The majority of Kurds are Sunni Muslim, with Alevi Shi'a Muslim, Christian, Jewish, and Yezidi communities. Religious divergences as well as varying political viewpoints account for a wide variety of Kurdish perspectives vis-à-vis the state, though political discourse is dominated by the Kurdish nationalist PKK.
Kurdistan is home to many religions, the largest of which is Islam. The majority of Kurdish Muslims across Turkish, Syrian and Iraqi Kurdistan are Sunni Muslims, while the Kurds who practice Shiite Islam are prevalent mainly in Iran.
The Shiites and Sunnis are ethnically Arabs (that is, they speak Arabic and share a common culture). Kurds are not Arabs; they have their own culture and language. Most Kurds are Sunni Muslims. The division between Shiites and Sunnis dates to the death of Muhammad, the founder of Islam, in 632 A.D.
There is, however, a substantial group of Kurds in Iran who are Shiite, unlike in the other states, where the Kurds are mostly Sunni.
Most Muslims in Turkey are Sunni Muslims forming about 90%, and Shia-Aleviler (Alevis, Ja'faris and Alawites) denominations in total form up to 10% of the Muslim population.
The Ahmadiyya Muslim movement emerged from the Sunni tradition of Islam and its adherents believe in all the five pillars and articles of faith required of Muslims.
Islam in Turkey dates back to the 8th century, when Turkic tribes fought alongside Arab Muslims against Chinese forces at the Battle of Talas in 751 A.D. Spurred by the influence of ruling dynasties, many people converted to Islam over the next few centuries.
Before Islam, the majority of Kurds followed a western Iranic pre-Zoroastrian faith which derived directly from Indo-Iranian tradition, some elements of this faith survived in Yezidism, Yarsanism and Kurdish Alevism. Kurds were a nation divided between the Byzantine and Persian Empires when Islam first appeared.
The name Kurd can be dated with certainty to the time of the tribes' conversion to Islam in the 7th century ce. Most Kurds are Sunni Muslims, and among them are many who practice Sufism and other mystical sects.
Kurdish Christians are Kurds who follow Christianity. Though the majority of Kurds due to the spread of Islam in the 7th century were converted, there still remained Kurds who had adopted Christianity.
The Kurdistan Islamic Movement supports having Islamic laws, although not full Sharia law.
Today, about 85 percent of the approximately 1.6 billion Muslims around the world are Sunni, while 15 percent are Shia, according to an estimate by the Council on Foreign Relations.
A disagreement over succession after Mohammed's death in 632 split Muslims into Islam's two main sects, Sunni and Shia.
Kurds are an Iranian people, and the first known Indo-Iranians in the region were the Mitanni, who established a kingdom in northern Syria five centuries after the fall of Gutium. The Mitanni are believed to have spoken an Indo-Aryan language, or perhaps a pre-split Indo-Iranian language.
The Yezidis is one of many religious minorities in Iraq. They follow Yezidism, a religion combining elements from, among others, Christianity and Islam. At the centre is the teaching about a fallen angel who is forgiven by God and set to govern the Earth in God's place.
The Yazidis are a Kurdish heterodox group settled in the province of Mosul. They represent an interesting case study for the development of communalism in the heterogeneous social fabric of northern Iraq.
During the Anfal campaign the Iraqi military attacked about 250 Kurdish villages with chemical weapons and destroyed Kurdish 4500 villages and evicted its inhabitants.
Kurds (Kurdish: کورد, Kurd) or Kurdish people are an Iranian ethnic group native to the mountainous region of Kurdistan in Western Asia, which spans southeastern Turkey, northwestern Iran, northern Iraq, and northern Syria.
Kurdish is an Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo- European languages with multiple dialects spoken by Kurdish peoples in the mountainous regions of Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Turkey.
Most probably, Kurd people gene pool majority may be composed of an admixture of North Mesopotamian (Caucasus) and Near East peoples; Central Asia gene input is not discarded [5,9,10,11,12,13]. Kurds have mainly been defined by their ancestry, language and cultural uses.
Kurds are traditionally regarded as Iranians and of Iranian origin, and therefore as Indo-Europeans, mainly, because they speak Iranian.
Where do they come from? The Kurds are one of the indigenous peoples of the Mesopotamian plains and the highlands in what are now south-eastern Turkey, north-eastern Syria, northern Iraq, north-western Iran and south-western Armenia.
Although Syria has no official religion, 85 percent of the population is Muslim, and of these, 85 percent are members of the Sunni sect (i.e. 72 percent of the total population).
Located on the highest hill of Istanbul around Beykoz (distict of Istanbul), Yusha Mosque and the tomb of prophet Yusha dominate not only Boshphorus but also Black Sea.
Individuals are motivated to convert for many reasons: some relate to personal transformation and identity, others to external social and political factors. Theological explanations are often given, and many converts consider themselves destined or called by God to turn to Islam.