Kurds and Kurdistan (UPDATED)
kurdeng at aps.nl
kurdeng at aps.nl
Sat Aug 5 22:02:51 BST 1995
------------ Forwarded from : kendal at nucst11.neep.wisc.edu (Kendal) ------------
The latest the International Kurdish Journal has a new updated
'Kurds and Kurdistan: Facts and Figures' section. The new version has
in addition a 'history' section.
Kendal
************************** OoO **************************************
KURDS AND KURDISTAN: FACTS AND FIGURES
--------------------------------------
HISTORY:
--------
Being the native inhabitants of
their land. there are no "beginnings" for
Kurdish history and people. Kurds and their
history are the end products of thousands of
years of continuous internal evolution and
assimilation of new peoples and ideas intro-
duced sporadically into their land.
Genetically, Kurds are the descendants of all
those who ever came to settle in Kurdistan,
and not any one of them. A people such as
the Guti, Kurti. Mede, Mard, Carduchi,
Gordyene, Adianbene, Zila and Khaldi
signify not the ancestor of the Kurds but
only an ancestor.
Archaeological finds continue to docu-
ment that some of mankind's earliest steps
towards development of agnculture. domes-
tication of many common farm animals
(sheep, goats, hogs and dogs). record keep-
ing (the token system), development of
domestic technologies (weavmg, fired pot-
tery making and glazing), metallurgy and
urbanization took place in Kurdistan, dating
back between 12,000 and 8.000 years ago.
The earliest evidence so far of a unified
and distinct culture (and possibly, ethnicity)
by people inhabiting the Kurdish moun-
tains dates back to the Halaf culture of
8,000-7,400 years ago. This was followed
by the spread of the Ubaidian culture, which
was a foreign introduction from
Mesopotamia. After about a millennium,
its dominance was replaced by the Hurrian
culture, which may or may not have been
the Halafian people reasserting their domi-
nance over their mountainous homeland.
The Hurrian period lasted from 6,300 to
about 2,600 years ago.
Much more is known of the Hurrians.
They spoke a language of the Northeast
Caucasian family of languages (or
Alarodian), kin to modern Chechen and
Lezgian. The Hurrians spread far and wide,
dominating much territory outside their
Zagros-Taurus mountain base. Their
settlement of Anatolia was complete-all
the way to the Aegean coasts. Like their
Kurdish descendents, they however did not
expand too far from the mountains. Their
intrusions into the neighboring plains of
Mesopotamia and the Iranian Pteau, there-
fore, were primarily military annexations
with little population settlement. Their
economy was surprisingly integrated and
focused, along with their political bonds,
mainly running parallel with the Zagros-
Taurus mountains, rather than radiating out
to the lowlands, as was the case during the
preceding (foreign) Ubaid cultural period.
The mountain-plain economic exchanges
remained secondary in importance, judging
by the archaeological remains of goods and
their origin.
The Hurrians-whose name survives now
most prominently in the dialect and district
of Hawraman/Awraman in Kurdistan-
divided into many clans and subgroups,
who set up city-states, kingdoms and
empires known today after their respvi hective
clan names. These included the Gutis,
Kurti, Khadi, Mards, Mushku, Manna,
Hatti, Mittanni, Urartu, and the Kassitis1es, to
name just a few. All these were Hurrians,
and together form the Hurrian phase of
Kurdish history.
By about 4.000 years ago, the first van-
guard of the Indo-European-speaking
peoples were trickling into Kurdistan in
limited numbers and settling there. These
formed the aristocracy of the Mittani,
Kassite, and Hittite kingdoms, while the
common peopies there remained solidly
Hurrian. By about 3,000 years ago, the
trickle had turned into a flood, and Hurrian
Kurdistan was fast becoming Indo-European
Kurdistan. Far from having been wiped out,
the Hurrian legacy, despite its linguistic
eclipse, remains the single most important
element of the Kurdish culture until today.
It forms the substructure for every aspects
of Kurdish existence, from their native reli-
gion to their art, their social organization,
women's status, and even the form of their
militia warfare.
Medes, Scythians and Sagarthians are just
the better-known clans of the Indo-
European-speaking Aryans who settled in
Kurdistan. By about 2,600 years ago, the
Medes had already set up an empire that
included all Kurdistan and vast territories far
beyond. Medeans were followed by scores
of other kingdoms and city-statesQall dom-
inated by Aryan aristocracies and a populace
that was becoming Indo-European, Kurdish
speakers if not so already.
