Kurdish History and Tribal Groups
From To Mesopotamia and Kurdistan in Disguise by Ely B. Soane, 1912.
From: Unknown To: 1912 C.E.
Location: Kurdistan Region, Iraq; Kurdistan Province, Iran
Note: This article has been excerpted from a larger work in the public domain and shared here due to its historical value. It may contain outdated ideas and language that do not reflect TOTA’s opinions and beliefs.
From To Mesopotamia and Kurdistan in Disguise by Ely B. Soane, 1912.
The race of Kurds is so little known, and so maligned when mentioned, that some idea of their origin and history, as well as an attempt at a vindication of their character, is not out of place here. Within recent years they have probably never come before the eye of the British public except in their traditional character of rapacious and furious fiends, fantastic figures of savagery pouring out from impregnable mountains and carrying desolation before them, slaying Christian and Musulman alike, resisting all efforts by princes and powers to subdue or even coerce them.
Of what they may be, their origins and history, I suppose less is known than of any other race in the East, so numerous and powerful, and it may come as a surprise to many that Kurdistan has a history, and an ancient one, noble families, and a fine—if somewhat limited—literature. So well have the secrets of the race been guarded, that one at least of the many travellers who have remained among them for some time goes so far as to state definitely that “they are as destitute of annals as the wolves and jackals among whom they have lived in the high mountains from immemorial time,” a statement which reflects more upon the ignorance of the writer than upon the Kurds, whom he would thus brand as being but little removed from the denizens of the hill-sides.
The Persian legend has it that Kurds are descendants of those young men who were saved from the voracity of the serpents of the monster Zohak of the Persian mythology, which were fed upon human brains at the devil’s suggestion, and which were deceived by having the brains of goats substituted for those of the two youths who were to become the progenitors of the Kurdish race.
Another and less known legend is that Solomon, having sent for four hundred virgins from the East, and they having arrived in the country now called Kurdistan, were deflowered by the devils therein, whereupon Solomon resigned them to those devils, and their offspring were called Kurds.
It is a long retrospect back to 1200 to 1500 years B.C., for it is there we are to see the kings of Nairi, who appear to be the forbears of those Medes who later gained renown, and again later, under the name of Kurd, remained a word of terror in the ears of the neighbours.
In those days the Assyrians reigned in the lands about Mosul and between the rivers Zab. Following the course of the Greater Zab, from its middle to its source, was an obscure, little-known land, and here was the heart of the Nairi land. Here, too, later, were the Medes established, and here is still the heart and centre of Kurdistan.
Armenia, or Urartu, was tucked away north of all this, behind the mountains and Lake Van, upon its plateau, and the kings of Urartu are not to be confounded with the men of Nairi. Nor were the Nairi lands confined to the upper waters of the Great Zab, for the people between the Tigris headwaters and the Euphrates north of Mount Niphates, that is, in modem times, Kharput and Darsim, in Bitlis and the Taurus range, were mentioned by Tiglath-Pileser and his successors (1100 to 600 B.C.), as the Nairi; that same land that later harboured the Invincible Gordyene, whose name appeared immediately after the disappearance of the name Mede at the middle of the Achaemenian dynasty of Persia (about 400 B.C.), and in reference to races inhabiting the lands of modern Kurdistan—which was Media.'
And since that time it has been Kurdistan, home of wild races speaking a language the purity of whose ancient forms is one of the best proofs of the occupation by the Kurds of their great mountains ever since the Aryan horde started from its “land of the Dawn” to people Persia, Media, and part of Europe—of which we ourselves are the descendants, through the Saxons, and so kin to the Kurd, who has never mixed his blood with that of the Arab or Turk, but kept it as pure as his unmixed speech.
Assyria, that conquered its world, found in these people of the mountains a more difficult problem than any they had yet encountered. We are told that there is no reason to believe, although the Assyrians passed through the Zagros (the mountains par excellence of the Kurds) that they subdued any but the people immediately upon their route, a characteristic of Kurdistan and the attempts to invade it so like the tales of modern Persia and Turkey, that it might be the story of any of the sultans and shahs of the last two centuries.
