Kurds and Kurdistan in the View of British Travellers in the Nineteenth Century
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Kurds and Kurdistan in the View of British Travellers in the Nineteenth Century Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the University of Leicester by Qadir Muhammad Muhammad School of History, Politics & International Relations University of Leicester 2017 Abstract Qadir Muhammad Muhammad This thesis is the first critical study of British travel writing on Kurdistan in the nineteenth century based upon travellers‟ accounts and unpublished reports of diplomats. The principal aim is to identify which aspects of Kurdish society and culture were highlighted by the British and to analyse what factors influenced British representations of the region and its people. The travellers‟ emphasis upon Kurdish culture and the Kurds‟ tribal culture, for example, is discussed in terms of contemporary interest in enlightenment sociology and the emergence of anthropology. A second key aim is to establish how far the British understood Kurds from their perspective on people in the East, whether they saw them as part of a homogeneous group of people, and the extent to which they recognised Kurds as culturally, socially, politically, and geographically. Finally, this thesis examines the importance of the Kurdish regions to the British imperial agenda. This research has made some important findings: firstly, it has confirmed that the British travellers were inclined to represent the Kurds as different from the other Muslim societies and therefore complicates our understanding of British views of the Ottoman and Persian empires in the nineteenth century. It shows that although the British depicted the Kurds as barbarous and quarrelsome, their accounts of Kurdistan did not fit a straightforward „Orientalist‟ model, particularly with regard to their observations on Kurdish women and the decline of the nomadic lifestyle. As nationalism was a common ideology throughout nineteenth-century Europe, a number of British travellers tried to depict Kurdish movements as nationalist activities; however, it is argued that these accounts should not be taken as straightforward evidence for the existence of nationalist sentiment. Finally, one of the key motives for British travel in the region was to further the imperial economic agenda by identifying potential markets and resources. British travellers had a significant impact on British i policy makers, as the presence of oilfields which they had identified led the British to keep Kurdistan under its mandate after the First World War. ii Acknowledgements This thesis would not have been written without the support and help of a number of people. First and foremost I am indebted to my first supervisor Professor Roey Sweet for being a wonderful supervisor, for all her energy and time, encouragement and guidance. She has been inspirational in so many ways; I cannot put into words how much I appreciate all the effort given to help me succeed over the last few years. I would also like to thank Dr. James Moore for all his time, advice and support. I really appreciate all the hours spent in supervision meetings and feedbacks, which were invaluable. I would like to thank my colleagues and friends Katherine A Roscoe, Emily Whewell, Kellie Moss, Hawkar Jalil, Botan Maghdid and Adnan Mohammed for their outstanding help during my study. I am grateful to Dlawer Ala‟adeen the former minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research in Kurdistan Regional Government, as his efforts enabled me to study a PhD at the University of Leicester. Finally, I would like to express my heartfelt thanks to my parents, sisters and brothers for their endless support and encouragement to pursue the goal of completing this thesis. iii Table of Content Contents Abstract ................................................................................................................................................ i Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................................. iii Table of Content.................................................................................................................................. iv List of Figures ..................................................................................................................................... vii List of Abbreviations ......................................................................................................................... viii Introduction ........................................................................................................................................ 1 Importance of the Research ................................................................................................................ 3 Research Focus .................................................................................................................................... 5 Selected travellers ............................................................................................................................. 12 Research questions ........................................................................................................................... 23 Sources .............................................................................................................................................. 24 Thesis structure ................................................................................................................................. 25 Chapter 1 Travel Writing and British Perspectives ........................................................................... 28 Introduction ...................................................................................................................................... 28 Travel Writing .................................................................................................................................... 29 Genres of Travel Writing ................................................................................................................... 31 Patterns of Travel .............................................................................................................................. 35 Who Travelled ................................................................................................................................... 38 Travellers in the Middle East ............................................................................................................. 40 Travellers and antiquity .................................................................................................................... 44 Anthropology .................................................................................................................................... 48 Conclusion ......................................................................................................................................... 52 Chapter 2 The Kurds and Kurdistan in the view of British travellers ................................................ 53 Introduction ...................................................................................................................................... 53 The Origin of the Kurds ..................................................................................................................... 53 iv Travellers’ observations on the characteristics of Tribal and Non-Tribal Kurds ............................... 59 Christian Denominations ................................................................................................................... 66 Geography of Kurdistan .................................................................................................................... 73 Conclusion ......................................................................................................................................... 81 Chapter 3 Kurdish Nationalism in the View of the British Travellers ................................................ 82 Introduction ...................................................................................................................................... 82 The Role of Ethnicity in Emerging Nationalism ................................................................................. 84 British observations on Kurdish Emirates movements and self-rule ................................................ 91 British travellers’ observations on the Soran Emirate ...................................................................... 94 British observations on the Baban Emirate ...................................................................................... 98 British Travellers’ observations on the Bohtan Emirate ................................................................. 101 Kurdish Nationalism in the Second Half of the Nineteenth Century and Sheikh Ubaidullah’s Movement ....................................................................................................................................... 105 Conclusion ....................................................................................................................................... 113 Chapter 4 British Travelers’ Observations of the Ottoman Empire, Persian Rule in Kurdistan, and Kurdish Tribal Society ............................................................................................. 116 Introduction ...................................................................................................................................