Religion in Kurdistan

[Kurd Day]

"Compared to the unbeliever, the Kurd is a Muslim" (li gora gawirî Kurd misilman e). I do
not recall where I first heard or read this unflattering Kurdish saying, but it was uttered with a
certain pride.1 I suspect that it was originally a Turkish or Arabic saying; it is the sort of thing
people who feel that they are better Muslims than the Kurds would say. In fact, one often
comes across beliefs and practices in Kurdistan that are hard to reconcile with Islamic
orthodoxy. Kurdish nationalists of the 1920s and 1930s were fascinated with, and took pride
in, such deviations from the "Arabian religion" of Islam, interpreting them as rebellions of the
Kurdish spirit against Arab and Turkish domination. During its first years the nationalist
cultural magazine Hawar, published in Syria from 1932 to 1943 by Djeladet and Kamran
Bedir-Khan, showed a great interest in Zoroastrism as one of the sources of Kurdish cultural
identity. With its Zoroastrian roots, the Yezidi religion, which had long been discriminated
against and condemned as "devil worship," was idealised by some nationalists as the Kurdish
religion par excellence.
But these nationalists were a tiny minority, and the followers of all heterodox sects
combined form only a small fraction of the Kurds. The vast majority are Muslims, and many
of them take their religion very seriously. The editors of Hawar discovered that the journal
had to change its tone in order to find a wider readership. From 1941 on, each issue opened
with Kurdish translations from the Koran and Traditions of the Prophet. Many other Kurdish
secularised nationalists, before as well as after them, made the same discovery that in order to
gain influence among the Kurds they had to accommodate themselves to Islam. This was
never an easy thing to do since most of these nationalists considered Islam as one of the major
forces oppressing their people.
The nationalist and poet Cigerxwin (1903-1984), who belonged to the circle around
Hawar, toward the end of his life expressed his frustration with the Kurds' lasting attachment
to Islam. Cigerxwin had himself in his youth pursued traditional religious studies at madrasas
in various parts of Kurdistan. Later his Islamic piety gradually gave way to a strong emotional
1 It is often quoted in the literature of the first half of this century, for instance by Kamran Bedir-Khan in an
article on ancient customs of the Kurds, in the journal Hawar 26 (August 18, 1935), p. 12.​

 

[Kurd Day]

رد: Religion in Kurdistan

devotion to the Kurdish nation and an increasing interest in Zoroastrianism. 'The first volume
of his posthumous History of Kurdistan, which deals with the pre-Islamic period, contains a
short chapter on the religion of the Kurds today. Instead of the contented observation made by
some of his friends a half century ago that the Kurds are Muslims only by comparison with
unbelievers, Cigerxwin portrays them as pious but ignorant Muslims, exploited by greedy
mullas and shaikhs:
The majority of the Kurds are Muslims, and most of the Muslim Kurds are Sunnis. Each year
thousands of them go on the hajj, throwing away thousands of gold pieces for the voyage. In every
village, little by little a mosque has been built, and the people support mullas and divines. They give a
tenth of their income to the mullas and the poor, and they gather five times a day in the mosque and
pray. Once a week, on Fridays, they perform a large prayer and listen to a sermon in Arabic, but the
villagers do not understand what the mulla says, they only bend their heads and daydream a little; and at
times some of them cry. For the only thing that they know is that the words of the mulla are the words
of God and the prophets.
In every district there is also a shaikh or several shaikhs. The poor and destitute villagers become
their disciples; they take their income out of [the villagers'] mouths; [the villagers] surrender themselves
entirely to their shaikhs and will do nothing without them.... The shaikhs live in large mansions and
palaces, while the villagers meet each other outside and shout and dance. They stay out in the sun,
sitting against the wall, barefoot, hungry, naked, poor and destitute, and they work for the shaikh
without payment. Very often they put their hopes for the hereafter in the shaikh, and they believe that
when the Day of Reckoning arrives and God descends in Damascus, the shaikh will protect them from
hellfire and open the gate of Paradise for them.2
The relationship of religion and nationalism has often been strained and ambivalent in
Kurdistan. Many leading nationalists were irreligious or at least dissatisfied with the strong
hold of mullas and shaikhs on the people. It has, on the other hand, usually been the orthodox
Muslims who formed the backbone of the Kurdish movement. In order to gain support for
their nationalist objectives, secularist intellectuals have time and again had to reach an
accommodation with religion, either by choosing a popular religious leader as the figurehead
of the movement-as happened to Shaikh Sa`id, who is still much better known than the
2 Cigerxwin, Tarixa Kurdistan, I (Stockholm: Wesanên Roja Nû, 1985), p. 17.​

 

[Kurd Day]