Professor Ragozin, in the work referred to below, remarks: “It is impossible not to notice the remarkably mild treatment which Tiglath-Pileser awarded to the kings of Nairi, a treatment so strongly contrasting with his usual summary proceedings as plainly to indicate a conciliatory intention.”
And again, speaking of the mountains above Erbil: “An expedition into the south-east, into the outposts of the Zagros mountains, is mentioned indeed as successful and profitable, but without much emphasis, which, in view of the tremendous stress always laid upon arty victory by the inscriptions, points to a somewhat abortive expedition.”
Nor was it always a case for aggression by the Assyrian king, for the great amount of the time spent by some of their monarchs in fighting with the Kurds seems to indicate that the Assyrians may even have been defending themselves rather than adopting an aggressive part.
Shalmaneser II., in the records of whose reign (860 to 824 B.C.) all the lands which he conquered are set out in detail, must have failed to make any impression upon the Zagros hills, for no mention is made of the Nairi whatever.
And when a tribe, important or unimportant, was subdued or vanquished, it was reckoned so great a feat of arms and courage, that it was worthy of particular record in the king's annals. Thus we find Sennacherib, who performed so many great deeds, marching against a tribe in Zagros called Kasshu, and actually subduing them. Care is taken to mention in the record that this tribe had never before been conquered.
As the Assyrian dynasty grew old and feeble, the Medes were gaining in strength. Their tribes were in unison of purpose, and at last were gathered under the first Median king, who established himself at Hamadan (the Biblical Ecbatana), situate upon the eastern border of his kingdom, and protected from Assyria by great mountain ranges.
This was a member of the “House of Dayaukku,” a family with which the Assyrians had fought before in the neighbourhood of Van.”
His son, Fravartish, and his son after him, too, Uvakshatara, spent their days in organising an army, the younger man, when he succeeded his father, altering the formation of the army from that of a disconnected mass of small tribes fighting independently, to a homogeneous force. And as long as the Medes held thus together they carried all before them, to which fact there is no better evidence than the Bible itself.
But Mede and Persian fell again; the Persians were subdued, and the Medes, deprived of the support of these their kinsmen, retired to their fastnesses and commenced the later period of history of their race—under the name of Gordyene, or Kurd.
Xenophon found them—his Karduk—to his cost, as all who read the Retreat of the Ten Thousand may learn, and he found them there in Anti-Taurus, or as we call it to-day, Hakkiari, Central Kurdistan.
When it is remembered that this part of Western Asia has been subject to the most wholesale revolution, to invasions by the armies of every nation that ever acquired fame and name in the Eastern world’s history—Assyrian, Parthian, Greek, Roman, Persian, the Arabs under Muhammad, and the Mongols—the fine stability of the race stands out, for among all the people of these lands they alone have withstood every army, and retained pure their language and blood, and claim with a pride of race to which none can grudge admiration, that they are the pure Aryan, the holders of the hills, and the possessors of the tongue.”
Within the last century the national spirit awoke four times and asserted itself in attempts to throw off the yoke of the Turks. The first occurred in 1806, when Abdurrahman Pasha, the Baban of Sulaimania, fought long and bravely against the Turks for the independence of southern Kurdistan, being defeated at Darband-i-Bazian in 1808 by the Bagdad Pasha, who, assisted by one of the Kurdish Pasha’s relations at feud with him, succeeded in taking him in flank.
A few years later, Muhammad Pasha, also of the Babati stock, at Rawanduz, acquired great power, and he too made a bid for national independence, and actually possessed himself of Upper Mesopotamia, Erbil, and Kirkuk. His rule was of so cruel and inflexible a nature as to subdue even the most turbulent, and his power such that, aided by his large army of irregular cavalry, he kept his provinces in absolute subjection and excellent order. He was eventually, at an advanced age, lured by the Turks into a snare, and after a journey to Constantinople, where he had been received with great honour, and a restitution, his murder was contrived on his return journey to his provinces.
Yet once again, one of the last of the Sulaimania pashas, Ahmad, attempted a revolution against the Turks, and went out to battle against them, marching on Bagdad, to fail.
