Kurdish Language and Culture

A people originally come from Kurdistan mountains in Western of Iran. Now they live in Iran, Turkey , Iraq and some in Syria.

The region in Iran is also written "Kordistan". Currently, there is an eastern province of Iran called Kordistan. Modern Kurds are referring to the region around Ninevah and Kirkuk in Iraq as "Kordistan".

However, their history is chequered. One of the Kurds' own historians remarks that between 1500 and 600 BC, their history seems lost. This is because of the problems in chronology that pervade the modern history of the ancient Middle East. The Kurds actually inhabit the regions known as the "Lands of the Hittites" or "Hatti Lands" (of the Egyptian hieroglyphs). In ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, the scribes wrote these peoples as the "Kh-t-(a)". The ancient Greeks read this as "Ch-d-(a)" [the vowel 'a' or 'ae' is assumed in both cases].

Egyptologists equated the "Kh-t-(a)" with the Biblical Chitti (or "Hittites as in "Uriah the Hittite). Thus the name "hittites" stuck. In the Egyptian record, this nation appears in circa 1500-1100 BC, but the new Egyptian chronology that has the 18th dynasty dated from about 1000-800 BC and the 19th dynasty from about 720-600 BC brings this so-called "Hittite" history forward by about 500 years. From the Greek (e.g., by Herodotus et al) transcript of this ancient Egyptian term, we get or read "Chaldeans". And that explains the real identity behind the modern Kurds. They are descended from the Chaldeans also known as the Chasdim in ancient Hebrew. In the Bible, Nebuchadnezzar of the Kasdim is also written as "Nebuchadrezzar". However, as we find in many examples in both ancient Phoenician and even in the Hebrew Bible (The Tanaach), the letters 'r' and 'd' are often mistaken for each other. Assuming this for the case in "Nebu-chadre-zzar", we get Nebu-Chard-ezzar or Nebo's (i.e., the Planet Mercury whom this king worshipped) Tsar of the Kurds. Thus the Kurds are the descendants of the Babylonian Chaldeans whom the Prophet Isaiah (chapter 23) described as being driven out of lower Iraq by the land turning into desert. So their original homeland was in fact Southern Iraq until circa 1000-800 BC.

Answer 1

The difference between Persians and Turks are that Turks are of Mongol descent. Persians are Aryan.

Answer 2

Persians are an Indo-European people who developed a civilization in what is now Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. The Persian Empire is known for a vast expansion, characterized by a tolerant attitude towards minorities and gifts of autonomy to local regions, governed by an absolutist king. Their historic religion is Zoroastrianism, but after the conquest of Persia by the Islamic Caliphate, the majority religion of the Persians (as well as the ethnic minorities of Iran) has become Shiite Islam.

The Turks are composed of two historical groups that intermarried and created a unified culture. Oghuz Türk nomads, an Altaic people from Central Asia, conquered Anatolia and brought it under their rule. During that period, those former Byzantine citizens who converted to Islam began to take on the same mannerisms as the foreign Türks who had conquered them. They began to speak the same language, dress in the same clothes, and believe in the same general ideologies. This process is well-documented by Turks and is called Turkification or Türkleşme. Turks primarily exist in Turkey and Cyprus with a significant diaspora in the USA and Germany. The historic Turkish State was the absolute monarchy of the Ottomans and the modern Turkish State is the Secular Turkish Republic. Sunni Islam has always been a central part of Turkish identification and culture and was one of the earliest markers of "Turkishness". With the advent of the Secular Turkish Republic, there has been a push to determine Turkishness based on forms of identity other than religion, to make Jewish, Christian, and Alevi citizens of Turkey into Turks as well.

Answer 1

International conferences have a nasty habit of drawing national boundaries along the crests of mountain ranges. This may be neat and tidy, but it is essentially a plainsman's answer. Of course, most capital cities are not on mountain-tops, and the atytitudes of statesmen rarely take into account the needs of the people who live in mountain ranges. Thus at each end of the Pyrenees one finds paople arbitrarily spliut between two countries; the Basques and the Catalans. While the Catalans have resigned themselves to being half in France and half in Spain, the Basques protest constantly. They are after all both racially and linguistically related neither to the French nor to the Spanish peoples. They would like their own independent mountain state. This would, however, probably not be economically viable on its own. The Kurds are mountain people, too. Their region, which they call Kurdistan, is split between Iraq, Turkey, Syria, Iran and Russia. They have their own ehtnicity and language(s), and would like to be independent. The problem here, however, is not that Kurdistan would not be economically viable; it has mineral deposits which none of the 'sharing' countries want to give up. It was all about a certain border in Iraq that the Turks wanted to be taken and they assumed that it was theirs.

