Kurdish people

Kurds (Kurdish: کورد, romanized: Kurd) or Kurdish people are an Indo-European and Iranic 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
Total population
36.5–45 million
(Kurdish Institute of Paris, 2017 estimate.)
Turkeyest. 15-20 million
Iranest. 12 - 12 million
Iraqest. 8–8.5 million
Syria3–3.6
Germany1.5–2.5 million
Turkmenistan50,000
Azerbaijan180,000 - 4 million (inc. Ancestral)
France150,000 - 300,000
Netherlands100,000 - 210,000
Sweden83,600 - 115,600
Russia63,818 - 130,000
Belgium50,000
United Kingdom49,841 - 186,000
Kazakhstan46,348
Switzerland51,000
Denmark30,000
Jordan30,000
Austria110,000
Greece61,000
United States20,591
Canada16,315
Finland15,368
Georgia13,861
Kyrgyzstan13,200
Australia10,551
Armenia37,470 - 900,000 (inc. Ancestral)
Languages
Kurdish
In their different varieties: Sorani, Kurmanji, Pehlewani, Laki
Zaza, Gorani
Religion
Predominantly Islam (Largely Sunni majority with a small Shia minority)
with minorities of Yazidism and Alevism
Related ethnic groups
Other Iranic peoples

Kurds are one of the largest and most important ethnic groups in the Middle East.

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.: 19  (Lands in Armenia and Azerbaijan also have small Kurdish populations.): 19, 21 

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.: 26–27 

Lifestyles

Until the 20th century, most Kurds were nomadic people.: 23  The Kurds' economy had a close connection with pastoralism and animal husbandry.: 23 

In the 21st century, nomadism is not common among Kurds.: 23–24  Most Kurds now live in cities.: 27  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.: 24 

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.[source?] 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.: 3–4  Whether the people and groups who had the name "Kurds" thought that they were a common community before the 12th century is unknown.

History

Middle Ages

The word "Kurd" appears in early Islamic sources in Arabic and Tabari sources, meaning nomads, Shepherd or mountain dwellers — not the name of an ancient people.

Tabari's and Ibn al-Athir's texts use the word "Kurd" to refer to non-urban Iranian-speaking groups in the western Iranian plateau, not to refer to a historical or ethnic group. Linguistically, "Kurd" is a post-Islamic descriptive term that gradually became an ethnic name; no ancient pre-Sassanian or pre-Islamic document uses the word "Kurd" in an ethnic sense.

There are no Avestan or cuneiform inscriptions, petroglyphs, or texts that record a people called "Kurd".

Since 10th century, Arabic texts including al-Masudi's works, have referred to Kurds as a distinct linguistic group. From 11th century onward, the term Kurd is explicitly defined as an ethnonym and this does not suggest synonymity with the ethnographic category nomad.

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.: 21  Since the Middle Ages, there have also been Kurdish communities in Cairo, Beirut, Damascus, and Aleppo.: 20 : 38  Since the Early Modern Period, there have also been Kurdish communities in Khorasan, a region covering modern north-eastern Iran and Afghanistan.: 21 

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

The Kurds are a mostly Muslim people associated with the Sunni branch of 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.: 26 

Classical antiquity

In Classical antiquity, the most important deities of the Kurds' lands were Ahura Mazda and Mithra.: 48–50  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.: 48–50 

Middle Ages

In the 7th century, Kurds had many different religious beliefs.: 4 : 48  There were Christians and Zoroastrians.: 4  There were also Kurdish Jews.: 48  Some sects among the Kurdish Christians and Jews had religious beliefs from Zoroastrianism and Mithraism in their religion.: 48–50  There may have been Kurds among the Companions of the Prophet.: 50–51 

Islamic conquests in the 7th century meant that most Kurds became Muslim in the 7th and 8th centuries.: 4  Most Kurds converted to Islam between the 7th and 9th centuries CE. Kurds who were not Muslim had to pay the jizya, a tax.: 4  Most of these were part of the Shafi'ite system of Islamic jurisprudence.: 4 

While most Kurds are Sunni Muslims, there are also Kurds of many other religions and sects.: 48  There are Kurdish Jews in Iraqi Kurdistan and in Israel as well.: 25 