The fourth event, which can be hardly termed quite a bid for independence, was the revolution under Badar Khan Bey in 1847, mention of which has been made in the chapter dealing with the history of the Chaldeans.
In recent times, commencing some five hundred years back, and as their surroundings have become accessible, as well as owing to the very gradual increase of their numbers, they have spread north and west. Their southern limit always was, and still is, the ancient road from Kermanshah to Qasr-i-Shirin, but in Turkish territory they have established themselves in Armenia, and have pushed their way west from Darsim and Kharput, so that now there are villages of the Milli Kurds a day out of Aleppo and away up in the mountains of the north-west.
So little is known of their history, that it is hardly realised that among them there are ancient tribes and noble families, some of whom it will not be out of place briefly to mention here. To attempt an adequate treatment of the history of the tribes, so far as it is possible to learn it, would be to write another volume.
Turning first to the centre of ancient Kurdistan, Bitlis and the Hakkari country (the upper Great Zab and the mountains south of Lake Van to the Tigris at Jazira ibn Umar), we find the tribe of Hakkari, that has sent its philosophers as far north as Bayazid, and peopled to a great extent that city, and given princes to Rawanduz and the south.
After the conquest of Diarbekr by Timur-i-Lang (Tamerlane) in the 14th century, a governor was placed over the district of Hakkari, named Amir Qara Uthman (the Black Lord Uthman), who, finding the country impregnable and access to it impossible, took the politic line of seeking in marriage the hand of a lady of the noble Hakkari clan of feudal lords. In doing so he identified himself with the tribe, and when the hand of Timur-i-Lang grew weak in the environs of Kurdistan, this Amir Qara Uthman became to all intents and purposes a Kurd, and his descendants founded or rather exalted the old Hakkari family, adopted the title of Prince, and ruled in great state at Bitlis, where the princes of the Hakkari ruled up to the 19th century.
They became so powerful, and contracted such wise alliances with the tribes, that at Jazira ibn Umar, Amadia, Julamark, and Rawanduz, the beys and princes were of the Hakkari, ruling independently of all outside powers, and never troubling about the claims of Turkey and Persia to the possession of their land, which were inaccessible.
Under its princes Bitlis became a very important centre, and Edrisi, the brilliant minister of Sultan Selim, himself a Hakkari Kurd, was responsible for expanding the territories held by some of the tribes under Hakkari rule.
He moved the Haidaranlu and the allied tribes northward into the Armenian country to guard the Persian frontier, and there they have stayed, till now Kurds of these, the most savage of all the Kurds, are domiciled across Armenia, and as far west as Erzerum, living in such numbers as almost to warrant the application of the name Kurdistan to these provinces.
The princes of Bitlis reached their greatest power in the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries, when they were independent, sometimes acknowledging a kind of suzerainty of Persia or Turkey, and at others denying the right of any Power to claim them as subject rulers. The last of the line, Sharif Bey, held out against the Turks for several years during the first half of the 19th century, when Turkish effort was concentrated to bring Kurdistan to subjection. He was captured by the Turks in 1849 and taken to Constantinople, and Bitlis has since been ruled by a Turkish governor.
Though their capital has been taken from them, the Hakkari are still a very powerful and famous tribe, and remain unmolested in the highlands of their country. The Turks have also adopted a more conciliatory attitude towards them, as, being on the frontier, it is highly advisable that they should be favourably disposed to Turkey.
In the neighbourhood of the Hakkari—to the west and north-east in Darsim—are the Kurds of the Zaza, a curious tribe, of the history of which nothing is known except that they have been in these mountains for ages. I regret exceedingly not having stayed among them, for their dialect is of extraordinary interest, Aryan of the Persian and Kurdish group, but differing from both. The tribe inhabit mountainous regions in most of the least-known parts of the lands about the Tigris head-waters and in Darsim. By travellers they have been described as “shy, impish little people,” and those of them I met, while shy, certainly were of a genuine and simple type, courageous and hard-working little men, with a large proportion of blue-eyed, fair-haired people among them.
Turning once more south-east, we come by the Hakkari to the tribes south and south-east of them, the Mukri and Ardalan of Persia, and the Jaf of Turkish territory, three famous tribes—and yet farther south the Kalhur and Guran.
