of the Alexander the Great; By: IMMANUEL VELIKOVSKY 1945[link].
There are numerous historical records which refer to the antecedents of the modern Kurds. One of the first mentions of the Kurds in historical records, appears in cuneiform writings from the Sumerians 3,300 BC, who referred to the "land of the Karda"[link] in the heartland of the same region which today they inhabit as they fought Sumerians. In early Sumerian writings about the northern and northeastern parts of Mesopotamia, The area was referred to as the land of the "Karda" or "Qarduchi" and the land of the "Guti" or "Gutium". These are described as being the same people only differing in tribal name. The Babylonians called these people "Gardu" and "Qarda". In neighbouring area of Assyria, they were "Qurti" or "Guti". When the Greeks entered the territory, they referred to these people as either "Kardukh", "Carduchi", "Gordukh", Kyrti(oi), Romans as Cyrti. The Armenians called the Kurds "Gortukh" or "Gortai-kh" and the Persians knew them as "Gord" or "Kord". In the Syriac, Hebrew and Chaldean languages they were, respectively, "Qardu", "Kurdaye" and "Qurdaye". In Aramaic and Nestorian they were "Qadu". Hennerbichler 2004: "Die Kurden," by Ferdinand Hennerbichler, ISBN 963 214 575 5, pubd by the author, Dr. Ferdinand Hennerbichler, Edition fhe, Albert es Hennerbichler Bt., H-9200 Mosonmagyarovar, Slovakia, 2004; There is also a Kurdish self-name 'Kur-manj' which some connect to the Kurd/kur + Mede/Mait-anni.
These groups, except the Mitanni leadership, are thought to have been non-Indo-Europeans. Kurds consider themselves Indo-European as well as descendants of the groups mentioned above. According to the Encyclopaedia Kurdistanica, Kurds are the descendants of all those who have historically settled in Kurdistan, not of any one particular group. A people such as the Guti (Kurti), Mede(Mard), Carduchi(Gordyene), Adiabene, Zila and Khaldi signify not the ancestor of the Kurds but only one ancestor [link].
The present-day home of the Kurds, the high mountain region south and south-east of Lake Van between Persia and Mesopotamia, was in the possession of Kurds before the time of the ancient Greek historian Xenophon, and was known as the country of the Carduchi, Cardyene or Cordyene. Xenophon referred to the Kurds in the Anabasis as "Kardukhi...a fierce and protective mountain-dwelling people" who attacked Greek armies in 400 BCE.[link] A Kurdish kingdom named Corduene, situated to the east of Tigranocerta[link] (east and south of present-day Diyarbakir, Turkey) became a province of the Roman Empire in 66 BCE and was under Roman control for four centuries until 384 CE.[link]
Medieval period
In the 7th century, Arabs conquered the Kurdish regions and converted the majority of Kurds to Islam. In the second half of the 10th century, the Kurdish area was shared amongst four big Kurdish principalities. In the North were the Shaddadid (951-1174) in parts of present-day Armenia and Arran, and the Rawadid (955-1221) in Tabriz and Maragheh. In the East were the Hasanwayhids (959-1015) and the Annazid (990-1117) in Kermanshah, Dinawar and Khanaqin. In the West were the Marwanid (990-1096) of Diyarbakir. After these, the Ayyubid (1171-1250) of Syria and the Ardalan dynasty (14th century-1867) were established in present-day Khanaqin, Kirkuk and Sinne. The Kurdish areas were ruled by several Kurdish principalitis up to the last century.
Language
The Kurdish language belongs to the north-western sub-group of the Iranian languages, which in turn belongs to the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European family. Kurdish may have borrowed heavily from Caucasian and Aramaic languages given certain peculiarities which make it distinct from other Iranian languages. Most of the ancestors of the Kurds spoke various languages of the Indo-European family.
The original language of the Kurds was Hurrian, a non Indo-European language belonging to the Caucasian family. This older language was replaced by the Indo-European around 850 BCE, with the arrival of the Medes to Kurdistan The correlation Between Languages and Genes: The Usko-Mediterranean Peoples, Human Immunology, vol. 62, p.1057, 2001 . Nevertheless, Hurrian influence on Kurdish is still evident in its ergative grammatical structure and toponymsA. Arnaiz-Villena, E,Gomez-Casado, J.Martinez-Laso, Population genetic relationships between Mediterranean populations determined by HLA distribution and a historic perspective, Tissue Antigens, vol.60, issue 2, p. 117, 2002.
