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The main religions that exist or historically existed in Kurdistan are as follows: Sunni Islam, Shia Islam, Christianity, Zoroastrianism, Yarsanism, Yazidism, Alevism and Judaism. Overall today, Sunni Islam is the most adhered to religion in Kurdistan.
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. [4]
In Iraqi Kurdistan, as of 2023, Nabaz Ismail, the spokesperson for the autonomous region's Ministry of Endowments and Religious Affairs, estimates the total number of mosques to stand at 5820, 3380 of them offering Friday sermons, with 129 mosques opened in one year, including 56 in the regional capital Erbil. He further states that the ministry employs 2700 Islamic teachers and operates 100 Quran memorization centers as well 21 Islamic schools. Nabaz Ismail also says that 99% of the mosques have been built through philanthropy, relying on private donors and their charity in the form of zakat or sadaqah. [5]
Based on cross-national comparative surveys conducted in 2011 and 2013, it has been found out that when asked about what constitute their most important identity ("above all"), among the Kurds of Turkey 66% chose Muslim, 20% chose the Kurdish identity and 11% the Turkish nation, while among the Kurds of Iraq, 59% chose Muslim, 27% went for their Kurdish identity and 13% chose the Iraqi nation. [6]
The majority of Kurds are Sunni Muslims. The exact proportion is uncertain but McDowall gives the percentage as 'approximately 75%', [7] while Martin van Bruinessen estimates around two thirds or three quarters at least. Most Sunni Kurds follow the Shafi‘i madhhab, which distinguishes them from Arab and Turkish neighbors who in general are Hanafi. This difference is identified by some Kurds as being essential to their ethnic identity and deliberately emphasized. [4]
During the last six centuries, the Kurdish ulama had an influential role in the Ottoman court and taught at important universities like Al-Azhar University and in the Holy Cities of Arabia. Moreover, due to the location of Kurdistan between the three major cultural Islamic regions, many Kurdish ulama not only knew Kurdish but also Arabic, Persian and Turkish giving them an important role in mediating between Indian Muslims who communicated in Persian, Arabic, and Turkish speaking world. Kurdish teaching also had a lasting impact in Indonesia. [8]
Sunni Islam among Kurds is characterized by a strong overtone of mysticism and its scholars’ affiliation with Sufi orders. [2] In Kurdish society these constitute a hierarchical system, in which the leaders (sheikh) deploy their influence onto the localities through their deputies (khalifa), who mediate between sheikhs and common people. Today, Naqshbandiya and Qadiriyya are the most active tariqas. These tariqas had produced numbers of significant figures in the early history of Kurdish nationalist movement, including Mahmud Barzanji of Qadiriyyah, and Sheikh Said and Sheikh Ubeydullah of Naqshbandiyyah. Strong influences of sheikhs in the late 19th and the early 20th centuries were attributed to the Ottoman administrative reforms and the defense against the intrusion of Christian missionaries. [8]
Modern political development among Sunni Muslim Kurds varies throughout the state to which they belong. In Turkey, Said Nursi exerted major influence. Nursi devoted himself to intellectual development. This became the basis of the Nur Movement which espoused Islamic Modernism, mysticism, compatibility with modern science and tolerance. The Nur movement garnered several million followings in the mid 20th century. [9] The group fragmented substantially in the 1970s and 1980s, resulting in offshoots such as the Gülen movement. [10]
There is a minority of Twelver Shi'i Muslims in southern parts of Kurdistan in Kermanshah province, Khanaqin, Mandali, [11] and Ilam province. The proportion of Kurds who ascribe to Twelverism is potentially up to 15%. [7]
While studying youth religiosity in Iraqi Kurdistan, Kurdish sociologist Ibrahim Sadiq Malazada through his 2021 empirical research estimates the religious youth to stand at around 50%, or roughly half, noting that the rise of ISIS has had no real impact (with 8-9% decreasing their religiosity but 7% increasing due to ISIS) while COVID-19 instead strengthened religiosity (as 29% consider it "a divine test for society"), Malazada concluding that the "religious identity among youth in Kurdistan tended to be stable and that there has been no significant change in the religious tendencies of young people." [12] As per the same research, 30% of the young Kurds consider their religious identity as being as important as their national identity, 29% consider their religious identity to be more important while 7% consider religion as "the only remaining source of pride." [13]
There are also concerns about youth radicalization because of the worsening socio-economic conditions in Iraqi Kurdistan, even though they go for a quietist form of Salafism, often favored by the local parties in order to reduce the influence of Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated groups, instead of the more violent and revolutionary Salafi jihadism. [14] Salafism among Kurds is a phenomenon going beyond the youth in Iraqi Kurdistan.
An Alevi community mostly live in north western parts of Kurdistan. They are mostly concentrated in Tunceli Province.