The Mukri tribe, which inhabits Persian territory south of Lake Urumia, is the southern arm of what may be termed the northern branch of the race, that speak the Kurdish language in all its purity of accent and grammatical form. The Mukri claim that their dialect is the most ancient of all, and while its antiquity is probably not greater than that of its neighbours, its excellent preservation of ancient forms gives it a claim to be considered the standard by which to compare other dialects.
The tribe is not now a large one, but is allied to those surrounding it, particularly to the west and south-west, and enjoys a great name, which it has won for itself by the bravery of its people and the power of its sardars, or rulers, who at their curious little capital, Sauch Bulaq, have reigned for several hundred years. Shah Abbas, Nadir Shah, and Fath Ali Shah have all relied upon the Mukri for assistance in their various wars, and the first mentioned and greatest of them—who relied upon the Kurds to a very great extent for his fighting forces—made many of them high officers in his army, and it is said owed many of his victories—particularly in the west—to the Kurds in his army.
This was the case in 1624, when the bulk of Shah Abbas’ army was composed of Mukri Kurds, who defeated the Turks in a considerable battle. The tribe has always been kept in good fighting form by the proximity of the renowned robber tribe of the Bilbas, with whom they have often been to battle, and whose depredations in Persia they have not infrequently been called upon to punish. The Mukri and Bilbas are of almost exactly the same stock, and probably are two branches of the same tribe.
It is interesting to note that in the territory of the Mukri is the place where Zoroaster, the great prophet of old Persia, was born and first taught.
Here in their northern boundaries lies an interesting ruin, which—now known as Takht-i-Sulaiman—is said to be ancient Shiz, and capital of Media.
The Mukri, thus knowing many of the legends that hang around this place, indicate it as evidence to support their assertion that they are original Kurdish stock. They have, however, did they know it, a more notable proof of their descent from the Medes in the very language they talk, for it is the nearest of all the dialects to the Avestic of Zoroaster himself.
Their southern neighbours are a more famous race in modern times, and have played a more important part in Persian history than have the Mukri. These are the Beni Ardalan, whose capital is the beautiful little town of Sina, in the province known in Persia as Kurdistan—the Kurdistan par excellence of Persia. Here in the province of Ardalan ruled a noble and gifted family, which was founded, so it is said, in the 14th century, before which the old Ardalan chiefs reigned. The family claims descent from no less a person than Saladin himself, a Kurd of the Hasan Kaif, sub-tribe of the Hakkari.
That Sina is of great antiquity is evidenced by the number of inscriptions near and around it, mostly of the Sasanian period, when the district to its south-west, Holwan, the Zohab, and Qasr-i-Shirin of to-day, were seats of the Sasanian kings.
The khans of Ardalan, after ruling in absolute independence for some centuries, accepted the title of Vali of Ardalan from the Persian shahs, and identified the province with Persia, to which state Ardalan has always been very loyal. The independence of the khans at Sina was hardly affected by the change, for the only proof of allegiance they were called upon to supply was men for war, which they did. Up till the time of Khosru Khan, son of Amanullah Khan—a famous chief whose name lingers yet in these districts—Ardalan had preserved almost intact its independence, working with Persia in her wars more as an ally than as a vassal.
The little kingdom had extended its borders during the preceding centuries to include all the provinces and weaker tribes up to the borders of the Jaf, Mukri, and Rawanduz rulers.
These provinces were Juanru, Aoraman, Merivan, Bana, Saqiz, and the Persian districts of Hasanabad and Isfandabad.
Of these, undoubtedly the most interesting is Aoraman. This tiny province was practically independent, living under its own rulers, a proud family claiming descent from Rustam, the Persian national hero, speaking a language of their own, not admitting themselves Kurds, but “Aorami.”
These Aoramani live in a knot of great mountains, guarded on every side by the mighty walls of Nature, and their habit and temperament is as exclusive as their country. According to their legend, Darius the Mede expelled the original Aoram from his native place near Demavend, in northern Persia, and he fled with his brother Kandul to Media, finding in the recesses of these mountains a refuge. Here he established himself and founded the Aorami tribe.