Most Kurds are bilingual or polylingual, speaking the languages of the surrounding peoples such as Arabic, Turkish and Persian as a second language. Kurdish Jews and some Kurdish Christians (not be confused with ethnic Chaldo-Assyrians of Kurdistan) usually speak Aramaic (for example: Lishana Deni) as a first language. Aramaic is a Semitic language related to Hebrew and Arabic rather than Kurdish.
The Kurdish language is comprised of two major dialects and several sub-dialects [link] [link]:
- The Kurmanji dialect group
- The Sorani dialect group
- Other subdialects include Gorani, Zazaki, Kermanshahi and Laki.
Genetic relations to other ethnic groups
According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, "The Persians, Kurds, and speakers of other Indo-European languages in Iran are descendants of the Aryan tribes that began migrating from Central Asia into what is now Iran in the 2nd millennium BC."[link]
According to the Columbia Encyclopedia, the Kurds, as well as other migrant ethnic groups of the region, are of the "least mixed descent of the original Iranians." [link]
However, according to a recent study, the Kurd's ancestors were from an old Mediterranean substratum, i.e. Hurrian and Hittite groups and that Kurds have no mix with an Aryan invasion which was supposed to have happened about 1200 BC. "It is concluded that this invasion, if occurred, had a relatively few invaders in comparison to the already settled populations, i.e. Anatolian Hittite and Hurrian groups (older than 2000 B.C.). These may have given rise to present-day Kurdish, Armenian and Turkish populations."[link].
In 2001, a team of Israeli, German, and Indian scientists discovered that among the various Jewish communities, the Ashkenazi Jews showed a closer relationship to the Muslim Kurds than to the Semitic-speaking population further south in the Arabian peninsula, while the Jewish Kurds and Sephardic Jews seemed to be closely related to each other. Most of the 95 Kurdish Muslim test subjects came from northern Iraq. Moreover, according to another study, the CMH (Cohen modal haplotype) is a genetic marker from the northern Middle East which is not unique to Jews. [link] In another study, Kurdish Jews were found to be close to Muslim Kurds, but so were Ashkenazim and Sephardim, suggesting that much if not most of the genetic similarity between Jewish and Muslim Kurds descends from ancient times [link].
Genetic distance comparisons have revealed that the Turkic and Turkmen speaking peoples in the Caspian area cluster with the Kurds, Greeks and Iranis (Ossetians). The Persian speakers are genetically remote from these populations, they are, however, close to the Parsis who migrated from Iran to India at the end of the 7th Century A.D.[link]
Population
The exact number of Kurdish people living in the Middle East is unknown, due to both an absence of recent census analysis and the reluctance of the various governments in Kurdish-inhabited regions to give accurate figures.
According to the CIA Factbook, Kurds comprise 20% of the population in Turkey, 15-20% in Iraq, 9% in Syria, 7% in Iran and 1.3% in Armenia. In all of these countries except Iran, Kurds form the second largest ethnic group. In other words about 55% of the world's Kurds live in Turkey, 22% in Iran, 16.5% in Iraq and 6.5% in Syria [link].
There are other sources which report a higher population for Kurds than mentioned above. Furthermore it is estimated that Kurds especially in Turkey have a birth rate still higher than their main neighboring ethnic groups whose birth rate is slowly decreasing.[link][link](pp. 19,24) Kurds, numbering about 30 million people, are regarded as the fourth largest ethnicity in the Middle East after Arabs, Persians and Turks by 2000.
Modern history
Kurds in Iraq
- Main articles: Iraqi Kurdistan, 1988 Anfal campaign
After the Kurdish uprising in 1991 (Kurdish:Raperîn, led by the PUK and KDP), Iraqi troops recaptured the Kurdish areas, hundreds of thousand of Kurds fled to the borders. To alleviate the situation a "safe haven" was established by the Security Council. The autonomous Kurdish area was mainly controlled by the rival parties KDP and PUK. The Kurdish population welcomed the American-led invasion in 2003. The area controlled by peshmerga was expanded, and Kurds now have effective control in Kirkuk and parts of Mosul. By the beginning of 2006 the two Kurdish areas were merged into one unifed Kurdistan Region and by 2007 there will be a referendum in other Kurdish-inhabited regions of Iraq outside the KRG-contolled areas.
