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PREFACE
The reader will wonder how it is possible for an Iranian officer, who for years fought against the Kurds in the frontier districts, to write an objective and impartial account of their history, position and aspirations, and not introduce a bias in favour of his own country which includes a Kurdish minority about one million strong.
The author acknowledges that his task is delicate. He has avoided any consideration of what might be called political and moral justice, or the proposing of solutions desirable either from his or his country’s point of view, and has restricted himself to an account of known and undeniable historical facts. He hopes that this study will provide useful information to those who are interested in the Kurdish question (or rather let us say questions) by shoving the background of present-day events and so making them more understandable to the general public.
Having lived and travelled much among the different Kurdish tribes, the author has had the opportunity of becoming closely acquainted with their way of life and has conceived a sympathy for these warlike mountaineers, freedom-loving, restless and often chivalrous, with whom he has had to deal both thro negotiations and through exchange of fire.
I am deeply grateful to the tireless help of a dear friend, Mrs. Narguesse McKellip, who graciously typed the whole manuscript and gave me very practical advice.
I also have much profited by information given to me by my Kurdish friends, in particular Mr. Abd-el-Qader Saberi, whose thorough knowledge of past and present events in the Kurdish regions has been invaluable for bringing this book up to date.
Hassan Arfa
Teheran
August 1965
I
A short history of the Kurds
I. The People and the Region Where They Are Found
Their Languages
First of all, it must be understood which people are to be considered as Kurds. As a result of a mixing of races due to many invasions, it is difficult to define to which race the individuals in different communities in the Middle East belong. In the case of the Kurds, the first criterion must be the use of one of the two chief Kurdish dialects, Zaza in the north and Kermanji in the centre and the south, to which Gurani, spoken In Kermanshah, can be added. But secondly, and perhaps chiefly, there is the feeling of the people that they are Kurds. The Kurdish groups scattered in eastern Iran, east Azerbaijan and even in south-eastern Iran, and the people of Garrus, in spite of their common ancestry have abandoned the Kurdish language and habits of life, and lost all affinity with the bulk of Kurds living around the frontiers of Turkey, Iran and Iraq. Thus they cannot be considered as forming part of the Kurdish people of today.
There are several theories about their original home, but many ethnologists agree that they are the mixture of the Median branch of the Aryans (the Iranians being the Persian branch) with indigenous populations, to which the Guti belonged. These people have been influenced in their turn by later invaders, including Armenians, Semites (Arabs and Assyrians), Turks, Turkomans, and Persian Iranians, but have absorbed them, although their physical characteristics vary according to the degree and kind of the admixture.
The region where the Kurds thus defined form the majority of the population is chiefly mountainous. It is limited to the east by the eastern slopes of the Zagros mountains up to Lake ...
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