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Kurdish Muslims (Kurdish: موسڵمانی کورد, romanized: Musilmanên Kurd) are Kurds who follow Islam, which is the largest religion among Kurds and has been for centuries. [1] Kurds largely became Muslims in the 7th century. [2] [3]
The great mosque in Mardin. The majority of Kurdish people are Muslim by religion. [1] [2] [3] While the relationship between religion and nationalism has usually been strained and ambivalent with the strong hold of the Islamic leaders in Kurdish society, it has generally been the conservative Muslim Kurds who formed the backbone of the Kurdish movements.
Their origin is uncertain and they are considered Kurds by some scholars. [6] [7] [8] They speak Shabaki and live in a religious community (ta'ifa) in the Nineveh Plains. The ancestors of Shabaks were followers of the Safaviyya order, which was founded by the Kurdish mystic Safi-ad-din Ardabili in the early 14th century. [9]
The Kurdish people have different religions depending on their ethnic connections and the country in which they live. The most common religion among Kurds is Sunni Islam, practiced by 98% of Kurds living in Iraqi Kurdistan. The Kurds of Turkey are 30% Alevi out of a population of approximately 15–22 million Kurds and 68% follow Sunni Islam. [12]
Kurds comprise anywhere from 18 to 25% of the population in Turkey, [1] [57] 15 to 20% in Iraq; [1] 10% in Iran; [1] and 9% in Syria. [ 1 ] [ 58 ] Kurds form regional majorities in all four of these countries, viz. in Turkish Kurdistan , Iraqi Kurdistan , Iranian Kurdistan and Syrian Kurdistan .
Kurdish Alevism [1] (Kurdish: Rêya Heqî, lit. 'The Path of God/Truth' [2] or Elewîtî) [3] refers to the unique rituals, sacred place practices, mythological discourses and socio-religious organizations among Kurds who adhere to Alevism. [4]
The largest minority group in Iraq is the Kurds, with Turkmen following shortly after. Prior to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Assyrians constituted a sizeable population of 1.5 million, and belonged to various different churches such as the Assyrian Church of the East, Chaldean Catholic Church, and the Syriac Orthodox/Catholic Churches.
Sharafnama is regarded as an important, and the oldest, source on Kurdish history. [1] It deals with the different Kurdish dynasties such as, Saladin the Great and his Ayyubid Dynasty , ancient and Medieval Kurdish principalities in the Middle-East and the Caucasus , as well as some mentioning about the pre-Islamic ancestors of the Kurds.