Kurdish people

Kurds (Kurdish: [کورد] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)) or Kurdish people are an Indo-European ethnic group indigenous to the mountainous region of Kurdistan in Western Asia, which spans today's southeastern Turkey, northwestern Iran, northern Iraq and northeastern Syria.

There are exclaves of Kurds in Central Anatolia, Khorasan, and the Caucasus, as well as significant Kurdish diaspora communities in the cities of western Turkey, particularly Istanbul, and Western Europe, primarily in Germany. In 2017 The Kurdish population was estimated to be between 36.5-45 million.

Kurds
Kurd کورد

File:Flag of Kurdistan.svg Flag of Kurdistan
Total population
36.5–45 million (Kurdish Institute of Paris, 2017 estimate.)
Turkey	est. 15-20 million
File:Flag of Iran.svg Iran	est. 12 - 12 million
File:Flag of Iraq.svg Iraq	est. 8–8.5 million
27px Syria	3–3.6
File:Flag of Germany.svg Germany	1.5–2.5 million
27px Turkmenistan	50,000
Azerbaijan	180,000 - 4 million (inc. Ancestral)
File:Flag of France.svg France	150,000 - 300,000
File:Flag of the Netherlands.svg Netherlands	100,000 - 210,000
File:Flag of Sweden.svg Sweden	83,600 - 115,600
File:Flag of Russia.svg Russia	63,818 - 130,000
24px Belgium	50,000
File:Flag of the United Kingdom (3-5).svg United Kingdom	49,841 - 186,000
File:Flag of Kazakhstan.svg Kazakhstan	46,348
File:Flag of Switzerland.svg Switzerland	51,000
Denmark	30,000
File:Flag of Jordan.svg Jordan	30,000
File:Flag of Austria.svg Austria	110,000
Greece	61,000
United States	20,591
Canada	16,315
File:Flag of Finland.svg Finland	15,368
Georgia	13,861
File:Flag of Kyrgyzstan.svg Kyrgyzstan	13,200
29px Australia	10,551
File:Flag of Armenia.svg Armenia	37,470 - 900,000 (inc. Ancestral)
Languages
Kurdish In their different varieties: Sorani, Kurmanji, Pehlewani, Laki Zaza, Gorani
Religion
Predominantly Sunni Islam with minorities of Shia Islam, Yazidism and Alevism
Related ethnic groups
Other Iranian people

Kurds are one of the largest and most important ethnic groups in the Middle East. There are between about 60 million and about 80 million Kurds.

Most of the Kurdish population lives in Kurdistan. Kurdistan is the area where Kurds live. Today, it is a border country with lands in the east and southeast of Turkey, in the north-west of Iran, in the north of Iraq and in the north-east of Syria. (Lands in Armenia and Azerbaijan also have small Kurdish populations.)

Languages

Many Kurds speak the Kurdish language. The two largest Kurdish dialects are Kurmanji Kurdish and Sorani Kurdish. The Kurds of Turkish Kurdistan (Bakur) and of Syrian Kurdistan(Rojava)speak Kurmanji. About half of Kurds in Iranian Kurdistan (Rojhelat) and Iraqi Kurdistan (Bashur) speak Kurmanji, while other Kurds there speak Sorani. Some Kurds in Iranian Kurdistan (Rojhelat) speak the Gorani Kurdish dialect, while others in Turkish Kurdistan (Bakur) speak Zazaki Kurdish.

Lifestyles

Until the 20th century, most Kurds were nomadic people. The Kurds' economy had a close connection with pastoralism and animal husbandry.

In the 21st century, nomadism is not common among Kurds. Most Kurds now live in cities. In the 21st century, farming is the most important work in Kurdistan. Industrialization means that fewer Kurds work as farmers, and this has caused urbanization of the Kurdish population. In the past, Kurds were part of the Silk Road economic system. Trade routes form connections between different countries through Kurdistan.

Some scholars make an argument that the meaning of the name was not an ethnonym at the time, because many different groups of nomads and pastoralists had the name "Kurds" during the Middle Ages. However, other scholars make the argument that the name was not the name of lifestyle or economic system, such as nomadism or pastoralism, but the name of a population. This population shared a common character in linguistics, shared an area to live in, and shared a mythology. Whether the people and groups who had the name "Kurds" thought that they were a common community before the 12th century is unknown.

Interethnic relations

The Kurds share their lands with other ethnic groups. Some of the Kurds' neighbours are Turks, Arabs, Persians, Jews, Armenians and Assyrians. In the past, some Arabic and Turkic people became Kurds by cultural assimilation. In the nationalist period, the governments of the states controlling Kurdistan attempted the forced assimilation of Kurds into Turkish, Iranian or Arab culture.

These states also moved Turks, Persians or Arabs into Kurdistan. The governments of these states did so via genocide, ethnocide and linguicide, often with tacit approval from other countries.

