“There are about eight million speakers of Central Kurdish (Sorani) in Iran and Iraq. Unlike Iran, in Iraq the language enjoys an official status at both regional (Kurdistan Regional Government) and federal levels. This chapter presents a chronological history of the emergence, development and standardization of written Central Kurdish in Kurdistan (Iran and Iraq) and diasporas. It underlines language planning achievements to date and the challenges the language faces in terms of corpus planning, status and recognition and acquisition planning (its teaching and learning). Debates over what this variety should be called and a detailed breakdown of the population of its speakers are presented.”

“This chapter discusses some of the different forms of religiosity in Kurdistan over the centuries. Countering a longstanding bias in favour of minorities and heterodox groups, like Christians, Jews, Yezidis and Alevis, it also explores whether one may find more orthodox forms of Islam that are specific to the Kurds, or to the region predominantly inhabited by Kurds. Accordingly, it focuses on the emergence of vernacular religious learning in Kurdish in early modern times, and on the spread of the Khalidiyya branch of the Naqshbandî Sufism during the Tanzimat period and after. From a historical, and genealogical, perspective, it emerges that questions of orthodoxy and heterodoxy have witnessed qualitative changes over the centuries, reflecting changing forms and modalities of power; from a global-historical perspective, it appears that new articulations of religious orthodoxy in the nineteenth-century Ottoman Empire, in particular the rise of the Khalidiyya Naqshbandî tarîqa, reflect, and interact with, wider developments, like the centralization of state power, the emergence of Wahhabism and the arrival of Christian missionaries. Finally, it discusses the qualitative religious changes accompanying the rise of post-Ottoman nation-states and their epiphenomena, up to and including, most notoriously, the so-called Islamic State.”

After the historical cycle which started with the Iranian Revolution and the Iran-Iraq War, all of Kurdistan was affected by war and violence. Between 1979 and 2003, two structural dynamics of the Kurdish conflict, which had determined Kurdish history, have also been radicalized and militarized: the centrifugal one tearing apart the Kurdish space along the line of the state borders, linguistic and sectarian zones, partisan traditions and political cultures, and centripetal one unifying it across these many borders under the idea and ideal of ‘Kurdishness’ and by many forms of pacific or armed mobility. This tension was not an easy one to bear, but it has been managed, although at a high cost. The 1980s (and as far as Turkey is concerned 1990s) have probably constituted the darkest period of the Kurdish history with a rough estimation of Kurdish victims, namely, civilians, reaching some 200,000 people. By the beginning of the 2000s, however, Kurds’ survival as a part of Iran, Turkey, Iraq, Syria and thus, in the trans-frontier Kurdistan, seemed to be out of any major threat.

“This chapter provides an overview of sociopolitical history of religion and politics in the transformation of the Kurdish question in modern Turkey. It examines this transformation in five distinctive periods, spanning from the 1925 Sheikh Said Rebellion to the present, and evaluates both the implementation of state religious policy in the Kurdish region and the counter-strategies adopted by Kurdish actors to challenge the state’s repressive practices. It argues how, throughout this period, the religious policy was a significant dimension of the Turkish state’s attempts to break community networks organized around religious and traditional actors and settings. On the other hand, focusing on the influence of religious affiliations and solidarities in the Kurdish region, it brings attention to the changing role of Kurdish Islamic structures and identities in the political sphere, from a platform of resistance in the early republican period to a medium of compliance after the transition to the multi-party system and a tool of mobilization, repression and resistance, in the last decades. Thus, the chapter demonstrates that there is not a fixed status of religious politics in the context of the Kurdish question as religion could serve both as a medium of compliance or a mobilizing force of Kurdish resistance.”

“The twentieth century saw Kurds suffering from harsh discriminatory and assimilationist polices at the hands of central governments dominated by Turkish, Persian and Arab political elites. With the turn of the twenty-first century, however, the once-marginalized Kurds have emerged as key players in the rapidly changing Middle East. Despite a growing sense of optimism, however, serious obstacles remain as Kurds make progress towards political recognition. In this chapter, the challenges and opportunities the twenty-first century has brought about are examined with the aim of shedding light on domestic, regional and global dynamics in assessing the prospects of Kurdish aspiration for recognition in the new century.”

“This chapter analyses the socio-economic and political structures and transformations of the Kurdish people from the Ottoman era through to the modern Turkish Republic, arguing that there is a symbiotic relationship between the Kurdish question and the de-development of the predominantly Kurdish domains. Adopting a longue-durée framework it combines key theoretical insights of the fields of critical political economy, development studies, international relations and comparative politics to develop an original account of the Kurds, ESA and Turkey’s Kurdish question. It delineates and examines the socio-economic and political developments, structures and transformations in ESA from 1514 to 2014. These transformations are then critically compared with those of other domains within the context of the larger geopolitical area of which these territories have been a part over the course of these five centuries. Resultantly, the chapter devises a novel periodization for the socio-economic history of ESA based on three distinct periods: development, underdevelopment and de-development, and posits that the relationship between these domains and the Turkish state is characterized by a unique socio-economic process: de-development.”

This chapter discusses the changing role of tribes in Kurdish politics and society. It focuses mainly on Turkey but also considers ‘Kurdish situations’ in Iraq, Syria and Iran. It provides a historical overview of the developments and suggests that the tribal factor has been one of the major determinants of Kurdish politics throughout the twentieth century. It is thus no wonder that French and British Mandate officers, as well as Turkish, Iranian, Syrian and Iraqi authorities, have paid specific attention to tribes and tribalism in Kurdistan. The sociopolitical developments in the second half of the twentieth century that have significantly transformed their role in Kurdish politics and society are highlighted before an assessment of their role in the current period is provided.