Michael M. Gunter - Routledge Handbook on the Kurds

With an estimated population of over 30 million, the Kurds are the largest stateless nation in the world. They are becoming increasingly important within regional and international geopolitics, particularly since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the Arab Spring and the war in Syria.

This multidisciplinary Handbook provides a definitive overview of a range of themes within Kurdish studies. Topics covered include:

• Kurdish studies in the United States and Europe

• Early Kurdish history

• Kurdish culture, literature and cinema

• Economic dimensions

• Religion

• Geography and travel

• Kurdish women

• The Kurdish situation in Turkey, Iraq, Syria and Iran

• The Kurdish diaspora.

With a wide range of contributions from many leading academic experts, this Handbook will be a vital resource for students and scholars of Kurdish studies and Middle Eastern studies.

Michael M. Gunter is a Professor of Political Science at Tennessee Technological University and the Secretary-General of the EU Turkey Civic Commission (EUTCC), head-quartered in Brussels. He is the author or editor of 15 scholarly books on the Kurdish and Armenian issues as well as over 100 peer-reviewed scholarly articles.

Edited by Michael M. Gunter

First published 2019

by Routledge

2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

and by Routledge

711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

2019 selection and editorial matter, Michael M. Gunter; individual chapters, the contributors

The right of Michael M. Gunter to be identified as the author of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Gunter, Michael M., editor.

Title: Routledge handbook on the Kurds / edited by Michael M. Gunter.

Other titles: Handbook on the Kurds

Description: Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon;

New York, NY: Routledge, 2019. |

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2018011588 | ISBN 9781138646643 (hbk) |

ISBN 9781315627427 (ebk)

Subjects: LCSH: KurdsPolitics and government. | KurdsHistory.

Classification: LCC DS59.K86 R658 2019 | DDC 956.6/7dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018011588

ISBN: 978-1-138-64664-3 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-1-315-62742-7 (ebk)

Typeset in Bembo
by codeMantra

To my wife Judy who has loved and supported me for more than half a century

Michael M. Gunter

PART I
Kurdish studies

Michael M. Gunter

Vera Eccarius-Kelly

PART II
Early Kurdish history

Michael Eppel

Hamit Bozarslan

Ahmet Serdar Akturk

PART III
Kurdish culture

Michiel Leezenberg

Hashem Ahmadzadeh

Michael L. Chyet

Bahar imek

PART IV
Economic dimensions

David Romano

Veli Yadirgi

PART V
Religion

Mehmet Gurses

Christopher Houston

Mordechai Zaken

Tyler Fisher and Nahro Zagros

PART VI
Geography and travel

Michael B. Bishku

Stafford Clarry

PART VII
Women

Anna Grabolle-eliker

PART VIII
The Kurdish situation in Turkey

Cengiz Gunes

Joost Jongerden and Ahmet Hamdi Akkaya

Bill Park

PART IX
The Kurdish situation in Iraq

Francis Owtram

Liam Anderson

Michael Rubin

Kirill V. Vertyaev

PART X
The Kurdish situation in Syria

Eva Savelsberg

Jordi Tejel

Michael Knapp

PART XI
Iran

Nader Entessar

PART XII
The Kurdish diaspora

sten Wahlbeck

Barzoo Eliassi

Vera Eccarius-Kelly

Desmond Fernandes

Michael M. Gunter

Given the increasing importance of the Kurds in regional and international relations writ large, there is a strong need for this multidisciplinary Handbook of more than 30 chapters that would seek to be a definitive overview of as much of Kurdish Studies as possible. The present purview includes emerging and cutting-edge areas, such as Kurdish cinema, literature, and travel, as well as more time-honored subjects, such as history; politics; religion; women; and country-specific analyses regarding Turkey, Iraq, Syria, and Iran, among others. Further chapters on corruption and nepotism in Iraqi Kurdistan, plus a contribution from an esteemed Russian scholar also largely novel to Kurdish Studies in the West, also appear. Two detailed bibliographic chapters on Kurdish Studies in the United States and Europe begin the collection and present the reader with an introduction to the wide panorama of the many authors and institutions now engaged in this burgeoning field.

Although these chapters are for the most part penned by academic scholars and contain reams of arcane details elaborating on important general themes, the Handbook is written for the intelligent lay public as well as scholars and governmental practitioners. Although each chapter covers a distinct subject, they still speak to each other and, taken as a whole, present the reader with a valuable overview.

The Handbooks compiler and editor opens this study with a bibliographic chapter on Kurdish Studies in the United States. Although the United States is about as far away from Kurdistan as is geographically possible, surprisingly, it has a well-established tradition of Kurdish Studies. Indeed, as long ago as April 1928, Sureya Bedirkhanone of the three famous grandsons of the legendary mir of the emirate of Botan, Bedir Khan Beg (1800c.1868)journeyed to Detroit, Michigan, to mobilize the Kurdish community in that famous automobile capital in support of Khoybuns Ararat Revolt against Turkey. Surely, Bedir Khan only made this trip because there was a politically active Kurdish community there to receive him. Little known to even Kurdish scholars, William O. Douglasthe famous and longest-serving Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court from 1939 until his retirement in 1975visited Kurdistan in the summers of 1949 and 1950 as part of a much larger trip to the Middle East. He shared his impressions of the Kurds and concluded that Independence Is Preferred, the title of one of the chapters in a book that recorded his overall trip and a predilection that still prevails, despite continuing frustrations and setbacks. Dana Adams Schmidt, for many years a foreign correspondent for the New York Times, spent 46 days with the Iraqi Kurds in 1962 (the climax of which was some 10 days with Mulla Mustafa Barzani), concluding that the Kurds were the fightingest people in the Middle East.