Copy-pasting my post from another forum.
Ibn Wahshiyya and the KurdsResurrecting this topic for something I've found recently, that has been 'haunting' me the last few days.
The Kurdish ethnic identity is thought to have gradually formed in the Middle Ages; in the late 10th century, various Kurdish dynasties and principalities were founded, and in Arabic sources from the 11th and 12th century instances of ethnic awareness and solidarity can be found. In earlier centuries, the term 'Kurd' is also often found in sources, but it was deemed to have had purely a social meaning. I'm not sure why, for there are instances were it would seem that Kurds formed their own group, (next to obvious cases where the term was used in the social sense) but in academic articles, that's the general consensus. It must be noted that during the Middle Ages the term still had a social meaning too.
The ShaddadidsSHADDADIDS (Šaddādiya), Caucasian dynasty of Kurdish origin reigning from about 950 until 1200, first in Dvin and Ganja, later in Ani.http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/shaddadidsThe AnnazidsʿANNAZIDS (BANŪ ʿANNĀZ), a Kurdish dynasty (r. ca. 380-510/990-1117) whose territory on the Iran-Iraq frontier included Kermānšāh, Ḥolwān, Dīnavar (now in western Iran), Šahrazūr, Daqūqā (Daqūq), Daskara, Bandanīǰīn (Mandelī), and Noʿmānīya (now in northeast Iraq). According to Ebn al-Aṯīr, the name ʿAnnāz is derived from ʿanz (she-goat) and signifies the owner, merchant, or shepherd of goats. Mostawfī and Šaraf Khan give the name as Banū ʿAyyār; this reading is preferred by contemporary Kurdish historians on the grounds that the Arabic word ʿayyār (lit.: “shrewd, smart”) is common in both Persian and Kurdish and was formerly used as a nickname among Kurdish families, while ʿanz and ʿannāz are not mentioned in Kurdish dictionaries.And several others.
The best article I've read about this is Boris James'
Uses and Values of the Term Kurd in Arabic Medieval Literary Sources.
http://hal.inria.fr/docs/00/35/01/19/PDF/Kurd_paper_version_internet.pdfFrom this article:
Other examples show that the life-style of the kurdish group (ethnographic
criterium) is not the only criterium that determines the imputation of kurdish
identity.
Ibn Shaddâd (Bahâ’ al-dîn), Al-nawâdir al-sultaniya in Recueil des Historiens des
Croisades (RHC), or. vol. 3, 1884, Paris, p. 313.
A Kurdish amir, Abû ’l-Haydjâ’ al-Hadhbânî sent a letter to Saladin after the latter
left Jerusalem at the end of 588/ 1193 leaving all the military troups in this threatened
city : “If you want us to stay in the Holy City you will have to stay with us or leave a
member of your family, because the Kurds will never obey the Turks and no more the
Turks will obey the Kurds”.
It is quite clear here that the opposition between the two groups is not an
opposition between two life-styles. The author knows what he is refering to by Kurds
or Turks. This imputation of identity is probably the result of a common selfattribution/ self-representation.
Another one:
The most interesting occurence is the following.
Al-Isfahanî, Conquête de la Syrie et de la Palestine par Saladin, Paris, 1977, trad. Henry
Massé éd. Geuhtner, p. 375-6.
“When al-Mashtûb went out from jail, [in rabî’ II 588] he was welcomed by his son
happy and in good shape. Yet he found him with a turkish hair-style – that is to say
with braids – he showed his displeasure, he took on a serious tone and said : “The
Kurds don’t have those manners with their hair” ; Then he cut the braids and
trimmed the hair. People thought this was a bad omen for the father : “This
announces a misfortune that will strike him”.
Here is the clearest manifestation of Kurdish ethnicity. What is important here is
not the hair style but the fact that the character considers it peculiar to his group. He
sets boundaries between his group and the rest of the world. This statement leads us
to consider Frederik Barth’s work (Ethnic groups and boundaries). The cultural
content is not the most relevant element in envisaging ethnicity. The individual
inserted in the group establishes boundaries and for that calls on cultural and ethnic
tools (language, race, life-style, hair-style).
Yet also:
Ibn al-Athîr. al-Kâmil fî l-ta’rîkh, Dâr al-Kutub al-‘ilmiya, Beirut, 1998, vol. 10, p. 207.
In 587/1193, after the negotiation between al-Mashtûb and the Franks for the
surrender of the citadel of Acre, the latter promised to free immediately some amirs
against a ransom. They finally broke their word and kept all the inhabitants locked in.
After some negotiations, Saladin made a first payment. However the Franks claimed
the right to free whoever they wanted : “They would free the military slaves (ghilmân
al-‘askar) the poor (al-fuqarâ’) the Kurds (al-akrâd) and the people without importance.
They would keep in captivity the amirs, the owners (arbâb al-amwâl) and would ask a
ransom for them”.
Ibn al-Athîr who makes this use of the word knows that al-Mashtûb, the chief
of the garrison, is amir kabîr and a Kurdish tribal leader immensely rich. We know as
well that al-Mashtûb, a Hakkârî Kurd, was released a year after that. Here the term
Kurd gets into the frame of social categorisation. The term ‘Kurd’ is used in
opposition to the words ‘amir’ and ‘owners’. This use of the term ‘Kurd’ is confusing
because we would expect an ethnical categorisation. The Kurds as we know, are not
the poorest group at that period but the word is used to designate a poor group. We
will come back to that later on.
I'm not going to bother discussing sources from earlier centuries that mention Kurds, and whether or not I think they can be regarded as ethnic Kurds or not, except for one crucial one, the one that lead to me making this post, and one which I haven't seen discussed in an academic article. It's from a text by an Arab scholar (Ibn Wahshiyya) from the 9th century, translated by an Englishman (Joseph Hammer) in 1806. In it, he does not only make mention of the Kurds, but he also states their rivalry with the Chaldeans.
http://archive.org/stream/ancientalphabet00conggoog#page/n85/mode/2upThis is interesting, for, just like in the source above, the author compares them with an ethnicity, which would almost certainly render the Kurds he mentions as being one too.
That sentiment is undoubtedly right, for just a few lines later he makes mention of the 'Kurdish language' (note: in oldern Western sources 'Kurd' was often spelled as 'Curd', but the term that's used in Arabic is the same as now, i.e. 'Akrad').
Most amazingly, he makes mention of an alphabet, a script in which the Kurds seemed to have written their texts, seen in the bottom half of page 134 here:
http://archive.org/stream/ancientalphabet00conggoog#page/n93/mode/2up
(pic was found, not made myself)
This is the most puzzling thing in the article, and leads us from one question to another.
-the usage of a script seemingly unique to one people should surely mean that they existed as an ethnicity quite a while before that, does it not?
-seeing this source, can those Kurds mentioned in an ambiguous fashion in sources in centuries before also be regarded as ethnical ones? If so, from when on can we genuinely speak of ethnic Kurds?
-but then, why hasn't anyone discussed this source before? was it simply 'forgotten' that there was a small passage about Kurds in a text by an Arab writer of the 9th century? (The only times I've seen this discussed were on online newspapers in Arabic.)
-is the answer much more simple, and is it a forgery?
It's puzzling, really.
Though, what I have noticed is that a small number of the characters from that script seem to correspond with certain characters attributed to the Chaldean alphabets, also mentioned in the book.
Discuss.
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