Answer 2

Kurds are an ethnic group based around the Southeast of Turkey, in the borders or Iran and Northern Iraq. The war started off when ethnic Kurds wanted their own state and fighting to have Southeast of Turkey (Diyarbakir) as part of their land. However, Turkey refused to allow this. After losing an huge amounts of lands to the Arabs and Europeans in World War 1, Turkey has decided to not let 1 inch of land go. The ethnic Kurds retaliated through terror means. Since the 1980's, Kurdish separatists have killed more than 50,000 Turks in terror attacks. These attacks range from suicide bombings, bombs placed in public areas, and bombings and killings of Turkish soldiers. The Turkish military has responded effectively and the main terror leader of the militant group of the Kurdish rebels which is called the PKK was apprehended by Turkish special forces in the 90's. His name is Abdullah Ocalan, and he is being held in a island prison in Turkey. Terror attacks still continue, civilians and military personel still die from the PKK attacks. American intelligence is helping the Turkish government spot the PKK positions so that the Turkish military can co-ordinate precise attacks. The main front of the war is on the Northern Iraq, Southeastern Turkish region. The rebels have for a long time done hit and run attacks on Turkish soldiers. The rebels enter from North Iraq into Southeast Turkey, attack and run back into North Iraq believing that Turkey had no power in pursuing them, however, Turkish military has done campaigns in North Iraq sending commandos and air strikes.

Don't be mistaken by thinking all Kurds are against the Turkish state, I have family friends in Turkey who are Kurds and want nothing to do with the rebels.

The PKK is recognized as a terrorist organization by the European Union and the United States of America.

The Second Crusade took place from 1147-1149. It began after Muslim Turks recaptured one of the Crusader states. This crusade ended in defeat for the Crusaders largely because the French and German armies failed to work together.

Until the late 1100s, other Crusader states remained under European control. Muslim armies failed to retake them because Muslims in Palestine and Egypt did not work together. By 1187, Saladin, a skilled military and political Muslim leader, had united Egypt, Syria Palestine, and parts of Southwest Asia in a single state.

The great and scholarly Sultan of Egypt and Syria!

Saladin, pronounced Salah al-Din in Arabic, was a Kurd born in Tikrit, Iraq in 1137. In 1174 he became Sultan of both Egypt and Syria after the death of Nur ad-Din, who was once Saladin's political rival and once-mentor.

During the time he spent gaining power in Egypt and Syria, Saladin tried to avoid open conflict with the Crusaders, who the Muslims referred to collectively as Franks. But after Nur ad-Din's death, Saladin know had a large enough army to pursue his goal of recapturing the Holy Land.

Following a year long truce with the Crusaders, on July 4, 1178 Saladin defeated the Crusaders at the Battle of Hattin. During this battle Saladin captured the King of Jerusalem Guy de Lusignan. Next he marched on the city itself but found it defended by a knight, Balian of Ibelin. Balian and only a handful of other knights successfully defended the city from Saladin's attack until an agreement was made between the two, Balian would surrender the city to Saladin, as long as Saladin allowed the Christians to leave safely with the payment of a ransom.

The fall of Jerusalem led to the calling of the Third Crusade, and soon Saladin's famous rival Richard I of England was on his way to the Holy Land along with the King of France and the Hly Roman Emperor. The armies of Richard and Saladin soon fought several times and the two leaders had a great respect for each other. Before Richard surrounded the city, Saladin burnt all the crops in the fields outside of the city walls so Richard and his army would have no food. Eventually Richard realized that even if he did capture Jerusalem, he would not be able to defend it against Saladin, so in 1192 the two kings agreed to a truce. Saladin would remian in control of Jerusalem, so long as he allowed safe passage to and from the city for Christian pilgrims.

The following year, in the city of Damascas in Syria, Saladin passed away on March 4. When his advisors opened his treasury there was not enough money to even bury the great Sultan, he had long since given nearly everything away to charity.