By the advent of the classical era in 300 BC.
Kurds were already experiencing massive
population movements that resulted in
settlement and domination of many
neighboring regions. Important Kurdish
polities of this time were all byproducts of
these movements. The Zelan Kurdish clan of
Commagene (Adyaman area), for example,
spread to establish in addition to the Zelanid
dynasty of Commagene, the Zelanid
kingdom of Cappadocia and the Zelanid
empire of PontusQall in Anatolia. These
became Roman vassals by the end of the Ist
century BC. In the east the Kurdish kingdoms
of Gordyene, Cortea, Media, Kirm, and
Adiabene had, by the I st century B C,
become confederate members of the
Parthian Federation.
While all larger Kurdish Kingdoms of the
west gradually lost their existence to the
Romans, in the east they survived into the 3rd
century A D and the advent of the Sasanian
Persian empire. The last major Kurdish
dynasty, the Kayosids, fell in AD 380. Smaller
Kurdish principalities (called the Kotyar,
"mountain administrators") however,
preserved their autonomous existence into the
7th century and the coming of Islam.
Several socio-economic revolutions in the
garb of religious movements emerged in
Kurdistan at this time, many due to the
exploitation by central governments, some
due to natural disasters. These continued as
underground movement into the Islamic era,
bursting forth periodically to demand social
reforms. The Mazdakite and Khurramite
movements are best-known among these.
The eclipse of the Sasanian and Byzantine
power by the Muslim caliphate, and its own
subsequent weakening, permitted the Kurdish
principalities and "mountain administrators" to
set up new, independent states. The
Shaddadids of the Caucasus and Armenia, the
Rawadids of Azerbaijan, the Marwandis of
eastern Anatolia; the Hasanwayhids,
Fadhilwayhids, and Ayyarids of the central
Zagros and the Shabankara of Fars and
Kirman are some of the medieval Kurdish
dynasties.
The Ayyubids stand out from these by the
vastness of their domain. From their capital at
Cairo they ruled territories of eastern Libya,
Egypt, Yemen, western Arabia, Syria, the
Holy Lands, Armenia and much of Kurdistan.
As the custodians of Islam's holy cities of
Mecca, Medina and Jerusalem, the Ayyubids
were instrumental in the defeat and expulsion
of the Crusaders from the Holy Land.
With the 12th and 13th centuries the Turkic
nomads arrived in the area who in time
politically dominated vast segments of the
Middle East. Most independent Kurdish states
succumbed to various Turkic kingdoms and
empires. Kurdish principalities,
however, survived and continued with their
autonomous existence until the 17th century.
Intermittently, these would rule independently
when local empires weakened or collapsed.
The advent of the Safavid and Ottoman
empires in the area and their division of
Kurdistan into two uneven imperial
dependencies was on a par with the practice
of the preceding few centuries. Their
introduction of artillery and scorched-earth
policy into Kurdistan was a new, and
devastating development.
In the course of the 16th to 18th centuries,
vast portions of Kurdistan were systematically
devastated and large numbers of Kurds were
deported to far corners of the Safavid and
Ottoman empires. The magnitude of death
and destruction wrought on Kurdistan unified
its people in their call to rid the land of these
foreign vandals. The lasting mutual suffenng
awakened in Kurds a community feelingQa
nationalism, that called for a unified Kurdish
state and fostering of Kurdish culture and
language. Thus the historian Sharaf al-Din
Bitlisi wrote the first pan-Kurdish history the
Sharafnama in 1597, as Ahmad Khani
composed the national epic of Mem-o-Zin
in 1695, which called for a Kurdish state to
fend for its people. Kurdish nationalism was
born.
For one last time a large Kurdish
kingdomQthe Zand, was born in 1750. Like
the medieval Ayyubids, however, the Zands
set up their capital and kingdom outside
Kurdistan, and pursued no policies aimed at
unification of the Kurdish nation. By 1867, the
very last autonomous Kurdish principalities
were being systematically eradicated by the
Ottoman and Persian governments that ruled
Kurdistan. They now ruled directly, via
governors, all Kurdish provinces. The
situation further deteriorated after the end of
the WWI and dissolution of the Ottoman
Empire.