Yazidism is a monotheistic ethnic religion with roots in a western branch of an Iranic pre-Zoroastrian religion. [15] [16] [17] [18] It is based on the belief of one God who created the world and entrusted it into the care of seven Holy Beings. [19] [20] The leader of this heptad is Tawûsê Melek, who is symbolized with a peacock. [19] [21] Its adherents number from 700,000 to 1 million worldwide [22] and are indigenous to the Kurdish regions of Iraq, Syria and Turkey, with some significant, more recent communities in Russia, Georgia and Armenia established by refugees fleeing Muslim persecution in Ottoman Empire. [20] Yazidism shares with Kurdish Alevism and Yarsanism a lot of similarities that date back to pre-Islam. [23] [24] [25]
Yarsanism (also known as Ahl-I-Haqq, Ahl-e-Hagh or Kakai) is also one of the religions that are associated with Kurdistan.
Although most of the sacred Yarsan texts are in the Gorani and all of the Yarsan holy places are located in Kurdistan, followers of this religion are also found in other regions. [26] For example, while there are more than 300,000 Yarsani in Iraqi Kurdistan, there are more than 2 million Yarsani in Iran. [27] However, the Yarsani lack political rights in both countries.
During the war with ISIL, many Yarsani people were persecuted by the Islamic State, being considered as “heretics” and being driven away from their villages. [28] However, Peshmerga offensives have driven the Islamic State out, and the Yarsani people now enjoy relative safety. [29]
Zoroastrianism was one of the dominant religions in Kurdistan before the Islamic era. Currently, Zoroastrianism is an officially recognized religion in Iraqi Kurdistan and Iran and three Zoroastrian temples have opened in Iraqi Kurdistan after the official recognition of Zoroastrianism in the region in 2015. [30] On 21 September 2016, the first official Zoroastrian fire temple of Iraqi Kurdistan opened in Sulaymaniyah. Attendees celebrated the occasion by lighting a ritual fire and beating the frame drum or 'daf'. [31] [32]
The Zoroastrian community in Iraqi Kurdistan has claimed that thousands of people have recently converted to Zoroastrianism in the region; however, this has not been confirmed by independent sources and there are no official figures on the Zoroastrian population in the region. [33] [31] In 2020, it was reported there were 60 Zoroastrian families in Iraqi Kurdistan. [34] At the same time, Reuters claimed many new predominantly Kurdish converts to Zoroastrianism in the Kurdistan Region are not officially registered as such, but some 15,000 members are counted by the Yasna association, which represents Zoroastrians. [35]
Christianity is present in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq through the presence of several distinct communities. These are Kurdish Christians, a minority, and non-Kurdish Assyrians, which include those who identify as Chaldeans and Syriacs, and the Armenians. The Assyrian and Armenian communities in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq live primarily in the Erbil and Dohuk Governorates. [36]
There used to be a Jewish minority in most parts of Kurdistan, but most of them were forced to flee to Israel in the mid-20th century. In the beginning of 20 century, the cities of Kermanshah, Orumieh, Piranshahr and Mahabad had the largest Jewish populations in Iranian Kurdistan.
According to recent reports, there were between 400 and 730 Jewish families living in the Kurdish region. However, Dr. Mordechai Zaken, an Israeli expert on Kurdish affairs, told the Jerusalem Post in November 2015 interview that the media reports on 430 Jewish families in Iraqi Kurdistan were false: "There were several dozen families that had some distant family connection to Judaism and most of them immigrated to Israel in the aftermath of the Gulf War...". [37]
On October 18, 2015, the Kurdistan Regional Government named Sherzad Omar Mamsani, a Kurdish Jew, as the Jewish representative of the Ministry of Endowment and Religious Affairs. [38] In 2017 Rabbi Daniel Edri, a Chief rabbi of rabbinical coury of Haifa in Israel, claimed he was appointed the chief Rabbi of Kurdistan by the Kurdish Region's Minister of Endowment and Religious Affairs. [39] In 2018, Sherzad Memsani was removed from his position. [39]
Kurdistan has been referred to as "the last safe haven for secularism" in a region rife with religious extremism. In 2012, the semi-autonomous Kurdistan Region declared that public schools were to be religiously neutral and that all major religions of the world are taught on an equal basis. As of 2012, KRG and Rojava (Syrian Kurdistan), are the only administrations in the entire region that do not openly endorse a single religion in public schools. [40]
Kurds or Kurdish people are an Iranic 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.
Yarsanism, Ahl-e Haqq, or Kaka'i, is an inherited, syncretic religion founded by Sultan Sahak in the late 14th century in western Iran. The total number of followers of Yarsanism is estimated to be over half a million to one million in Iran. The numbers in Iraq are unknown. Followers are mostly Kurds from the Guran, Sanjâbi, Kalhor, Zangana and Jalalvand tribes. Turkic-speaking Yarsan enclaves also exist in Iran.
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 originated in Kurdistan and 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.
Kurds in Iran constitute a large minority in the country with a population of around 9 and 10 million people.