Origin

The name of the Kurds is very old. The first proof of the name is from writing in Middle Persian (Pahlavi), the language of the Sasanian Empire. The name became most common after the Islamic conquests during the 7th century CE.

Antiquity

Some scholars have associated the Kurds with the Medes, an ancient Iranian people. Gernot Ludwig Windfuhr, professor of Iranian Studies, states that the majority of those who now speak Kurdish most likely were formerly speakers of a Median dialect. Windfuhr also states Kurdish languages as Parthian, albeit with a Median substratum.

File:Mad-5223.jpg

Rock relief of a Median man, Persepolis

During the Sassanid era, in "Kar-Namag i Ardashir i Pabagan" a short prose work written in Middle Persian, Ardashir I (founder of Sasanian empire) is depicted as having battled the Kurds and their leader, Madig. After initially sustaining a heavy defeat, Ardashir I was successful in subjugating the Kurds. In a letter sent by Ardashir's enemy, Ardavan, and in the same work, it is stated that he was a Kurd.

You've bitten off more than you can chew and you have brought death to yourself. O son of a Kurd, raised in the tents of the Kurds, who gave you permission to put a crown on your head?

The usage of the term "Kurd" during this time period most likely was a social term, designating Northwestern Iranian nomads, rather than a concrete ethnic group.

Middle Ages

In the 7th century, Kurds had many different religious beliefs. There were Christians and Zoroastrians. There were also Kurdish Jews. Some sects among the Kurdish Christians and Jews had religious beliefs from Zoroastrianism and Mithraism in their religion. There may have been Kurds among the Companions of the Prophet.

Islamic conquests in the 7th century meant that most Kurds became Muslim in the 7th and 8th centuries. Most Kurds converted to Islam between the 7th and 9th centuries CE. Kurds who were not Muslim had to pay the jizya, a tax. Most of these were part of the Shafi'ite system of Islamic jurisprudence.

While most Kurds are Sunni Muslims, there are also Kurds of many other religions and sects. There are Kurdish Jews in Iraqi Kurdistan and in Israel as well.

20th century

After modern international borders came into existence after World War I, many Kurds went out of Kurdistan. They migrated to the large cities in the Middle East and to Western Europe. Since the Middle Ages, there have also been Kurdish communities in Cairo, Beirut, Damascus, and Aleppo. Since the Early Modern Period, there have also been Kurdish communities in Khorasan, a region covering modern north-eastern Iran and Afghanistan.

Persecution in the Soviet Union

The Soviet Union also committed ethnic cleansing against Kurds by forcing them to migrate from the Caucasus to Central Asia. When the Soviet Union ended, the First Nagorno-Karabakh War between Armenia and Azerbaijan harmed most Kurds in the Caucasus.

Religions

Most Kurds are Muslims associated with Sunni Islam. Most Kurds are part of the Shafi'i school of jurisprudence, but some Kurds are part of the Hanafi school. Sufism is also common among Kurds. There are also Kurds who are part of Shia Islam and Kurds who are part of Alevism. There are also Kurdish Jews and Yazidi people.

Classical antiquity

In Classical antiquity, the most important deities of the Kurds' lands were Ahura Mazda and Mithra. The most common religion was Zoroastrianism. Zoroastrianism was probably the state religion of the Achaemenid Empire. There are connections between the writings of Zoroastrianism and the Vedas, the Hindu writings of ancient India.

Kurdish People Media

• Kurdish-inhabited area by CIA (1992).jpg

  Kurdish-inhabited areas in the Middle East (1992)

• Maunsell's map, Pre-World War I British Ethnographical Map of eastern Turkey in Asia, Syria and western Persia 01.jpg

  Maunsell's map of 1910, a pre-World War I British ethnographical map of the Middle East, showing the Kurdish regions in yellow (both light and dark)

• Pilgrims and festival at Lalish on the day of the Ezidi New Year in 2017 22.jpg

  Yazidi new year celebrations in Lalish, 18 April 2017

• Faravahar-Gold.svg

  Faravahar (or Ferohar), one of the primary symbols of Zoroastrianism, believed to be the depiction of a Fravashi (guardian spirit)

• Saladin the Victorious.jpg

  Salah ad-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub, or Saladin, founder of the Ayyubid dynasty in the Middle East

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  Kurdish warriors by Frank Feller

• Abbas I of Persia.jpg

  5th Safavid shah Abbas the Great, married a Mukri noblewoman in 1610 AD.

• کریم خان زند.JPG

  Karim Khan, the Laki ruler of the Zand Dynasty

• Antonion Zeno Shindler - Kurd Man - 1985.66.165,714 - Smithsonian American Art Museum.jpg

  Impression of a Kurdish man by American artist Antonio Zeno Shindle circa 1893