References

  1. ↑ Bois, Th; Minorsky, V.; MacKenzie, D. N., "Kurds, Kurdistān", Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition, Brill, p. 439, "The Kurds, an Iranian people of the Near East (...)"
  2. ↑ E. J. van Donzel (1994). Islamic desk reference. BRILL. p. 222, "(...) the Kurds are an Iranian people who live mainly at the junction of more or less laicised Turkey, Shi'i Iran, Arab Sunni Iraq and North Syria and the former Soviet Transcaucasia."
  3. ↑ Biggs, Robert D. (1983). Discoveries from Kurdish Looms. Mary and Leigh Block Gallery. Northwestern University. ISBN 978-0-941680-02-8. p. 9, "Ethnically the Kurds are an Iranian people (...)"
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
  5. ↑
  6. ↑ "The Kurdish population". Institutkurde.org (in French). Retrieved 11 December 2024.
  7. 1 2 3 4 The Kurdish Population In 2017 the Kurdish population was estimated at 15–20 million in Turkey, 10–12 million in Iran, 8–8.5 million in Iraq, 1–3,6 million in Syria, 1.2–1.5 million in the European diaspora, and 0.4–0.5in the former USSR—for a total of 36.5 million to 45 million globally.
  8. ↑ "Syria - Kurds". World Directory of Minorities and Indigenous Peoples. "There are around two-and-a-half million Kurds in Syria. They speak Kurdish (the Kirimanji dialect), but most speak Arabic, too, and many Kurds have at least partially assimilated into Arab society. Most are Sunni Muslims."
  9. ↑ "Kurdish population". Kurdish Institute of Paris. "In Syria, the civil war completely disrupted the demographic balance in the three Kurdish cantons (Djezirah, Kobane and Afrin) with an estimated population of 2.5 million. Added to this are the Kurdish communities of Aleppo and Damascus with more than one million people. In all, the Syrian Kurdish population can be estimated at 3 to 3.5 million, or nearly 15% of the population of Syria."
  10. ↑ ""Wir Kurden ärgern uns über die Bundesregierung" - Politik". Süddeutsche.de. Retrieved 18 May 2019.
  11. ↑ "Geschenk an Erdogan? Kurdisches Kulturfestival verboten". heise.de. 5 September 2018. Retrieved 18 May 2019.
  12. 1 2 Ismet Chériff Vanly, “The Kurds in the Soviet Union”, in: Philip G. Kreyenbroek & S. Sperl (eds.), The Kurds: A Contemporary Overview (London: Routledge, 1992). pg 164: Table based on 1990 estimates: Azerbaijan (180,000), Armenia (50,000), Georgia (40,000), Kazakhistan (30,000), Kyrghizistan (20,000), Uzbekistan (10,000), Tajikistan (3,000), Turkmenistan (50,000), Siberia (35,000), Krasnodar (20,000), Other (12,000), Total 450,000
  13. ↑ "3 Kurdish women political activists shot dead in Paris". CNN. 11 January 2013. Retrieved 9 June 2014.
  14. ↑ "Diaspora Kurde". Institutkurde.org (in French). Retrieved 2 November 2019.
  15. ↑ "Sweden". Ethnologue. 2015. Retrieved 14 January 2015.
  16. ↑ "Всероссийская перепись населения 2010 г. Национальный состав населения Российской Федерации". Demoscope.ru. Archived from the original on 21 May 2012. Retrieved 4 July 2012.
  17. ↑ "The Kurdish Diaspora". Institut Kurde de Paris. Retrieved 9 June 2014.
  18. ↑ "QS211EW - Ethnic group (detailed)". nomis. Office for National Statistics. Retrieved 3 August 2013.
  19. ↑ "Ethnic Group - Full Detail_QS201NI" (PDF). Retrieved 4 September 2013.
  20. ↑ "Scotland's Census 2011 - National Records of Scotland - Ethnic group (detailed)" (PDF). Scotland Census. Archived from the original (PDF) on 21 May 2014. Retrieved 29 September 2013.
  21. ↑ "Численность населения Республики Казахстан по отдельным этносам на начало 2019 года". Archived from the original on 17 March 2022. Retrieved 24 August 2018.
  22. ↑ "Switzerland". Ethnologue. Retrieved 14 January 2015.
  23. ↑ "Fakta: Kurdere i Danmark". Jyllandsposten (in Danish). 8 May 2006. Retrieved 24 December 2013.
  24. ↑ Al-Khatib, Mahmoud A.; Al-Ali, Mohammed N. "Language and Cultural Shift Among the Kurds of Jordan" (PDF). p. 12. Archived from the original (PDF) on 1 October 2018. Retrieved 10 November 2012.