Kurdish literature is literature written in the Kurdish languages. Literary Kurdish works have been written in each of the Six main languages: Zaza, Gorani, Kurmanji, Sorani, Laki and Southern Kurdish. Balül was a 9th century poet and religious scholar of the Yarsani faith is the first well-known poet who wrote in Gorani Kurdish. Moreover Ali Hariri (1009–1079) from the Hakkari region is one of the first well-known poets who wrote in Kurmanji Kurdish.
Kurdistan Region is an autonomous administrative entity within the Republic of Iraq. It comprises four Kurdish-majority divisions of Arab-majority Iraq: the Erbil Governorate, the Sulaymaniyah Governorate, the Duhok Governorate, and Halabja Governorate. The KRI is bordered by Iran to the east, by Turkey to the north, and by Syria to the west. It does not govern all of Iraqi Kurdistan, and lays claim to the disputed territories of northern Iraq; these territories have a predominantly non-Arab population and were subject to the Ba'athist Arabization campaigns throughout the late 20th century. Though the KRI's autonomy was realized in 1992, one year after Iraq's defeat in the Gulf War, these northern territories remain contested between the Kurdistan Regional Government and the Government of Iraq to the present day. In light of the dispute, the KRI's constitution declares the city of Kirkuk as the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan. However, the KRI does not control Kirkuk, and the Kurdistan Region Parliament is based in Erbil. In 2014, when the Syria-based Islamic State began their Northern Iraq offensive and invaded the country, the Iraqi Armed Forces retreated from most of the disputed territories. The KRI's Peshmerga then entered and took control of them for the duration of the War in Iraq (2013–2017). In October 2017, following the defeat of the Islamic State, the Iraqi Armed Forces attacked the Peshmerga and reasserted control over the disputed territories.
Minorities in Iraq include various ethnic and religious groups.
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.
Religion in Iraq dates back to Ancient Mesopotamia, particularly Sumer, Akkad, Assyria and Babylonia between circa 3500 BC and 400 AD, after which they largely gave way to Syriac Christianity and later to Islam.
Shabaks are a group with a disputed ethnic origin. Some Shabaks identify themselves as a distinct ethnic group and others as ethnic Kurds. They live east of Mosul in Iraq. However their cultural traditions are different from Kurds and Arabs. Historically the Shabak can be identified as an ethnoreligious group. According to Shabak representatives, the Kurdish authorities intend to eliminate their culture and language, with concerns expressed over any new Kurdish language schools within Shabak villages. Their origin is disputed, and they are considered Kurds by some scholars. 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. The primary Shabak religious text is called the Buyruk or Kitab al-Manaqib, which is written in Turkmen.
The Christians of Iraq are considered to be one of the oldest continuous Christian communities in the world.
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.
According to the most recent government statistics, 97% of the population of Iraq was Muslim in 2010 ; the constitution states that Islam is the official religion of the country.
Yazidis, also spelled 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.
Ali Illahism is a syncretic religion which has been practiced in parts of Luristan region in Iran which combines elements of Shia Islam with older religions. It centers on the belief that there have been successive incarnations of the Deity throughout history, and Ali Illahis reserve particular reverence for Ali, the son-in-law of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, who is considered one such incarnation. Various rites have been attributed as Ali Illahian, similarly to the Yezidis, Ansaris, and all sects whose doctrine is unknown to the surrounding Muslim and Christian population. Observers have described it as an agglomeration of the customs and rites of several earlier religions, including Zoroastrianism, historically because travelogues were "evident that there is no definite code which can be described as Ali Illahism."
The Sinjar District or the Shingal District is a district of the Nineveh Governorate. The district seat is the town of Sinjar. The district has two subdistricts, al-Shemal and al-Qayrawan. The district is one of two major population centers for Yazidis, the other being Shekhan District.
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.
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. When Islam first appeared, the Kurds were divided between the Byzantine and Sassanian Empires. 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 Khalil al-Kurdi as-Semmani was one of the first Kurdish tabi'uns. 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 Sasanian Empire, and initially gave it strong support as it tried to withstand the Muslim armies, between 639 - 644. Once it was clear that the Sassanians would eventually fall, the Kurdish tribal leaders one by one submitted to Islam and their tribe members followed in accepting Islam. Today the majority of Kurds are Sunni Muslims, and there are Alevi and Shia minorities. Sunni Muslim Kurds are mostly Shafiʽis and Hanafis.
Kurdish Muslims are Kurds who follow Islam, which is the largest religion among Kurds and has been for centuries. Kurds largely became Muslims in the 7th century.
The relationship of religion and nationalism has often been strained and ambivalent in Kurdistan. Many leading nationalists were irreligious or at least dissatisfied with the strong hold of mullas and shaikhs on the people. It has, on the other hand, usually been the orthodox Muslims who formed the backbone of the Kurdish movement.
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