رد: Religion in Kurdistan

political organisation that prepared the rebellion with which his name has remained
associated.3
Religious Diversity in Kurdistan
Perhaps two thirds or three quarters of the Kurds are, nominally at least orthodox Sunni
Muslims. Most of them follow the Shafi'i mazhab (school of Islamic jurisprudence), which
distinguishes them from their Turkish and Arab Sunni neighbours, who generally follow the
Hanafi school.4 To some Kurds therefore the Shafi`i mazhab has become one of the outward
signs by which they assert their ethnic identity. Islamic law has rules for virtually all aspects
of human behavior and the four mazhabs have slightly different interpretations of these rules.
Shafi`is perform, for instance, the morning prayer at an earlier time than Hanafis, they keep
their hands in a different position during prayer, and have different rules for what disturbs
ritual purity. Such minor details in behaviour have at times been deliberately used by Kurds
to distance themselves from Turks and Arabs. In Iran the difference between the Sunni Kurds
and the Shiite Persians and Azerbaijanis is even more conspicuous. After the Iranian
Revolution most of the Iranian Kurds opposed the idea of an Islamic Republic, and Sunni-
Shiite antagonism played an important part here.5
The southernmost part of Kurdistan, however, the province of Kirmanshah in Iran and the
districts of Khanaqin and Mandali in Iraq, are predominantly Shiite. The Shiite Kurds of Iran
3 See Martin van Bruinessen, "Von Osmanismus zum Separatismus: religiöse und ethnische Hintergründe der
Rebellion des Scheich Said," in: Jochen Blaschke and Martin van Bruinessen, eds., Islam und Politik in der
Türkei (Berlin: Express Verlag, 1985), pp.109-165. The name of the organization, Azadî ("Freedom"), is not
even mentioned by most of the studies of the rebellion. Its leaders, mostly military men and civil servants,
deliberately approached Shaikh Sa`id to become the formal leader because of his prestige and influence as a
religious leader.
4 Four mazhabs are recognized as orthodox, namely the Shafi'`i, Hanafi, Maliki and Hanbali schools of
jurisprudence. In the Ottoman Empire the Hanafi mazhab was the official one; the Shafi'i mazhab has its
adherents, besides Kurdistan, in Egypt, Hadramaut and especially Southeast Asia.
5 It would be an exaggeration, however, to attribute the Kurdish resistance against the Khomeini regime simply
to the Kurds' being Sunnis, as some journalists have done. For a detailed analysis of Sunni-Shii conflicts and
their impact on political developments in the first year of the Revolution, see my "Nationalismus and religiöser
Konflikt: Der kurdische Widerstand im Iran," in Kurt Greussing, ed., Religion und Politik im Iran (Frankfurt am
Main: Syndikat, 1981), pp. 372-409.​

 

[Kurd Day]

رد: Religion in Kurdistan

have never taken part in the Kurdish national movement; in the first years after the
Revolution the central government could easily recruit Kurds from Bakhtaran to fight against
the rebellious Kurds further north. In Iraq, on the other hand, there has never been such a
clear split between Sunni and Shiite Kurds. An interesting case is that of the Faylis, a Shiite
community in Baghdad who are not recognized as Iraqi citizens because of their alleged or
real Iranian descent. The Faylis are Arabic speakers, but they have gradually come to consider
themselves as Kurds (and are accepted by the Kurds as such); some Faylis have even played
leading roles in the Kurdish movement.6
Besides these two major varieties of orthodox Islam, we find various syncretistic sects
among the Kurds, with beliefs and rituals that are clearly influenced by Islam but owe more to
other religions, notably old Iranian religion. The most celebrated of these is that of the
Yezidis, who are often erroneously called "devil-worshippers." The Yezidi religion appears to
have followers only among the Kurds. Another originally Kurdish religion, that of the Ahl-i-
Haqq, has, on the other hand, spread from the Guran of southern Kurdistan to the
Azerbaijanis and Persians and to some of the Iraqi Turcomans. The third important
syncretistic sect of Kurdistan used to be called Qizilbash and is now euphemistically called
Alevi ("devotees of Ali"). The Alevi Kurds live on the north-western edge of Kurdistan and
number at least hundreds of thousands, perhaps even more than a million.
Finally there are Christian minorities of various denominations living among the Kurds.
Originally there were three communities, each with its own church, the Armenians and two
groups speaking different Aramaic dialects. The Western Syrians, whose major centres were
in the Tor Abdin mountains near Mardin, belonged to the Syrian Orthodox Church, while the
Eastern Syrians (also known as Assyrians) of the mountains between Mosul and Urmia were
Nestorians. Later new church denominations emerged under the influence of foreign
missionary activities so that there are now Syrian Catholics, Armenian Catholics and
Chaldaeans (Assyrian Catholics) and an even larger variety of Protestant churches.
6 0n repeated occasions the Iraqi regime has expelled large numbers of Faylis to Iran on the pretext that they
were foreign citizens, although their families had lived in Iraq for generations. Some Fayli families may
originally have come from southern Kurdistan, but most appear to have originated in a region further to the
south, while others may have no Iranian connection whatsoever. On the background of the deportations of the
Faylis, sec Samir al-Khalil, Republic of Fear: The Politics of Modern Iraq (Berkeley and Los Angeles:
University of California Press, 1989), pp.135-138.​