At times during the ascendency of the Ardalan khans attempts were made to dislodge and subdue the Aoramani, but they were fruitless, and alone among the small tribes of the Perso-Turkish frontier Aoraman can still look over its own mountain slopes to-day, and bid defiance to all and sundry, for the ruler, Ali Shah, of Aoram Castle, is to-day independent in all but name.
The sub-provinces of Merivan and Bana, which lie to the north of Aoraman, were under their respective beys and khans, and never gave the trouble that Aoraman did, being purely Kurdish, and also possessing but little strength. The begs of Merivan had a habit of fighting with the sultans of Aoraman (as they have to-day), but so long as the Ardalan family retained their normal power the whole province was kept in good order.
The Court at Sina was kept up till well into the last century, and probably one of the most noted of all the Sina khans was Amanullah Khan, vali of Ardalan in the first two decades of the 19th century, who kept regal style in his little capital.
The family had, however, thrown in its lot to a great extent with the Qajar tribe of Persia when it first began to contest the Persian throne, and had made treaties of friendship and alliance. And once having given their allegiance to the Qajar dynasty (the present reigning one of Persia), they kept true to their word, and assisted with men in the battles against the unfortunate Lutf Ali Khan Zend, whose defeat and death left the throne in Qajar hands.
Khosru Khan married a daughter of Fath Ali Shah, who, being a woman of strong character, still continued to hold the reins of government after her husband's death, and was succeeded by Ghulam Shah Khan in 1865.
Upon the demise of this, the last Ardalan vali, Nasir ud Din Shah took advantage of his power both as relative and sovereign, to introduce such factors into the succession as should render the candidate uncertain, and in the meantime, while the young khans were waiting a decision, he by a coup established his own uncle, Mu’tamed ud Douleh, a strong man, as governor of Kurdistan.
The people of Ardalan made little resistance, for they had become accustomed to the rule of the Qajar princess, and moreover the dynasty had lost a great deal of its influence and power, and become decadent. So Mu’tamed ud Douleh found it an easy task to retain his seat at Sina. But when he turned his attention to Aoraman he found himself confronted by a very different situation. The Aoramani, who had found it hard enough to have to submit to the Ardalan family, discovered in Persian suzerainty a condition of life to which their natures could not consent without a struggle.
Mu’tamed ud Douleh had a long and hard struggle before he could subdue Hasan Khan, sultan of the Aorami; and even when he did so, the respect the tribe had gained for itself was so considerable that the government was given into the hands of the son and his brother.
At the present time Aoraman lies part in Turkish and part—the greater—in Persian territory, and while the rulers on both sides are nominally subjects of those powers, they are to all intents and purposes independent, particularly Ali Shah, the Persian Aorami, who owns allegiance to none. An expedition is at the time of writing being sent against him from Sina to collect taxes and attempt to bring him to order.
The Ardalan family, though shorn of their power, are still a noteworthy family, and holders of position under the Persian Government. Fakhr ul Mulk, the present head of the family, an old man of great culture and learning, is Governor of Shushtar and Dizful, in Arabistan, and has an heir who is about twenty-five years of age.
From this advanced and powerful family we have to turn aside to their neighbours, of a different stamp—the Jaf, known throughout southern Kurdistan for their ability and ferocity in war. Up to the present little if anything is known of their history, and it is given here upon the authority of a member of the ruling family, Muhammad Ali Beg Pushtamala, of Qizil Robat, in extreme southern Kurdistan.
The tribe lays claim to having been domiciled in Juanru, one of the sub-provinces of Ardalan already mentioned, from the earliest times till about A.D. 1700, and there they lived under the rule of the valis of Ardalan. It appears, however, that either the Ardalan valis cast jealous eyes upon the extremely fertile province of Juanru, or, piqued by the growing strength of the Jaf, made an attempt to bring the government of the land more directly under their own hands. This was not accomplished without fighting, and after a battle in which the chief of the Jaf with his brother and son were caught and slain, the remaining chiefs of the tribe fled to the protection of the Kurdish pasha of Sulaimania, except a few sub^-tribes whose attachment to the land was greater than their detestation of the conquerors.
