In the name of Allah, the
Beneficent, the Merciful
INDEPENDENT
[Shamim A Siddiqi,
Kurds
are a different race and are of different ethnic origin. They were somehow living a normal life
as people when they were under the paramount Khilafah of Ottomans. Their
aspiration to live independently within their geographical bounds is centuries
old. They never reconciled with any foreign domination. They established a
big empire under Ayyubadis. Sultan Salahuddin was one of their most famous
kings who defeated the combined forces of Crusaders from Europe and recaptured
“In
the course of the 16th to 18th centuries, vast portions of
However,
the British-French hegemony in the wake of First Great War of 1914-18 not only
destroyed the institution of Khilafah but also dismantled the solidarity
of Kurds as a people and divided them into four
different "pockets" living in Turkey, Iran, Syria and Iraq.
“The Treaty of Sevres (signed
Since then they are living under the “illusion” of
independence and aspiring for their homeland. This is the age of “nationalism.”
Whether Muslims like it or not, it has enveloped every part of this globe.
Muslims must take the advantage of this “secular” trend in fulfilling some of
their national aspirations that otherwise could not be attained. We have to analyze the world situation in the
same measure. When the tiny
ethnic/racial minority like Jews can claim a “
Within the Muslim Ummah, this issue should forcefully be
undertaken earnestly by OIC. It should on its own accord negotiate with Iran,
Syria, Turkey and Kurds of Iraq for the emergence of a brotherly autonomous
state of Kurdistan with a common currency, a homogenous foreign policy, a
regional defense strategy and the vision to invite Afghanistan, Pakistan and
the five Sheikhdoms of Persian Gulf to join subsequently, creating a Muslim
Common Market [MCM] of its own. This is an inevitable course for the Muslim
Ummah and let the emergence of
Equally, the UN must undertake the issue of
If UN can meet the aspirations of “
There is every possibility that the process towards building the
autonomous
Shamim A Siddiqi
February 13, 2005
History |
The Kurdish History
Being the native inhabitants of their land. there are no
"beginnings" for Kurdish history and people. Kurds and their
history are the end products of thousands of years of continuous internal
evolution and assimilation of new peoples and ideas intro- duced sporadically
into their land. Genetically, Kurds are the descendants of all those who ever
came to settle in Archaeological finds continue to docu- ment that some of mankind's earliest steps towards
development of agnculture. domes- tication of many common farm animals (sheep, goats, hogs
and dogs). record keep- ing (the token system),
development of domestic technologies (weavmg, fired
pot- tery making and glazing), metallurgy and
urbanization took place in The earliest evidence so far of a unified and distinct culture (and
possibly, ethnicity) by people inhabiting the Kurdish moun-
tains dates back to the Halaf
culture of 8,000-7,400 years ago. This was followed by the spread of the Ubaidian culture, which was a foreign introduction from Much more is known of the Hurrians. They spoke a
language of the Northeast Caucasian family of languages (or Alarodian), kin to modern Chechen and Lezgian.
The Hurrians spread far and wide, dominating much
territory outside their Zagros-Taurus mountain
base. Their settlement of The Hurrians-whose name survives now most prominently in the dialect and district of Hawraman/Awraman in Kurdistan- divided into many clans and subgroups, who set up city-states, kingdoms and empires known today after their respvi hective clan names. These included the Gutis, Kurti, Khadi, Mards, Mushku, Manna, Hatti, Mittanni, Urartu, and the Kassitis1es, to name just a few. All these were Hurrians, and together form the Hurrian phase of Kurdish history. By about 4.000 years ago, the first van- guard of the
Indo-European-speaking peoples were trickling into Medes, Scythians and Sagarthians are just the
better-known clans of the Indo- European-speaking Aryans who settled in By the advent of the classical era in 300 BC. Kurds were already experiencing massive population movements that resulted in settlement and domination of many neighboring regions. Important Kurdish polities of this time were all byproducts of these movements. The Zelan Kurdish clan of Commagene (Adyaman area), for example, spread to establish in addition to the Zelanid dynasty of Commagene, the Zelanid kingdom of Cappadocia and the Zelanid empire of PontusQall in Anatolia. These became Roman vassals by the end of the Ist century BC. In the east the Kurdish kingdoms of Gordyene, Cortea, Media, Kirm, and Adiabene had, by the I st century B C, become confederate members of the Parthian Federation. While all larger Kurdish Kingdoms of the west gradually lost their existence to the Romans, in the east they survived into the 3rd century A D and the advent of the Sasanian Persian empire. The last major Kurdish dynasty, the Kayosids, fell in AD 380. Smaller Kurdish principalities (called the Kotyar, "mountain administrators") however, preserved their autonomous existence into the 7th century and the coming of Islam. Several socio-economic revolutions in the garb of religious movements
emerged in The eclipse of the Sasanian and Byzantine power
by the Muslim caliphate, and its own subsequent weakening, permitted the
Kurdish principalities and "mountain administrators" to set up new,
independent states. The Shaddadids of the The Ayyubids stand out from these by the
vastness of their domain. From their capital at With the 12th and 13th centuries the Turkic nomads arrived in the area who
in time politically dominated vast segments of the The advent of the Safavid and Ottoman empires in the area and their
division of In the course of the 16th to 18th centuries, vast portions of For one last time a large Kurdish kingdomQthe Zand, was born in 1750. Like the medieval Ayyubids, however, the Zands set
up their capital and kingdom outside The Treaty of Sevres (signed Drawing of well-guarded state boundaries dividing Since 1970s, the Iraqi Kurds have enjoyed an official autonomous status in
a portion of that state's Since 1987 the Kurds in In the |
The following selection on
the Kurdish struggle for national self-determination is excerpted from The
Opening Guns of World War III:
The
Some twenty million to thirty million Kurds are
divided between southeastern
Although the Kurdish republic was crushed by the
Iranian monarchy a year later, the Kurds continued their struggle during the
decades that followed. The
The Kurdish people took advantage of the
weakening of the Saddam Hussein regime as a result of the war to press forward
their struggle once again, holding many villages and towns - including the
major city of
As we discuss here today, the
At best, this enclave will be the temporary
equivalent of an Indian reservation in the
This is another of the unresolved and
uncontrollable social forces in the Gulf that has been unleashed, rather than
contained, by the results of
As we continue campaigning against imperialism
and war today, we must call not only for All foreign troops out of
For the ruling class in
Above all, the Kurdish people have come to the
center stage in world politics as never before, not primarily as victims, but
as courageous and determined fighters for national rights....
The
1. The Kurdish regime held power for nearly a
year. When the Iranian monarchy moved to crush the two governments and reoccupy
the areas in December 1946, the Soviet government opposed the resistance
efforts by the Azerbaijani and Kurdish peoples. This led to a split in the
Azerbaijani leadership, with the majority following Stalin's dictate and
calling off armed resistance. The Stalinist leadership in
The retreat was organized by Mustapha Barzani, the military commander of the
2. Geronimo, an Apache warrior, was an
outstanding leader of the struggle by the American Indian peoples against the
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