The Treaty of Sevres (signed August 10,
1921) anticipated an independent Kurdish
state to cover large portions of the former
Ottoman Kurdistan. Unimpressed by the
Kurds' many bloody uprisings for
independence, France and Britain divided up
Ottoman Kurdistan between Turkey, Syria
and Iraq. The Treaty of Lausanne (signed
June 24, 1923) formalized this division. Kurds
of Persia/Iran, meanwhile, were kept where
they were by Teheran.
Drawing of well-guarded state boundaries
dividing Kurdistan has, since 1921, aMicted
Kurdish society with such a degree of
fragmentation, that its impact is tearing apar
the Kurds' unity as a nation.
The 1920s saw the setting up of
Kurdish Autonomous Province (the "Red
Kurdistan") in Soviet Azerbaijan. It was
disbanded in 1929. In 1945, Kurds set up a
Kurdish republic at Mahabad in the Sovie,
occupied zone in Iran. It lasted one year,
until it was reoccupied by the Iranian army.
Since 1970s, the Iraqi Kurds have enjoyed
an official autonomous status in a portion of
that state's Kurdistan. By the end of 1991,
they had become all but independent from
Iraq. By 1995, however, the Kurdish
government in Arbil was at the verge of
political suicide due to the outbreak of
factional fighting between various Kurdish
warlords.
Since 1987 the Kurds in TurkeyQby
themselves constituting a majority of all
KurdsQhave waged a war of national
liberation against Ankara's 70 years of
heavyhanded suppression of any vestige of
the Kurdish identity and its rich and ancient
culture. The massive uprising had by 1995
propelled Turkey into a state of civil war. The
burgeoning and youthful Kurdish population
in Turkey, is now demanding absolute
equality with the Turkish component in that
state, and failing that, full independence.
In the Caucasus, the fledgling Armenian
Republic, in the course of 1992-94 wiped out
the entire Kurdish community of the former
"Red Kurdistan." Having ethnically
"cleansed" it, Armenia has effectively
annexed Red Kurdistan's temtory that forms
the land bridge between the Armenian
enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia
proper.
Land and Ecology:
----------------
The vast Kurdish homeland of about 230,000 square miles is about the areas of
Germany and Britain combined, or roughly equal to France or Texas. Kurdistan
consists basically of the mountainous areas of the central and northern
Zagros, the eastern one-third of the Taurus and Pontus, and the northern half
of the Amanus ranges. The symbiosis between the Kurds and their mountains has
been so strong that they have become synonymous: Kurds home ends where the
mountains end. Kurds as a distinct people have survived only when living in
the mountains. The highest points in the land now are respectively Mt. Alvand
of southern Kurdistan in Iran at 11,745 feet, Mt. Halgurd in central Kurdistan
in Iraq at 12,249 feet, Mt. Munzur at 12,600 feet in western Kurdistan and Mt.
Ararat at 16,946 feet in northern Kurdistan, both in Turkey.
There are also two large Kurdish enclaves in central and north central Anatolia
in Turkey and in the province of Khurasan in northeast Iran.
The mean annual precipitation is 60-80 inches per year in the central regions
and 20-40 inches on the descent to the lower elevations. Most precipitation is
in form of snow, which can fall for six months of the year, becoming the resource
for many great rivers, such as the Tigris and the Euphrates in an otherwise arid
Middle East. The overall mean annual temperature is 55-65 degrees Fahrenheit,
getting cooler as one ascends the central massifs.
The land, once almost totally forested, has been massively cleared, especially
in this century, with inevitable soil erosion and parched landscape. Contrary
to the heavy damage sustained by the woodlands, the pasture lands remain in
reasonably good condition and continue to be a productive to a nomadic herding
economy alongside the basic agriculture.
Despite its mountainous nature, Kurdistan has more arable land proportionately
than most Middle Eastern countries. Expansive river valleys create a fertile
lattice work in Kurdistan. This may well explain the fact that the very
invention of agriculture took place primarily in Kurdistan around 12,000 years
ago percipitating speedy domestication of almost all basic cereals and livestoks
in the region(with the notable exception of cows and rice).
Race :
-----
Kurds are now predominantly of Mediterranean racial stock, resembling southern
Europeans and the Levantines in skin, general coloring and physiology. There is
yet a persistent recurrence of two racial substrata: a darker aboriginal Palaeo-
Caucasian element, and more localized occurrence of blondism of the Alpine type
in the heartland of Kurdistan. The "Aryanization" of the aboriginal Palaeo-
Caucasian Kurds, linguistically, culturally and racially, seems to have begun
by the beginning of the 2nd millennium BC, with the continuous immigration and
settlement of Indio-European-speaking tribes, such as the Hittites, Mitannis,
Haigs, Medes, Persian, Scythians and Alans. The process was more or less
complete by the beginning of the Christian era, by which time the Kurds had
absorbed enough Iranic blood and culture, particularly Median and Alan, to form
the basis physical typology and cultural identity.