Some of these, however, the Qadir Mir Waisi, Taishai, Qalkhani, Yusif Yar Ahmaidi, Kuyik, Nirji,and Gurgkaish, unable to submit to the rule of the arrogant Ardalan valis, took refuge with the Gurans and adopted the name also, being to-day known as the Jaf Guran.
The Kurdish pasha of Sulaimania gave the chiefs protection, and granted their tribes the right to migrate in the spring and autumn on the routes they still occupy, namely, northward towards Panjwin, and south as far as Qizil Rubat and Khaniqin. They thus became Turkish subjects, and have remained so ever since.
The tribe is estimated to number some hundred thousand people, and the pasha—Mahmud Pasha is the head now—claims to be able to put four thousand horsemen into the field at a few hours notice.
One of the late chiefs, Uthman Pasha, who died in the autumn of 1909 (to whom reference is made in the chapters on Sulaimania and Halabja) strengthened and enriched the tribe by his marriage with Adela Khanum, who was a lady of the old Ardalan family of ministers to the vallis, and at once drew upon himself the displeasure of the Turks and the approval of the Persians, who granted him a Sword and title as a mark of the recognition of his having chosen a Persian subject to wife.
The pashas of the Jaf are a proud and haughty class of men, speaking little, but prompt to act, and they have, during the last hundred years, whenever trouble occurred in the tribe, taken such swift and effective action that since the first division of the tribe none further has taken place. Almost alone among the greater tribes, of the Kurds this one of the Jaf has been able to live in good interrelation, for, as the heads of the various families have worked in concert, the tribe has grown wealthy and strong.
This is a remarkable feature of Kurdish life, for the reason why Persia and Turkey have been safe from the great invasions by Kurds that would otherwise have occurred, is the inability of the tribes to live at peace with one another—a not uncommon feature of the temperament of mountain races in all parts of the world.
The tribe seldom passes the Persian frontier, except at its northern migration limit near Bana, for over their southern border lies the territory of the Guran, an ancient and renowned tribe, which, while not so strong as it used to be, still commands a sufficient respect to keep in check its turbulent neighbours in Turkish territory.
Of all Kurdish tribes, perhaps the Guran has been best known and has excited most interest among those who have travelled in western Persia and southern Kurdistan. If, however, ethnological research could be brought to bear upon the tribe, it is possible that the Guran would be discovered to be not Kurdish, but either Lurish or Persian. Along the border that separates Kurdistan from Luristan, are a number of tribes that are neither Lur nor Kurd, and speak a dialect which is imagined to be the relic of the old Persian Tajik.
It is now thought that this country was peopled by a sedentary population called Guran, speaking the dialect above referred to, and which is still spoken with variations by the Aoraman, Kanduleh, and Rizho settled tribes. The tongue was, and still is in a measure, the classical language of the Ardalan family, and is used in all the very extensive poetry that was and is written in and about Sina. It is now called Aorami, or Shahrazuri.
This theory accounts for the fact that a large portion of the Guran tribe—the sedentary section—still speaks the language. The nomadic section speaks a definitely Kurdish dialect, but this is readily accounted for by the circumstances which led certain Jaf and Kalhur sub-tribes to put themselves under the protection of the Guran and adopt their name.
The original tribe, which, governed by families of “Sultans,” is a very ancient one, and claims direct descent from Bahrum Gur, whose name is familiar to those who have read FitzGerald’s translation of Omar Khayyam,
After 1639, when the least indefinite of all the frontier treaties between Persia and Turkey was concluded and when the Jaf and other tribes joined them, the Gurans ruled with great power from their old capital at Gahwara, and made more famous their ballads and poems — which have given rise to the Kurdish name for certain kinds of poems—“Gurani.”
They have lost their power recently owing to the weakness of their rulers, and have in the last few years quite retired into the background, leaving the field in possession of the Kalhur tribe, now stronger than ever before, a compact amalgamation of the sub-tribes bearing the generic name.
Soane, Ely B. To Mesopotamia and Kurdistan in Disguise. Small, Maynard and Company, 1912.
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