sign in sign up
<<
Home , Origin of the Kurds, Ten Thousand

HISTORICAL SETTING

The Land and the Peoples1

The term Kurdistn,2 i.e. “the land of the ,” was coined by the Seljqs who ruled Irq and western Persia between 1038 and 1194 C.E. Ancient sources in Sumerian, Assyrian, classical Greek and Latin, notably in ’s (401–400 B.C.E.), mention the Kurds in various appellations.3 In Aramaic, this region was known as bet kardu (the house of Kardu or ) and in the Bible (Gen. 8:4) it was known as hare Ararat (the mountains of Ararat), identi ed in the Onkelos Ara- maic translation from the 4th century C.E. as ture-kardu (the mountains of Kardu or Kurdistan).4 Likewise, in the 6th century C.E., the Talmud makes a few other references to kardu and karduyyim.5 Nevertheless, the origin of the Kurds has not yet been established. Kurdistan was never a sovereign state,6 though the area with an ethnic and linguistic majority of is de ned as

1 In addition to references cited henceforth, consult the “Existing Bibliographies on the Kurds,” in the Bibliography. 2 Simko (1992: 104) indicates that the name is a combination of the ethnological Kurd and the territorial suf x “istan.” Allegedly, the prophet Zoroaster rst used the term “istan” in 850 B.C., to denote the dwelling place of the people, and the soil to which they are bound to and from which they obtained their livelihood. Almost all known countries of the ancient world derived in this manner, such as Balluchistan (the land of the Balluchi), Afghanistan, Pakistan, Hindustan, Arabistan. Most of these names are still in use in modern maps. 3 Anabasis by Xenophon, translated by Henry Graham Dakyns, Project Guten- berg Release #1170 ( January 1998). Xenophon (c. 444–357 B.C.E.) participated in the expedition led by Cyrus against his older brother, the emperor Artaxerxes II of Persia, in 401 B.C., in which Cyrus employed many Greek . Eventually, ten thousand Greeks found themselves deep in hostile territory, near the heart of Mesopotamia, far from the sea, and without leadership. They fought their way north through to Trapezus on the coast of and then sailed westward and back to Greece. Xenophon’s record of this expedition and the journey home was titled Anabasis (“Expedition” or “The March up Country).” Xenophon lists the governors of the several territories of the king, which were traversed by the army during the expedition, and then some independent tribes, such as the Carduchians or Kurds. 4 Sabar 1982: xiii n.4. 5 Ibid., xiii n.5. 6 The Kurdish did not live up to its founders’ expectations. It ceased to exist less than a year after its creation in 1946. Consult Roosevelt 1947; Eagleton 1963; Gunter (1993, 1994); McDowall 1996: 231–247 and Schmidt 1964. 2 historical setting

Kurdistan.7 Curzon (1892) referred to the Kurdish mountains as “a name somewhat vaguely applied to the frontier highlands inhabited by the Kurds.”8 The Encyclopedia of sets the total area of Kurdistan at approximately 151 square miles. Other studies, some of them by Kurds, estimate the size of Kurdistan at around 193 square miles.9 The land of Kurdistan is a highland of numerous parallel mountain ranges that form the eastern extension of the Zagros and the southwest belt of foothills above the Mesopotamian plain. These two systems join at Lake Van in , at an altitude of 5,000 feet (1,500 meters).10 The Kurdish language belongs to the Iranian group and is thus part of the Indo-European family of languages. It originates from either the northwestern or the southwestern branch of the Iranian family, and is distinct in its grammar, syntax and vocabulary. The Kurdish language is testimony to a remarkable cultural survival, considering that until the end of the 19th century, the Kurds had little written literature.11 For many centuries, the Kurdish developed merely as an oral language and the Kurdish alphabet was molded only around the turn of the 19th century.12 There are three main groups of Kurdish dialects. The rst one is the northern/northwestern dialect, commonly known as , which is written primarily in the Latin alphabet. The central group, spoken further south, generally known as , is written in Arabic script based on Persian characters. These two groups have both developed literature and historiography, especially towards the end of the 20th century. The southern group, spoken further south in the Kermashah province of has not yet developed a literature. The dialects known as Macho-Macho, or Zaza, spoken in Turkey, and Gorani, spoken in Iran, do not belong to the Kurdish group of .13 It is worth noting that Kurmanji is spoken in ve countries while Sorani is used only in and Iran.14

7 On the question of the ethnic identity of the Kurds, see Izady 1986. 8 G. N. Curzon, Persia and the Persian Question, vol. 1 (London, 1892), rep. 1966: 516. 9 Graham 1991: 1. The Kurdish leader Ghassemlou (1965: 14) gives a similar size to that of the EI1, 409,650 km square. Other Kurdish scholars cite higher gures; see Simko (1992: 113): 530,000 km square, the same gure given by Joyce Blau 1965: 5. 10 Hassanpour 1992: 1–12. 11 Izady 1986. 12 Fisher 1978: 108–11. On non-Arab minorities in Iraq in the early 20th century, see Rassam 1931. 13 Kinnane 1964: 3–4. Gorani is also spelled Gurani. 14 More on the origin of the Kurds and their language, see Wahbi (1965, 1966); Driver 1923; Mackenzie 1961 and Chyet (1995, 2003).