Qazi Muhammad

Qazi Muhammad (قازی محەممەد / Qazî Mihemed, ; 1 May 1893 – 31 March 1947 ) was an Iranian Kurdish religious and political leader who founded the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan and headed the short-lived, Soviet-backed Republic of Mahabad. He was hanged by the Iranian government for treason in 1947.

Biography
Qazi Muhammad was born into a noble Sunni Kurdish family from Mahabad. His father had cooperated with Simko Shikak during his revolt against the Iranian government in the 1920s, and his brother Sadr Qazi was a member of the Iranian parliament. After his father's death, he was nominated as a judge in Mahabad in the 1930s. Qazi Muhammad later became a member of the Komala Zhian I Kurd, a leading Kurdish organization in Iran at the time supported by the Soviets, in April 1945. Soon after he became its leader. Muhammad acted as the President of the Republic of Mahabad, which was founded in January 1946, and declared publicly in March of the same year. He was also the founder of the Kurdish Democratic Party of Iran, that was established after the need for a more transparent party was felt by its adherents. (Komeley Jiyanewey Kurd existed prior to that, as a secret organization.) Mustafa Barzani, one of the leaders of the nationalist Kurdish movement in Iraqi Kurdistan, was also the commander of its army along with his brother Ahmed Barzani. His cousin, Muhammad Hussein Saif Qazi, was a minister in his cabinet. In April 1946, with the support of the Soviets, Muhammad signed a peace treaty with Ja'far Pishevari of the Azerbaijan People's Government in which they exchanged assurances that the Azerbaijani and Kurdish minorities rights in each republic would be preserved. A year later, after the Soviets withdrew from Iran, the socialist Kurdish Republic was removed by Iran's central government.

Family
One of his sons, Ali Qazi, was an active member in the Kurdish movement, he passed away 2022 and was laid to rest in Kalar, Southern Kurdistan close to the tomb of his sister Maryam and her husband Serdar Jaff, the famed lion of Kurdistan, his lifetime best friend. One of his daughters, Efat Ghazi, was killed by a letter bomb in Västerås, Sweden, in 1990. The bomb was addressed to her husband, the Kurdish activist Emir Ghazi. Some analysts speculated that the Iranian government might have been involved in the assassination.