Kurds in Turkey
- Main articles: Kurds in Turkey, and Human rights in Turkey
More than 3,000 Kurdish villages in Turkey were virtually wiped from the map by the Turkey's security forces during 1980s and 1990s. As a result, more than 378,000 Kurdish villagers were forcibly displaced and left homeless see [link],[link] and [link]. Also see Report D612, October, 1994, "Forced Displacement of Ethnic Kurds"(A Human Rights Watch Publication)[link]).
In 1994 Leyla Zana (the first female Kurdish representative in the Turkey's Parliament), was charged for separatist speech and sentenced to 15 years in prison. At her inauguration as an MP, she reportedly identified herself as a Kurd. Amnesty International reported "She took the oath of loyalty in Turkish, as required by law, then added in Kurdish, 'I shall struggle so that the Kurdish and Turkish peoples may live together in a democratic framework.' Parliament erupted with shouts of 'Separatist', 'Terrorist', and 'Arrest her'" [link].
The Partiya Karkerên Kurdistan (PKK), also known as KADEK and Kongra-Gel, is a terrorist (By U.S., European Union, and UK) organization, dedicated to creating an independent Kurdish state in a territory (traditionally referred to as Kurdistan) that consists of parts of southeastern Turkey, northeastern Iraq, northeastern Syria and northwestern Iran. It is an ethnic secessionist organization using force and threat of force against both civilian and military targets for the purpose of achieving its political goal.
Kurds in Iran
- Main articles: Iranian Kurdistan and History of the Kurds
During 19th and 20th centuries, successive Iranian governments have crushed Kurdish revolts leaded by Kurdish notables such as Shaikh Ubaidullah against Qajars in 1880 and Simko against Pahlavis in 1920s [link]. The Republic of Mahabad was established in Iran Kurdistan in 1946 (the second independent Kurdish state of the 20th century, after the Republic of Ararat in modern Turkey). After the military coup in 1953, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi became more autocratic and suppressed most opposition including ethnic minorities such as Kurds. He also prohibited any Kurdish language instruction [link].
In recent years, intense fighting occurred between Kurds and the Iranian state between 1979 and 1982. The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps fought to reestablish government control in the Kurdish regions. As a result around 10,000 Kurds were killed [link]. Since 1983 the Iranian government has had control over the area which the Kurds inhabit [link]. Frequent unrest and occasional military crackdown have also happened throughout the 1990s and even to the present [link].
In Iran, Kurds express their cultural identity freely, but are denied the right of self-government or administration. Similar to other parts of Iran, membership of any non-governmental political party in Kurdistan could be punishable by persecution, imprisonment and even death. Kurdish human rights activists in Iran have been threatened by Iranian authorities in connection with their work. [link] [link]
On July 9 2005, after the killing of a Kurdish opposition activist, Shivan Qaderi and two other Kurdish men by Iranian security forces in Mahabad, for six weeks, riots and protests erupted in Kurdish towns and villages throughout Eastern Kurdistan, with scores killed and injured, and an untold number arrested without charge. The Iranian authorities also shut down several major Kurdish newspapers arresting reporters and editors. [link]
Kurds in Syria
- Main articles: Kurds in Syria and Syrian Kurdistan
Kurds account for 10% of the population in Syria or about 1.9 million people[link] making them the largest ethnic minority in the country. Kurds often speak Kurdish in public, unless all those present do not. Kurdish human rights activists are mistreated and persecuted.[link] No political parties are allowed for any group, Kurdish or otherwise.