 

[Kurd Day]

رد: Religion in Kurdistan

Older sources occasionally mention also Christian Kurds.7 It remains unclear whether
these were Kurds who had converted to Christianity or former members of Christian ethnic
groups who had become Kurdicised. Most present-day Christians, however, are ethnically
different from the Kurds. They consider themselves as being separate peoples, of different
origins and with distinct histories of their own. Some, but by no means all, still speak
Armenian or Aramaic. Most of the Western Syrians now speak Arabic as their mother
tongue, while many members of each community living in villages are more fluent in Kurdish
than any other language. In northern Iraq members of the Chaldaean and Nestorian
communities have taken active part in the Kurdish struggle for autonomy. They identified
themselves so much with the Kurdish cause that they did not protest when the Kurds called
them "Christian Kurds." At present there is an Assyrian Democratic Party in Iraq, which
cooperates with the Kurdish political parties in the Kurdistan Front.
The Christians used to constitute a much higher proportion of the population of Kurdistan
than they do today. Massacres, flight, voluntary migration and conversions to Islam have
seriously reduced their numbers. In various parts of Kurdistan (Siirt, Hakkari) I have met
"crypto-Christians," people who were Kurdish speakers and who had outwardly become
Muslims but still retained a vivid memory of having been Armenians or Nestorians. The
relations between the remaining Christians and their Kurdish neighbours have often been less
than cordial. The West Syrian Christians of Tor Abdin especially have often been subjected
to brutal treatment by Kurdish tribal chieftains, who took their land, their property and even
their daughters.
Finally there also used to be a Jewish minority in many Kurdish towns and villages, but
this has virtually disappeared. Most of them have migrated to Israel, where the Kurdistani
Jews are a distinct, recognizable community.8
The Yezidis
7 The tenth-century geographer Mas'udi is said to have met Kurds who professed Christianity. See G. R. Driver,
"The Religion of the Kurds," Bulletin of the School of Oriental Studies 2 (1921-23): 197.
8 See Claudine Cohen, Grandir au quartier kurde: Rapports de générations et modèles culturels d'un groupe
d'adolescents lsraéliens d'origine kurde (Paris 1975), and Birgit Ammann,"Kurdische Juden in Israel," Jahrbuch
für Vergleichende Sozialforschung 1987/88 (Berlin: Edition Parabolis, 1990), pp. 241-258.​

 

[Kurd Day]

رد: Religion in Kurdistan

Of all the different sects in Kurdistan the Yezidis have exerted the strongest romantic
appeal on foreigners — and not on foreigners alone. As said above, the Kurdish nationalists
of the 1920s and 1930s idealised Yezidi belief as the only properly Kurdish religion. This
positive appreciation of Yezidis was, however, something new in the attitude of the other
Kurds. Their heretical beliefs were a warrant for discrimination and oppression at the hands
of both the Ottoman authorities and the Muslim Kurds. During the past centuries there have
been numerous massacres of Yezidis. Conversions have further contributed to a steady
dwindling of their numbers.
A central element in the Yezidi religion is the belief in six (or seven) angels created by
God and placed in charge of the affairs of the world. The first among them, of almost divine
status himself, is the Peacock Angel, Malak Tawus. He was the angel who refused to obey
God's order to kneel before Adam and who is therefore considered as the embodiment of evil
by Muslims and Christians alike. Hence the accusation often made that the Yezidis are devilworshippers.
To the Yezidis, however, Malak Tawus is neither the lord of evil nor God's
opponent in any other sense. Malak Tawus and the other angels have all manifested
themselves in the world as saintly human beings. Malak Tawus was incarnated in Shaikh Adi
ibn Musafir, whom the Yezidis venerate as the greatest saint of their religion. The annual
pilgrimage to his shrine at Lalish is one of the major rituals.
Yezidi society has a caste-like stratification. The highest position is held by a princely
family, which receives tribute from all Yezidis. Religious leadership is vested in a number of
families of tribes of shaikhs, while other religious functions are held hereditarily by families
of pirs and qawwals. There are even more specialised religious functions, but these are not
hereditary. This rigid stratification is perhaps made more palatable by the belief in
reincarnation. Everyone, saintly spirits as well as ordinary beings, travels through a chain of
incarnations, not only in human but also in animal forms.
A factor that has much hindered the Yezidis' individual progress but kept their traditions
intact is the ban on literacy. There was a tradition that Shaikh Adi himself had forbidden his
followers to learn to read and write. Until a generation ago even the elite of the Yezidi
community was entirely illiterate.
The recent, careful study by John Guest estimates the total number of Yezidis at 150,000,
most of them living in Iraq. Some 40,000 of them live in the (former) Soviet republics of​