Michael Mehrdad R.S.C. Izady or Michael Izady (born 1963), is a contemporary writer on ethnic and cultural topics, particularly the Greater Middle East, and Kurds.
Michael Mehrdad R.S.C. Izady or Michael Izady (born 1963), is a contemporary writer on ethnic and cultural topics, particularly the Greater Middle East, and Kurds.
Izady was born to a Kurdish father and a Belgian mother, and spent much of his youth in Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and Korea, as his diplomat parents moved from one assignment to another. He received his BA degree in history, political science and geography from the University of Kansas, and then attended Syracuse University, where he received two master's degrees in remote sensing-cartography and in international relations. He received his PhD at the department of Middle Eastern Languages and Civilizations of Columbia University in 1992.
Izady taught for six years in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at Harvard University and in the Department of Middle Eastern Studies and History at the Joint Special Operations University in Florida. He has testified before two US Congressional Committees and has authored many books and articles on Middle East and Southeast European subjects. [1] He has been a part-time faculty at the Department of History at Fordham University, New York Institute of Technology [2] and Pace University since 2001. He also continues his educational services to the US military, diplomatic corps and the NATO. Since 1997, he has also been a Master Adjunct professor at the Joint Special Operations University, Florida.
Izady is also an ethnographer who has produced work on ethno-cultural topics of the Old World. His annotated cartographic works have been used by the atlases, authors, the international media—to include the National Geographic , The Economist as well as the US military, the UN and various other entities.[ citation needed ] Some of his work included in the Atlas of the Islamic World and Vicinity can be found at Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs, Gulf 2000 Project web site. [3]
The Kurdologist and Iranologist Garnik Asatrian, narrating about pseudo-history in Kurdology, refers to Izady's 1992 The Kurds: A Concise Handbook as "phantasmagoric". [4]
The Iranologist Richard Foltz notes: "The alleged pan-Kurdish proto-religion called “Yazdanism” is a fabrication of contemporary Kurdish scholar Mehrdad Izady". [5]
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Kurds or Kurdish people are an Iranian ethnic group native to the mountainous region of Kurdistan in Western Asia, which spans southeastern Turkey, northwestern Iran, northern Iraq, and northern Syria. There are exclaves of Kurds in Central Anatolia, Khorasan, and the Caucasus, as well as significant Kurdish diaspora communities in the cities of western Turkey and Western Europe. The Kurdish population is estimated to be between 30 and 45 million.
Kurdistan, or Greater Kurdistan, is a roughly defined geo-cultural region in West Asia wherein the Kurds form a prominent majority population and the Kurdish culture, languages, and national identity have historically been based. Geographically, Kurdistan roughly encompasses the northwestern Zagros and the eastern Taurus mountain ranges.
The Kurds are an Iranian ethnic group in the Middle East. They have historically inhabited the mountainous areas to the south of Lake Van and Lake Urmia, a geographical area collectively referred to as Kurdistan. Most Kurds speak Northern Kurdish Kurmanji Kurdish (Kurmanji) and Central Kurdish (Sorani).
Tawûsî Melek is one of the central figures of the Yazidi religion. In Yazidi creation stories, before the creation of this world, God created seven Divine Beings, of whom Tawûsî Melek was appointed as the leader. God assigned all of the world's affairs to these seven Divine Beings, also often referred to as the Seven Angels or heft sirr.
Yazidism, alternatively Sharfadin is a monotheistic ethnic religion that has roots in a western Iranic pre-Zoroastrian religion directly derived from the Indo-Iranian tradition. It is followed by the mainly Kurdish-speaking Yazidis and is based on belief in one God who created the world and entrusted it into the care of seven Holy Beings, known as Angels. Preeminent among these Angels is Tawûsî Melek, who is the leader of the Angels and who has authority over the world.
The Kingdom of Kurdistan was a short-lived Kurdish state proclaimed in the city of Sulaymaniyah following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. It lasted from September 1921 until July 1925. Officially, the territory involved was under the jurisdiction of the British Mandate of Mesopotamia.
Yazdânism, or the Cult of Angels, is a pseudohistoric pre-Islamic religion with claimed ties relating to a Mithraic religion of the Kurds. The term was introduced and proposed by Kurdish and Belgian scholar Mehrdad Izady to represent what he considers the "original" religion of the Kurds.
Simko Shikak born 1887, was a Kurdish chieftain of the Shekak tribe. He was born into a prominent Kurdish feudal family based in Chihriq castle located near the Baranduz river in the Urmia region of northwestern Iran. By 1920, parts of Iranian Azerbaijan located west of Lake Urmia were under his control. He led Kurdish farmers into battle and defeated the Iranian army on several occasions. The Iranian government had him assassinated in 1930. Simko took part in the massacre of the Assyrians of Khoy and instigated the massacre of 1,000 Assyrians in Salmas.
Kurdish nationalism is a nationalist political movement which asserts that Kurds are a nation and espouses the creation of an independent Kurdistan from Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey.
Shabankara was an Iranian tribe. They claimed descent from the mythical Iranian king Manuchehr who had been deported to eastern Fars from Isfahan by the Buyid Shahanshah 'Adud al-Dawla. The dynasty's capital was Ij (Ig) and was divided in six districts: Zarkān, Iṣṭabānān, Burk-Tārum-K̲h̲ayra, Nayriz, Kurm-Rūnīz-Lār, and Darabjird. The tribe had the following subdivisions: Ismāʿīlī, the Rāmānī, the Karzuwī, the Masʿūdī and the S̲h̲akānī who were all herders and warriors.
