The Demise of the Kurdish Emirates: The Impact of Ottoman Reforms and International Relations on Kurdistan during the First Half of the Nineteenth Century

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Notes

1. For more on this, see D. McDowall, A Modern History of the Kurds (London: I.B. Tauris, 2004), pp.151–78; R. Olson, ‘Battle for Kurdistan: The Churchill–Cox Correspondence Regarding the Creation of the State of Iraq’, Kurdish Studies, Vol.5 (1992), pp.29–44.

2. A. Hassanpour, ‘The Making of Kurdish Identity: Pre-20th Century Historical and Literary Sources’, in A. Vali (ed.), Essays on the Origins of Kurdish Nationalism (Costa Mesa, CA: Mazda, 2003).

3. A. Hassanpour, Nationalism and Language in Kurdistan 1918–1985 (San Francisco: Mellon Research University Press, 1992), pp.95, 101–2.

4. H. Ozoglu, Kurdish Notables and the Ottoman State (New York: New York University Press, 2004), especially the chapter ‘State–Tribe Relations: Ottoman Empire and Kurdish Tribalism Since the Sixteenth Century’, pp.43–68; H. Ozoglu, ‘State–Tribe Relations: Kurdish Tribalism in the 16th and 17th Century Ottoman Empire’, British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, Vol.23, No.1 (May 1996), pp.5–26; H. Ozoglu, ‘“Nationalism” and Kurdish Notables in the Late Ottoman–Early Republican Era’, International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, Vol.33 (2001), pp.383–409.

5. M. van Bruinessen, ‘Agha, Shaikh and State’ (Ph.D. thesis, Utrecht 1978; published under the same title in London, 1992). In the present article, I have preferred to rely on the Ph.D. version. W. Jwaideh, The Kurdish National Movement, Its Origins and Development (New York: Syracuse University Press, 2006), pp.54–74; M. Amin Zaki, Khulasat Ta'rikh al-Kurd wa-Kurdistan (Arabic: The Summary of the History of the Kurds and Kurdistan) (Baghdad: Matba'at Salah al-Din, 1961), pp.218–55.

6. R. Dankoff, Evliya Çelebi in Bitlis (Leiden: Brill, 1990); M. van Bruinessen and H. Boeschoten, Diyarbakir in the Mid-seventeenth Century. Evliya Çelebi's Description of Diyarbakir (Leiden: Brill 1988); S. al-Din Bidlisi, The Sharafnama or the History of the Kurdish Nation, Book One, English Translation and Commentaries by M.R. Izady (Costa Mesa, CA: Mazda Publishers, 2005).

7. T. Nieuwenhuis, Politics and Society in Early Modern Iraq: Mamluk Pashas, Tribal Shaykhs and Local Rule Between 1802–1831 (The Hague/Boston: M. Nijhoff, 1982), p.97; C.J. Rich, Narrative of a Residence in Koordistan (London: James Duncan, 1836; reprinted Westmead, Farnborough: Gregg International Publishers, 1972), Vol.1, p.81.

8. D. Djalil, Kurdi Ocmanckoy Imperii Pervoy Polovine 19 Beka[The Kurds of the Ottoman Empire in the First Half of the Nineteenth Century] (Moscow: Nauka, 1973), p.55.

9. Rich, Vol.1, p.96.

10. Djalil, 56.

11. S.H. Longrigg, Four Centuries of Modern Iraq (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1925), pp.232–3.

12. Rich, Vol.1, pp.96–7; Nieuwenhuis, pp.66, 77.

13. Nieuwenhuis, p.43.

14. Ibid., pp.83, 197.

15. B.A. Manneh, ‘The Naqshbandiyya in the Ottoman Lands in the Early 19th Century’, Die Welt des Islam, Vol.22 (1984), p.5; B.A. Manneh, Studies on Islam and the Ottoman Empire in the 19th Century (Istanbul: Isis Press, n.d.), pp.17–8; F. Shakely, ‘The Naqshbandi Shaikhs of Hawraman and the Heritage of Khalidiyya-Mujadidiyya in Kurdistan’, The International Journal of Kurdish Studies, Vol.19 (2005); C.J. Edmonds, Kurds, Turks and Arabs (London/New York: Oxford University Press, 1957), pp.71–4.

