Kurds

Kurds

Introduction

The Kurds are a people who speak various dialects of a language related to Persian. During the early Ottoman period, any of the tribal peoples who were the indigenous Muslim inhabitants of the mountainous region known as Kurdistan were called Kurds. Although their neighbors identified them collectively as Kurds, this name was only adopted as a means of self-identification at the end of the Ottoman period. They were thereby distinguished from the Turkoman tribes who had settled more recently in the region. Over time, however, the definition of Kurd has shifted from one based in geography to one dependent on language. The sense that Islamic faith is a defining characteristic of Kurdish identity has persisted into the modern period, however, even after language became a key factor in determining who was a Kurd.

Discussion

Kurds are the fourth-largest ethnic population living in southwest Asia. Most sources indicate that today there are more than 30 million Kurds. Kurdish societal structure remains tribal, with loyalty of each Kurdish group directed toward an immediate family clan, but many modern Kurds now live in large cities. They do share a common cultural heritage that goes beyond their tribal social structure. The distinct Kurdish language belongs to the Iranian subgroup of the Indo-European languages.

Many of the Christians and Jews who inhabited the mountains of Kurdistan also spoke Kurdish as their mother tongue, but these individuals were never called Kurds in Ottoman sources, nor did Muslim Kurds consider them to be Kurds until the late 20th century when the rhetoric of Kurdish nationalism became more inclusive. The fragmentation of the Kurdish people that slowed the emergence of a collective cultural identity was a product of three factors: their mountainous homeland; the fact that they spoke four largely mutually unintelligible dialects, none of which had established written forms; and their division into often mutually antagonistic tribes and clans. The last of the three was undoubtedly the most crucial, as feuds and open warfare between Kurdish tribes were commonplace into the 20th century (Kreyenbroek, 1991).

The territory the Ottomans called Kurdistan stretched from what is today southeastern Turkey across parts of Syria and northern Iraq into northeastern Iran. Strategically placed along the Ottoman Empire's borders with rival Iran, the Kurds were potential allies that the Ottomans sought to enlist to their side. Well-armed, possessing strongly developed martial traditions, and virtually inaccessible in their mountain redoubts, the Kurds were an ally that the Ottomans sought to control but whom they could not conquer. During his campaign against the rebel Kizilbas in the early 16th century, the value of having the Kurds as on his side became apparent to Sultan Selim I (Leach, 1938).

The Kurds also were looking for an ally. The Turkoman dynasty, the Ak-Koyunlu, had destroyed the power of the Kurdish tribal leaders, the mirs, in the 15th century and dominated Kurdistan, the country of the Kurds. Having experienced more than a century of abuse at the hands of the Turkoman tribes, the Kurds were eager to find help to regain control ...