Geopolitics:
-----------
Since the end of World War I, Kurdistan has been administered by five sovereign
states, with the largest portions of the land being respectively in Turkey (43%)
, Iran (31%), Iraq (18%), Syria (6%) and the former Soviet Union (2%).
The Iranian Kurds have lived under that state's jurisdiction since 1514 and the
Battle of Chaldiran. The other three quarters of the Kurds lived in the Ottoman
Empire from that date until its break-up following WWI. The French Mandate
Syria received a piece, and the British incorporated central Kurdistan or the
"Mosul Vilayet" and its oil fields at Kirkukn into their recently created
Mandate of Iraq. Northern and western Kurdistan were to be given choice of
independence by the Thearty of Sevres(August 10, 1920) which dismantled the
defunc Ottoman Empire, but instead they were awarded to the newly established
Republic of Turkey under the term of the Treaty of Lausanne (June 24, 1923).
The Russian/Soviet Kurds had passed into their sphere in the course of the 19th
century when territories were ceded by Persia/Iran.
The Kurds remained the only ethnic group in the world with indigenous
representatives in three world geopolitical blocs: the Arab World (in Iraq and
Syria), NATO (in Turkey), the South Asian-Central Asian bloc (in Iran and
Turkmenistan), and until recently the Soviet bloc (in the Caucasus, now Armenia,
Azerbaijan and Georgia). As a matter fact, until the end of the Cold War, Kurds
along with the Germans were the only people in the world with their home
territories used as a front line of fire by both NATO and the Warsaw Pact forces.
Society:
------
The most important single features of Kurdistan society since the end of
medieval times has been its strong tribal organization, with independence or
autonomy being the political status of the land. The society's process of
developing the next stage of societal convergence-and the creation of a
political culture of interset in a pan-Kurdish polity-was well under way in
Kurdistan when it was decisively aborted with the parcelling out of the country
at the end of the First World War. Tribal confederacies thus remain the highest
form of social organization, while the political process and the elite remain to
large degree tribal. Today, in the absence of a national Kurdish state and
government, tribes serve as the highest native source of authority in which
people place their allegiance.
Population:
----------
Kurdish lands, rich in natural resources, have always sustained and promoted a
large population. While registering modest gains since the laye 19th century,
but particularly in the first decade of the 20th, Kurds lost demographic ground
relative to neighboring ethnic groups. This was due as much to their less
developed economy and health care system as it was to direct massacres,
deportations, famines, etc. The total number of Kurds actually decreased in
this period, while every other major ethnic group in the area boomed. Since
the middle of the 1960s this negative demographic trend has reversed, and
Kurds are steadily regaining the demographic position of importance that they
traditionally held, representing 15% of the over-all population of the Middle
East in Asia-a phenomenon common since at least the 4th millennium BC.
Today Kurds are the fourth largest ethnic group in the Middle East, after the
Arabs, Persians and Turks. Their largest concentrations are now respectively in
Turkey (approx. 52% of all Kurds), Iran(25.5%), Iraq (16%), Syria (5%) and the
CIS (1.5%). Barring a catastrophe, Kurds will become the third most populous
ethnic group in the Middle East by the year 2000, displacing the Turks.
Furthermore, if present demographic trends hold, as they are likely to, in about
fifty years Kurds will also replace the Turks as the majority ethnic group in
Turkey itself.
There is now one Kurdish city with a population of nearly a million (Kirminshah)
, two with over half a million (Diyarbekir, Kirkuk), five between a quarter and
half a million (Antep, Arbil, Hamadan, Malatya, Sulaymania), and quarter of a
million people (Adiyaman, Dersim[Tunceli], Dohuk, Elazig[Kharput], Haymana,
Khanaqin, Mardin Qamishli, Qochan, Sanandaj, Shahabad, Siirt and Urfa).