16. Djalil, pp.73–7, based on nineteenth-century Armenian and Russian sources.

17. M. Atkin, Russia and Iran 1780–1828 (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1980), pp.22–46.

18. For more details on the Russian activity in the Caucasus during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, see M. Atkin and F. Kazemade, ‘Russian Penetration of the Caucasus’, in T. Hunczak (ed.), Russian Imperialism from Ivan the Great to the Revolution (New Brunswick, NJ, 1974), pp.239–63. See also J. Baddeley, The Russian Conquest of the Caucasus (New York, 1969; facsimile reprint of London 1908 edition).

19. Atkin, pp.8–12.

20. W. Monteith, Kars and Erzeroum with the Campaigns of Prince Paskiewich (London: Longmans, Brown, Green and Longmans, 1851), pp.154, 221, 262–65, 302; W.E.D. Allen and Paul Muratoff, Caucasian Battlefields A History of Wars on the Turco-Caucasian Border (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1953), pp.31, 44. B. Nikitin, Al-Kurd, Dirasat Sosiolojia wa-Taarihkiya [The Kurd, Sociological and Historical Lectures] (London, 2001), p.301 (Arabic, translated from French by Nouri Talabani).

21. W.F. Ainsworth, Travels and Researches in Asia Minor, Mesopotamia, Chaldea and Armenia (London: John Parker, West Strand, 1842), pp.271, 281.

22. J. Brant and A.G. Glascoutt, ‘Notes of a Journey Through a Part of Kurdistan, in Summer of 1838’, Journal of the Royal Geographical Society of London, Vol.10 (1840), p.373.

23. H.C. Rawlinson, ‘Notes of a Journey from Tibriz, through Persian Kurdistan, to the Ruins of Takhti-Soleiman, and from Thence by Zenjan and Tarom, to Gilan, in October and November, 1838; with Memoir on the Site of the Atropenian Ectabana’, Journal of the Royal Geographical Society of London, Vol.10 (1840), p.25.

24. McDowall, p.42.

25. Djalil, p.96.

26. F.E. Bailey, British Policy and the Turkish Reform Movement (New York: Howard Ferting, 1970), pp.59, 133.

27. A.B. Cunningham (ed.), The Early Correspondence of Richard Wood, 1831–1841 (London, Royal Historical Society, 1966), p.14.

28. Ibid., p.13.

29. Wood (Dahook) to Ponsonby (Lord Ponsonby, British Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire), 7 June 1836, in Cunningham, Wood, p.90; see also introduction by A.B. Cunningham, ibid., pp.12–3.

30. Cunningham, Wood, p.97. On Wood's aspiration to bring about cooperation between Muhammad ‘Kor’ and the Ottoman Sultan, see also Ainsworth, Vol.1, p.323.

31. Cunningham, Wood, p.105. A report on Russian deserters fighting in the service of Persia, in the Hakkari area, was written in the same year by a British traveller, Colonel Shiel, who passed through the area in 1836: J. Shiel, ‘Notes on a Journey from Tabriz, Through Kurdistan, via Van, Bitlis, Se'ert and Erbil to Suleimaniyeh, in July and August, 1836’, Journal of the Royal Geographical Society of London, Vol.8 (1838), p.55.

32. Cunningham, Wood, pp.104–6.

33. Ibid., pp.106–7.

34. Van Bruinessen, Agha, p. 292.

35. For more details on the missionary activity among the Nestorians and its implications on Christian-Kurdish relations, see: The Missionary Herald, Reports from Northern Iraq 1833–1847, Vol. 1 (Kamal Salibi and Yusuf K. Khoury (eds.), Amman, Royal Institute for Interfaith Studies, 2002); John Joseph, The Nestorians and their Neighbors (Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press, 1961); Gordon Taylor, Fever and Thirst: Dr. Grant and the Christian Tribes of Kurdistan (Chicago, Academy Chicago Publishers, 2005). Although the outlook of the source and both studies is Christian and pro-Nestorian, they are all very important in examining the situation in Kurdistan, the relations between the Kurds and the Nestorians, and the role played by the American and British missionaries. A.H. Layard, Popular Account of Discoveries at Ninevah (London: John Murray, 1851), pp.122–70.

36. Van Bruinessen, pp.290–1; Missionary Herald, Vol.1, pp.474, 483.

37. Layard, p.122.

38. Ozoglu, Kurdish Notables, pp.71–2.