Scholars have suggested different theories for the origin of the name Kurd. According to the 19th century English Orientalist Godfrey Rolles Driver, the term Kurd is related to the Sumerian Karda which was found from Sumerian clay tablets of the third millennium B.C, while according to other scholars, it predates the Islamic period, as a Middle Persian word for "nomad", and may ultimately be derived from an ancient toponym or tribal name, either that of the Cyrtii or of Corduene, and mainstream academic opinion favours the Kurds being descended from Corduene.
Yazidis or Yezidis are a Kurdish-speaking endogamous religious group who are indigenous to Kurdistan, a geographical region in Western Asia that includes parts of Iraq, Syria, Turkey and Iran. The majority of Yazidis remaining in the Middle East today live in Iraq, primarily in the governorates of Nineveh and Duhok.
The First Iraqi–Kurdish War also known as Aylul revolts was a major event of the Iraqi–Kurdish conflict, lasting from 1961 until 1970. The struggle was led by Mustafa Barzani, in an attempt to establish an autonomous Kurdish administration in northern Iraq. Throughout the 1960s, the uprising escalated into a long war, which failed to resolve despite internal power changes in Iraq. During the war, 80% of the Iraqi army was engaged in combat with the Kurds. The war ended with a stalemate in 1970, resulting in between 75,000 to 105,000 casualties. A series of Iraqi–Kurdish negotiations followed the war in an attempt to resolve the conflict. The negotiations led to the Iraqi–Kurdish Autonomy Agreement of 1970.
The Second Iraqi–Kurdish War was the second chapter of the Barzani rebellion, initiated by the collapse of the Kurdish autonomy talks and the consequent Iraqi offensive against rebel KDP troops of Mustafa Barzani during 1974–1975. The war came in the aftermath of the First Iraqi–Kurdish War (1961–1970), as the 1970 peace plan for Kurdish autonomy had failed to be implemented by 1974. Unlike the previous guerrilla campaign in 1961–1970, waged by Barzani, the 1974 war was a Kurdish attempt at symmetric warfare against the Iraqi Army, which eventually led to the quick collapse of the Kurds, who were lacking advanced and heavy weaponry. The war ended with the exile of the Iraqi KDP party and between 7,000–20,000 deaths from both sides combined.
The Simko Shikak revolt refers to an armed Ottoman-backed tribal Kurdish uprising against the Qajar dynasty of Iran from 1918 to 1922, led by Kurdish chieftain Simko Shikak from the Shekak tribe.
Garnik Serobi Asatrian is an Iranian-born Armenian professor who studies and teaches Kurdish culture at Yerevan State University in Yerevan, Armenia.
The persecution of Yazidis has been ongoing since at least 637 CE. Yazidis are an endogamous and mostly Kurmanji-speaking minority, indigenous to Kurdistan. The Yazidi religion is regarded as "devil-worship" by Muslims and Islamists. Yazidis have been persecuted by the surrounding Muslims since the medieval ages, most notably by Safavids, Ottomans, neighbouring Muslim Arab and Kurdish tribes and principalities. After the 2014 Sinjar massacre of thousands of Yazidis by ISIL, which started the ethnic, cultural, and religious genocide of the Yazidis in Iraq, Yazidis still face discrimination from the Iraqi government and the Kurdistan Regional Government.
The Uprising of Sheikh Ubeydullah refers to a Kurdish uprising against the Ottoman Empire in 1879 and Qajar Iran between 1880 and 1881. Both uprising were led by Sheikh Ubeydullah, the leader of the Semdinan Naqshbandi family who claimed descendance from Mohammed through his daughter Fatima. Thus the family had a considerable influence, disposed over large amounts of donations, owned several villages in the region and many Kurdish tribal leaders were devout followers of him. The initial cause for the uprisings were the outcome of the Russo-Turkish war in 1877-78 and the Treaty of Berlin which provided the Christian Armenians and the Nestorians with considerable rights and autonomy, to which he did not agree to.
Spread of Islam among Kurds started in the 7th century with the Early Muslim conquests. Before Islam, the majority of Kurds followed a western Iranic pre-Zoroastrian faith which derived directly from Indo-Iranian tradition, some elements of this faith survived in Yezidism, Yarsanism and Kurdish Alevism. Kurds were part of the Iranian nation expanding between the Byzantine and Sassanian Empires when Islam first appeared. The term "Kurd" back then referred to any Iranian nomad from any Iranian ethnic group whether in central Asia or western Iran regardless of geographic location or Iranian ethnicity. Jaban al-Kurdi and his son Meymun al-Kurdi were the first Kurds who converted to Islam and Halil al-Kurdi es-Semmani was one of the first Kurdish tabi'uns. However, mass conversion of Kurds to Islam didn't happen until the reign of Umar ibn Al-Khattab, second caliph of the Rashidun Caliphate between 634-644. The Kurds first came into contact with the Arab armies during the Arab conquest of mesopotamia in 637. The kurdish tribes had been an important element in the Sassanid empire, and initially gave it strong support as it tried to withstand the Muslim armies, between 639 - 644, Once it was clear that the empire would fall, the Kurdish chiefs one by one submitted to the Arab armies and to the new religion. Today the majority of Kurds are Sunni Muslims, and there are Alevi and Shia minorities. Sunni Muslim Kurds are mostly Shafiʽis and Hanafis.