Language:
--------
Kurds are speakers of Kurdish, a member of the northwestern subdivision of the
Iranic branch of the Indo-Europian family of languages, which is akin to
Persian, and by extension to other Europian languages. It is fundamentally
different from Semetic Arabic and Altaic Turkish. Modern Kurdish divides into
two major groups: 1) the Kurmanji group and, 2) the Dimili-Gurani group. These
are supplemented by scores of sub-dialects as well. The most popular vernacular
is that of Kurmanji(or Kirmancha), spoken by about three-quarters of the Kurds
today. Kurmanji divided into North Kurmanji(also called Bahdinani, with around
15 million speakers, primarily in Turkey, Syria, and the former Soviet Union)
and South Kurmanji(also called Sorani, with about 6 million speakers, primarily
in Iraq and Iran).
To the far north of Kurdistan along Kizil Irmak and Murat rivers in Turkey,
Dimili(less accurately but more commonly known as Zaza) dialect is spoken by
about 4 million Kurds. There are small pockets of this language spoken in
various croners of Anatolia, northern Iraq, northern Iran and the Caucasus as
well.
In the far southern Kurdistan, both in Iraq and Iran, the Gurani dialect is
spoken by about 3 million Kurds. Gurani along with its two major subdivisions:
Laki and Awramani, merit special attention for its wealth of sacred and secular
literature stretching over a millennium.
In Iraq and Iran a modified version of the Perso-Arabic alphabet has been
adapted to South Kurmani(Sorani). The Kurds of Turkey have recently embarked on
an extensive campaign of publication in the North Kurmanji dialect of Kurmaji
(Bahdinani) from their publishing houses in Europe. these employed a modified
form of the Latin alphabet. The Kurds of the former Soviet Union first began
writing Kurdish in the Armenian alphabet in the 1920s, followed by latin in 1927
, then Cyrillic in 1945, and now in both Cyrilic and Latin. Gurani dialects
continue to employ the Persian alphabet without any change. Dimili now uses the
same modified Latin alphabet as North Kurmanji for print.
Religion:
--------
Nearly three fifths of the Kurds, almost all Kurmanji-speakers, are today at
least nominally Sunni Muslims of Shafiite rite. There are also some followers
of mainstream Shiitem Islam among the Kurds, particularly in and around the
cities of Kirmanshah, to Hamadan and Bijar in southern and eastern Kurdistan
and the Khurasan. These Siite Kurds number around half a million. The
overwhelming majority of Muslim Kurds are followers of one several mystic Sufi
orders, most importantly the Bektashi order of the northwest Kurdistan, the
Naqshbandi order in the west and north, Qadiri orders of east and central
Kurdistan, and Nurbakhshi of the south.
The rest of the Kurds are followers of several indigenous Kurdish faiths of
great antiquit and originality, which are variations on and permutation of an
ancient religion that can be reasonably but loosely labeled as Yardanism or
the "Cult of Angels." The three surviving major divisions of this religion are
Yezidism (in west and west-central Kurdistan, ca 2%of all Kurds), Yarsanism or
the Ahl-i Haqq (in southern Kurdistan, ca 13% of all Kurds), and Alevism or
Kizil Nash(in western Kurdistan and the Khurasan, ca 20%).
Minor communities of Kurdish Jews, Christians and Baha'is are found in various
croners of Kurdistan. the ancient Jewish community has progressively emigrated
to Israel, while the Christian community is merging their identity with that of
the Assyrians.
PRESENT AND NEAR FUTURE DEMOGRAPHIC TRENDS(in millions)
State Turkey Iran Iraq Syria CIS
1990 Total 56.7 55.6 18.8 12.6
pop.
Total 13.7 6.6 4.4 1.3 0.3
Kurds
% Kurdish 24.1 12.4 23.5 9.2
Total Kurds(in all countries): 26.3
2000 Total 65.9 73.9 26.5 17.2
pop.
Total 18.7 9.0 6.4 1.6 0.5
Kurds
% Kurdish 28.4 12.6 24 9.2
Total Kurds(in all countries): 36.2
2020 Total 87.5 130.6 44.8 28
pop.
Total 32.3 16.2 10.9 2.7 0.9
Kurds
% Kurdish 36.9 12 24.5 9.8
Total Kurds(in all countries): 63.0
2050 Total 105.8 192.5 62.2 33.7
pop.
Total 47.0 23.1 15.0 3.9 1.1
Kurds
% Kurdish 44.4 12.1 25 11
Total Kurds(in all countries): 90.2
-- O --
Kurdish Studies, An International Journal
The Kurdish Library, Vol. 8, Numbers 1 & 2
1995.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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Kendal
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