"تقرير عن كردستان" [ظ‎‎٦] (٢٢٠/١٧)

2
Yusuf Sharif says the soil is saturated with water, and that water can be
obtained anywhere by digging two or three feet.
The chief produce of Kurdistan is wheat, grain, barley, rice, cotton, and
tobacco (this last in great abundance), vegetables, pumpkins and gourds, cucum
bers, brinjals, lettuce, beetroot, cauliflower, potatoes, onions and garlic ; fruits,
melons, water melons, cherries (about five kinds), grapes, apples, plums, peaches
and walnuts.”
Inhabitants.
“ The inhabitants of Kurdistan are illiterate but bigoted Sunnis of the Shafi,
sect, one of the four sub-divisions of orthodox
Musulmans. They are not really fanatical, but
become bigoted by being in daily contact with the Shi’ah people. The root of the
Persian Kurdish question, whenever it becomes acute, is the religious hatred
between Sunnis and Shi’ahs, and the root of the Turkish is the hatred between
Muhammadans and Christians. Some of the Persian Kurds have become Shi’ahs,
whilst in places the ’Ali-Ullahi are to be found.
The language spoken by the majority is Kirmanju, an old Persian patois
intermingled with some foreign words. In Kurdistan (Ardalan) and Kirmanshah
what is called the Guran dialect is spoken, presenting an even greater affinity to
modern Persian.
By far the greater number of Persian Kurds are sedentary and pastoral,
a great many farm and till the high hill slopes, whilst many more are shepherds.
Their habits are nomadic, moving during the summer months into camps
on the higher acclivities of the hills above the settled villages. Nomad Kurds
are largely Turkish subjects or live on the Turkish border, and perhaps the
wealthiest members of the tribe belong to this class, the cultivators and shepherds
being as a rule deplorably ignorant and poor.
As to what their numbers may be, it seems pure guess-work. Some say one
million, some two^some a half. Dissensions and clan feuds weaken them, as they
did the Scotch Highlanders, and they do not attempt resistance to the Persians,
whose present army is far from formidable, but, in the event of any invasion, the
great fact would be that the invaders would find auxiliaries, rather than enemies,
in them, which, considering the nature of the country, is of enormous importance.
Persian-born Governors are now beginning to replace the Kurdish chiefs who
up to now were always Governors of their own districts.
In December 1880 there occurred an abortive Kurdish rebellion in Persia
under a certain Shaikh Obaid Ullah which, though a fiasco, was from the political
point of view of great importance, as it showed the utter impracticability, owing to
family and clan dissensions, of a united Kurdish organization, which will probably
be heard of again during our time. (For further particulars see Lord Curzon’s
Persia, and articles Azarbaijan and Kirmanshah of Gazetteer of Persia, vol. 2,
1905.)
Whatever the Turkish Kurds may be, the Persian ones are celebrated
for their hospitality and are not at all unfriendly towards Europeans. They are
great dandies in dress and the richer ones are always well dressed in clean and good
clothes. The national clothing is a short coat and very baggy trousers, and a
white calico shirt, the sleeves of which hang down to the ground, with an
enormous sash round his waist on which are placed knife and pipe, and they always