history of kurdistan

History

Main article: History of the Kurdish people

Ancient period

The very first mention of the Kurds in history was about 3,000 BC, under the name Gutium, as they fought the Sumerians (Spieser). Later around 800 BC, the Indo-European Median tribes settled in the Zagros mountain region and coalesced with the Gutiums, and thus the modern Kurds speak an Aryan language (Morris). The Kurds are mentioned in the Anabasis by Xenophon, a Greek mercenary, as he retreated from Persia with ten thousand men in 401 BC, he says of the Kurds, "These people, lived in the mountains and were very war-like and not subject to the Persian king. Indeed once a royal army of 120,000 had once invaded their country, and not a man of them came back..(Morris)." (Jensen 1996)

Ancient Kurdistan as Kard-uchi, during Alexander the Great's Empire, 4th century BC

Various ancient groups; among them the Guti, Mannai (Mannaeans), Hurrian and Medes lived in this region[10] The original Mannaean homeland was situated east and south of the Lake Urmia, roughly centered around modern-day Mahabad.[11] The Medes came under Persian rule during the reign of Cyrus the Great and Darius. Centuries later, Kurdish-inhabited areas in the Middle East witnessed the clash of the two competing super powers of those times, namely the Sassanid Empire and the Roman Empire. At the peak of its power, the Roman Empire ruled large Kurdish-inhabited areas, particularly the western and northern Kurdish areas in the Middle East. Kingdoms like Corduene were vassal states of the Roman Empire.

Much of Kurdistan corresponds roughly with the ancient Kingdom of Gutium (Qurti), which is mentioned in cuneiform records about 2400 BC, and had its capital at Arraphkha (modern Kirkuk).[12]

According to some historians, the tract to this day known as Kurdistan, the high mountaineous region south and south-east of Lake Van between Persia and Mesopotamia, was in the possession of Kurds from before the time of Xenophon, and was known as the country of the Carduchi (Greek: Καρδούχοι), as Cardyeneor Cordyene[13]

Also according to Columbia Encyclopedia, Kurds are commonly identified with the ancient Corduene, which was inhabited by the Carduchi who were mentioned in Xenophon's writings[14]. However, some modern historians dismiss this identification as false. [15] Corduene which ruled northern Mesopotamia and southeastern Anatolia from 189 BC to AD 384, became a vassal state of the Roman Republic in 66 BC and remained allied with the Romans until AD 384. Corduene was situated to the east of Tigranocerta, i.e., to the east and south of present-day Diyarbakır in south-eastern Turkey.

19th-century map showing the location of the Kingdom of Corduene in 60 B.C

Some of the ancient districts of Kurdistan and their corresponding modern names are listed below.[16]

1. Corduene or Gordyene (Siirt, Bitlis and Şırnak)
2. Sophene (Diyarbakır)
3. Zabdicene or Bezabde (Gozarto d'Qardu or Jazirat Ibn or Cizre)
4. Basenia (Bayazid)
5. Moxoene (Muş)
6. Nephercerta (Miyafarkin)
7. Artemita (Van)

One of the earliest records of the phrase land of the Kurds is found in a Syriac Christian document of late antiquity describing the stories of Christian saints of Middle East such as the holy Abdisho. When the Sassanid Marzban asked Mar Abdisho about his place of origin, he replied that according to his parents, they were originally from Hazza, a village in Assyria. However they were later driven out of Hazza by pagans, and settled in Tamanon, which according to holy Abdisho was in the land of the Kurds. This village lies just north of the modern Iraqi-Turkey border. Also Hazza is located 12 km southwest of modern Irbil. In another passage in the same document, the region of Khabur is also identified as land of the K