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, replacement of Kurdish place names with new names in Arabic, prohibition of businesses that do not have Arabic names, not permitting Kurdish private schools, and the prohibition of books and other materials written in Kurdish.[link] [link] About 300,000 Kurds have been deprived of any social rights due to having been arbitrarily denied the right to Syrian nationality in violation of international law.[link] [link] These Kurds, who have no claim to a nationality other than Syrian, are literally trapped in Syria.[link]
But according to some sources Syria is recently (February 2006) planning to grant citizenship to those 300,000 Kurds deprived citizenship living in the country.[link]
On March 12, 2004, in days of clashes began at a stadium in Qamishli, a largely Kurdish city in northeastern Syria, at least 30 people were killed and more than 160 were injured. The unrest spread to other Kurdish towns along the northern border with Turkey, and then to Damascus and Aleppo.[link] [link]
Kurds in Armenia
As part of the Soviet Union from the 1930's to the 1980's, Kurds in Armenia had the status of a protected minority under Soviet Law. They had their own state-sponsored newspaper, a radio broadcast and were allowed to hold cultural events. During the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh, many non-Yazidi Kurds were forced to leave their homes. Upon the disintegration of Soviet Union, Kurds in Armenia were stripped of their cultural privileges, and most of them fled to Russia or Western Europe [link] (p.22).Kurds in Azerbaijan
- :Main article: Kurdistan Autonomous Oblast
Religion
- Main articles: Yazidism, Yarsan, Alevi, Yazdanism, Kurdish Jews, Kurdish Christians
Before the spread of Islam in the 7th century CE, Kurds practised various religions like, Christianity, Judaism, Zoroastrianism and some indigenious religions [link]. The majority practised their indigenous religions, today referred to as Yazdanism. There are Yazidism and Yarsan, which may stem from and eventually replaced those indigenious religions. Most Yazidis live in Iraqi Kurdistan, in the vicinity of Mosul and Sinjar. [link]. The Yarsan, (or Ahl-e Haqq) religion is practised in western Iran, primarily around Kermanshah. Christianity and Judaism both are still practised in very small numbers. [link] Rabbi Asenath Barzani, who lived in Mosul from 1590 to 1670 was among the very first Jewish women to become a Rabbi.
Today majority of Kurds are officially Muslim, belonging to the Shafi school of Sunni Islam, (and to a much lesser degree, the Hanafi) Schools of Sunni Islam. There is also a significant minority of Kurds that are Shia Muslims, primarily living in the Ilam and Kermanshah provinces of Iran and Central Iraq ("Al-Fayliah" Kurds). The Alevis are another religious minority among the Kurds, mainly found in Turkey. [link] [link] [link].
Culture
Kurdish culture is a group of distinctive cultural traits practiced by Kurdish people [link]. It is a legacy from the various ancient peoples who shaped modern Kurds and their society, but primarily of three layers of indigenious (Hurrian), ancient Iranian (Medes) and Islamic roots.
The Kurdish culture is close to that of other groups of the Iranian peoples; e.g. celebrating Newroz as the new year day, which is on March 21. [link]
Kurdish films mainly evoke poverty and the lack of rights of Kurdish people in the region. Yilmaz Guney (Yol) [link] and Bahman Qubadi (A Time for Drunken Horses and Turtles Can Fly) are among the better known Kurdish directors.
Music
Traditionally, there are three types of Kurdish Classical performers - storytellers (çîrokbêj), minstrels (stranbêj) and bards (dengbêj). There was no specific music related to the Kurdish princely courts, and instead, music performed in night gatherings (şevbihêrk) is considered classical. Several musical forms are found in this genre. Many songs and are epic in nature, such as the popular Lawik's which are heroic ballads recounting the tales of Kurdish heroes of the past like Saladin. Heyrans are love ballads usually expressing the melancholy of separation and unfulfilled love. Lawje is a form of religious music and Payizoks are songs performed specifically in autumn. Love songs, dance music, wedding and other celebratory songs (dîlok/narînk), erotic poetry and work songs are also popular.
See also
- History of the Kurds
- Kurdistan
- Demographics of Iran
- Demographics of Iraq
- Demographics of Syria
- Demographics of Turkey
- Genetic insights into the background of the Kurds
- Kurdish Muslims
- Kurdish Jews
- Accession of Turkey to the European Union
- Kurdish Christians
- List of Kurdish people
- Kurdish organisations
Modern Kurdish governments
- Iraqi Kurdistan
- Republic of Mahabad (1946)
- Republic of Ararat (1927-1931)
- Kingdom of Kurdistan
Notes
External links
- [Kurds and Kurdistan], Encyclopaedia of Islam.
- [Kurds], Encyclopaedia Britannica.
- [Kurd], Encyclopaedia Britannica.
- [The Kurdish Institute of Paris] Kurdish language, history, books and latest news articles.
- [The Encyclopaedia of Kurdistan]
- [Istanbul Kurdish Institute]
- [The Kurdish Center of International Pen]
- [Kurdish Library], supported by the Swedish Government.
- [Yazidism: Historical Roots], International Journal of Kurdish Studies, Jan. 2005.
- [Ethnic Cleansing and the Kurds]
- [The Kurds in the Ottoman Hungary] by Zurab Aloian
The Kurdish Issue in Turkey
- [A report on the Kurdish IDP's - 2005]
- [A German newspaper's take on the Kurdish issue - 2005]
- [The Guardian - What's in a name? Too much in Turkey - 2001]
- [The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists' take - 1999]
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