  25. ↑ "Austria". Ethnologue. Retrieved 14 January 2015.
  26. ↑ "Greece". Ethnologue. Retrieved 14 January 2015.
  27. ↑ "2011-2015 American Community Survey Selected Population Tables". Census Bureau. Retrieved 29 March 2019.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: deprecated archival service (link)
  28. ↑ "Ethnic Origin (279), Single and Multiple Ethnic Origin Responses (3), Generation Status (4), Age (12) and Sex (3) for the Population in Private Households of Canada, Provinces and Territories, Census Metropolitan Areas and Census Agglomerations, 2016 Census". 25 October 2017. Retrieved 3 February 2018.
  29. ↑ "Language according to age and sex by region 1990 - 2020". Statistics Finland. Archived from the original on 29 March 2019. Retrieved 6 August 2021.
  30. ↑ PDF. "Population/Census" (PDF). geostat.ge. Archived from the original (PDF) on 10 October 2017. Retrieved 24 April 2022.
  31. ↑ "Number of resident population by selected nationality" (PDF). United Nations. Archived (PDF) from the original on 10 July 2012. Retrieved 9 July 2012.
  32. ↑ "Australia - Ancestry". 2016. Archived from the original on 14 January 2022. Retrieved 27 April 2019.
  33. ↑ "Information from the 2011 Armenian National Census" (PDF). Statistics of Armenia (in Armenian). Retrieved 27 May 2014.
  34. ↑ "Atlas of the Languages of Iran A working classification". Languages of Iran. Retrieved 25 May 2019.
  35. ↑ Michiel Leezenberg (1993). "Gorani Influence on Central Kurdish: Substratum or Prestige Borrowing?" (PDF). ILLC - Department of Philosophy, University of Amsterdam: 1. Archived from the original (PDF) on 12 July 2019. Retrieved 29 May 2019.
  36. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 Aydin, Selcuk (2018). "Geography". In Maisel, Sebastian (ed.). The Kurds: An Encyclopedia of Life, Culture, and Society. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO. pp. 19–30. ISBN 978-1-4408-4257-3.
  37. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Bajalan, Djene Rhys (2018). "Origins and History". In Maisel, Sebastian (ed.). The Kurds: An Encyclopedia of Life, Culture, and Society. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO. pp. 3–18. ISBN 978-1-4408-4257-3.
  38. ↑ James, Boris (2019). Constructing the Realm of the Kurds (al-Mamlaka al-Akradiyya): Kurdish In-betweenness and Mamluk Ethnic Engineering (1130-1340 CE). In Tamari, Steve (ed.). Grounded Identities: Territory and Belonging in the Medieval and Early Modern Middle East and Mediterranean. Brill. p. 20.
  39. ↑ James, Boris (2014). Arab Ethnonyms ('Ajam, 'Arab, Badu and Turk): The Kurdish Case as a Paradigm for Thinking about Differences in the Middle Ages. Iranian Studies. 47 (5): 683–712 (see 692).
  40. ↑ McDowall, David (2021) [1996]. "Kurdistan Before the Nineteenth Century". A Modern History of the Kurds (4th ed.). London: I. B. Tauris. pp. 23–44. doi:10.5040/9780755600762.ch-002. ISBN 978-0-7556-0076-2. S2CID 241348432.
  41. ↑ Hassanpour, Amir (2005), "Kurds", in Shelton, Dinah L. (ed.), Encyclopedia of Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity, Macmillan Reference USA, pp. 632–637, retrieved 5 June 2021,
    • "... thousands of Caucasian Kurds were subjected to two waves of forced deportation to the Central Asian republics of Kazakhstan, Kirgizia, and Uzbekistan in 1937 and 1944. ...
    • "Muslim Kurdish populations of Armenia and Nagorny-Karabakh were largely displaced in the course of the war between Armenia and Azerbaijan between 1990 and 1994 ...
  42. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Chaman Ara, Behrooz; Gholami, Vali (2018). "Religion". In Maisel, Sebastian (ed.). The Kurds: An Encyclopedia of Life, Culture, and Society. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO. pp. 48–63. ISBN 978-1-4408-4257-3.