Kurdish history can be explored through rulers, scholars, writers and elected representatives working in different centuries and political settings. These selected profiles explain particular contributions and debates, with sources for further reading and links to fuller articles.

Black-and-white portrait of the young Kurdish writer Hêjar with a moustache, patterned headscarf and dark clothing
Abdurrahman Sharafkandi, known as Hêjar, in a portrait identified with the early Mahabad Republic period. Photographer unknown; scan from Chêshtî Mijêwir. Public domain according to Wikimedia Commons. Wikimedia Commons · Chêshtî Mijêwir · Public domain (PD-Iran).

Saladin: dynasty and government

Saladin, Salah al-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub, established Ayyubid power in Egypt and Syria and recovered Jerusalem in 1187 after the victory at Hattin. Ramazan Şeşen’s biography places his birth in Tikrit in 1138. [1] R. Stephen Humphreys identifies the Ayyubids as a Kurdish family and explains the sharing of authority among male relatives through appanage principalities. [2] Saladin’s importance therefore includes the organisation of rule as well as war. His family background belongs to a medieval political world whose institutions need to be understood in their own setting.

Ibn al-Salah: scholarship and transmission

Ibn al-Salah al-Shahrazuri (1181–1245) was a Kurdish Shafiʿi jurist and hadith scholar from Sharakhan in the Shahrazur region. [3] His Muqaddima’s own index lists sixty-five types of hadith knowledge, including classifications, chains, copying, methods of transmission and narrators’ identities. [4] This provides a concrete way to study Kurdish participation in Arabic-language scholarship. The book became a subject of repeated commentary and abridgement; its opening discussion also recognises disagreements over how particular reports meet the criteria for soundness. [3][12]

Sheikh Ubaydullah: a borderland rebellion

Ubaydullah of Nehri led Iranian and Ottoman Kurds into northwestern Iran in late 1880. Sabri Ateş’s study describes temporary control of towns and violence and displacement associated with the movement and the Iranian military response. The revolt is often treated as a beginning of Kurdish nationalism. Ateş argues that Ottoman pan-Islamism, Sunni–Shiʿi tensions, Armenian nationalism and missionary activity also shaped it. [5] His interpretation directs attention to the overlapping religious, imperial and local relationships within which a leader mobilised supporters across a border.

Mustafa Barzani: leadership and social divisions

Mustafa Barzani became a central military and political leader of the Kurdish movement in Iraq. Nicola Degli Esposti’s study distinguishes his prestige and party presidency from the organisational role of Ibrahim Ahmad during Barzani’s exile. It places his 1958 return and the 1961 revolt in disputes involving land reform, tribal landowners, urban activists and the peasantry. [6] This interpretation helps readers examine the movement’s social alliances and internal tensions. A biography of one leader can be a starting point for understanding a wider organisation, whose members had different interests and political programmes.

Hêjar: poetry, dictionaries and translation

Abdurrahman Sharafkandi (1921–1991), known as Hêjar or Hazhar, was a poet, philologist and translator. Keith Hitchins documents his Sorani translation of Ehmedê Xanî’s Kurmanji Mem û Zîn, translations of Sharafnama and Khayyam, and a Persian translation of Avicenna’s Arabic Canon of Medicine. His dictionary and autobiography offer further routes into his work. [7] These projects crossed languages, dialects and genres, making literary and scholarly texts available to different readers. His cultural contribution is best explored through those identifiable works and the editions in which they circulated.

Leyla Zana: language and parliamentary representation

Zana entered Turkey’s parliament in 1991 and used Kurdish at the oath ceremony. The European Parliament’s account records her imprisonment, the award of its Sakharov Prize in 1995, and her personal address and collection of the prize on 14 October 2004 after release. [8] The dates distinguish election, a language intervention, an international award and a later ceremony. Her career connects Kurdish-language rights with parliamentary participation and international human-rights advocacy; the fuller profile supplies the original proceedings and judicial context.

Aysel Tuğluk: law and political organisation

Turkey’s parliamentary biography records Tuğluk’s birth on 17 July 1965 in Elazığ, legal education at Istanbul University, work as a lawyer, and her Diyarbakır mandate from 2007 to 2009. It also identifies her as a founding member and co-chair of the Democratic Society Party. [9] In 2022 the Human Rights Association’s award announcement discussed her role in women’s organisations and the development of party co-chairship. [10] These dated records offer a basis for studying women’s participation in legal advocacy and political organisation.

Sources and further reading

  1. Ramazan Şeşen, Selâhaddîn-i Eyyûbî, TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi (2009); biography and 1187 campaigns.
  2. R. Stephen Humphreys, Ayyubids, Encyclopaedia Iranica III/2 (1987), pp. 164–167; family origins and political institutions.
  3. M. Yaşar Kandemir, İbnü’s-Salâh eş-Şehrezûrî, TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi 21 (2000), pp. 198–200.
  4. Ibn al-Salah, ʿUlum al-hadith, author’s index of sixty-five types; Arabic primary text. First type and its qualifications are linked from the index.
  5. Sabri Ateş, In the Name of the Caliph and the Nation, Iranian Studies 47/5 (2014), pp. 735–798; author’s abstract, DOI 10.1080/00210862.2014.934151.
  6. Nicola Degli Esposti, Colonialism, Rural Conflict and Kurdish Uprising in Iraq (1946–1991), Nation and Class in the History of the Kurdish Movement (2022), pp. 49–80.
  7. Keith Hitchins, Hažār, Encyclopaedia Iranica XII/1 (2003), pp. 75–76; biography and documented writings.
  8. European Parliament, Sakharov Prize laureates brochure (2012), Leyla Zana entry; 1991 parliament, 1995 award and 2004 ceremony.
  9. Grand National Assembly of Turkey, Aysel Tuğluk, 23rd-term Diyarbakır member; official biography and dated mandate.
  10. Human Rights Association, 2022 Ayşenur Zarakolu Freedom of Thought and Expression Award announcement; Tuğluk’s organisational work.
  11. Hêjar, early Mahabad Republic period portrait, unknown photographer, scan from Chêshtî Mijêwir; public domain, Wikimedia Commons.
  12. Ibn al-Salah, ʿUlum al-hadith, first type: definition of sahih and qualifications concerning disagreement and certainty; Arabic primary text.