Talk:Kurdish culture

Norouz
Kurdish new year?! This is part of the Iranian culture, I invite contributers to mention this properly in the article instead of making it look like its a Kurdish thing. It is not 'coincidentally' the start of spring, check the article Norouz for information. --Kash 11:04, 3 March 2006 (UTC)


 * First The article is on Kurdish culture not Iranian/Afgani culture and it is called here Kurdish culture. also Kurdish Newroz is not the same is Iranian/Afgani Norouz.
 * Second: I have strong and credible evidence that nourouz is NOT an Iranian festival, but never discussed it before, maybe soon I will discuss it in the article Norouz which in fact that article is wrong.
 * Many middle Eastern articles have been written by Iranians in a way that is strongly biased towards them.
 * Sincerely  D iyako Talk + 13:22, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

1- Kurdish culture, is part of Iranian culture as they are Iranian people as far as I am aware. 2- Please cite evidence that Kurdish Norouz is not the same as Norouz celebrated by the other Iranian people.

Until then I may think about removing many Kurd articles which seem to be totally nationalistic and uncited --Kash 13:27, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Kurdish Newroz is the same as as the Norouz celebrated by Afghans, Persians, Tajiks, Turkmens, Azeri's etc. It is a Zoroastrian celebration and you can also find it in the shahnameh Firdowsi. It is based on the Assyrian Kha b-Nisan and similar to other spring (Equinox) celebrations. Ibrahim4048 (talk) 22:17, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

No reference and POV.
"one of the richest, healthiest and finest."

This is all POV. Also, please reference all the info in this article. The current link of the center does not provide the source of this information. --MysticRum 17:50, 7 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Tell me about it. How about this one; Kurdish cultural heritage is rooted in one of the world's oldest cultures, the Mesopotamian - mesopotamia? Kurds are not semetic, how can they part of mesopotamia? This article is very inaccurate and baised. Chaldean 06:49, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

I am part Kurdish myself and have to laugh about this article. So much wrong information is given and the article is obviously biased. First of all Kurds have nothing to do with the Hurrians who are like the Sumerians an isolate group and do not have contemporary descendants. It is true that the Hurrian population was partly assimilated by the Medians (ancestors of the Kurds) and other Indo-Aryan peoples but then you could also claim Kurds are Assyrians/Chaldeans or that Turks are Hittites, Greeks, Assyrians, Kurds, and Arabs etc. In time almost every people has been assimilated by another conquering people. Look for example at the Turks who are supposed to be central Asians (like Mongols) but don't look Asiatic because they have intermixed with the local people or assimilated them. It is true tough that Kurdish culture is influenced and based on Mesopotamian culture. The Kurdish Newroz for example comes from the Assyrian Kha b-Nisan. They were both celebrated on March 21 but due to the change of calendar, the Assyrians celebrate it on April 1 now. That Kurds are more moderate Muslims than their neighbours is also a blatant lie. Come on. If the person who wrote this article is Kurdish or even knows a little about the position of women in Kurdish society then you know this is not true. Only among the alevi, communist and atheist/agnostic Kurds women have a status that comes even remotely close to equal status. Kurdish culture is generally extremely backwards when it comes to women. Kurds have higher rates of honor killing than other Muslims in the countries they live in. Telling lies doesn't help the Kurdish cause, it only distances people and makes them start to doubt everything Kurds tell. Ibrahim4048 (talk) 22:01, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Cultural Heritage
this section has been updated and more information has been provided. Flavallee:Talk 08:56, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Kurds are more moderate Muslims?
Kurds have always been among the more moderate Muslims and as a result Kurdish women have faced less restrictions in wearing hijab or holding jobs outside home than other muslim women.

I am deleting this part. The link doesn't work and it is obviously not true. Kurdish culture is notorious for opressing women and honor killings. They are almost the same as iran and the taliban only just a little less oppressive Ibrahim4048 (talk) 20:14, 1 March 2009 (UTC)


 * I think you missunderstood the sentence and it needs rewording not removing. Kurdish, Luri and/or Bakhtiari woman had traditionally a more moderate statue than with Turks, Arabs and Persians, who used Hijab. The honor killing issue is a modern phenomenon. Ellipi (talk) 20:30, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

It is actually the other way around. Kurds are far more traditional than Turks. In central turkey and west turkey you will see for example that the majority of women are not veiled while in south eastern turkey where the kurdish and arab population is dominant almost every woman is veiled to some extent (full face covering veil to loose headscarf). Kurdish women are almost never allowed to have jobs outside their homes with the exlusion of Dersim region where women are traditionally treated more equally. Fixed marriages and underage marriages are more common in the south east anatolia region. This is not primarily caused by kurdish culture since turkish culture was similar a couple of decades ago but because of isolation, lack of (social) investments, civil war and economic reasons which halted modernizing influences while west turkey was more prosperous and subject to modernization. Ibrahim4048 (talk) 11:59, 2 March 2009 (UTC)


 * What you say is not contrary to what I said at all; isolation, lack of investment, occupation and war, several genocidal campaigns in Anatolia and southern Kurdistan, etc. all contributed to Kurdish society turn to what is now, in a clear contrast to what it traditionally used to be when they were still themselves in their free nomadic lifestyle. The situation is better with Iranian Kurds, who despite their conflicts with Tehran (govenment), still accompanied Persians (people) to some degrees in their move towards modernism. Ellipi (talk) 12:20, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

I agree that in their old nomadic lifestyle both turkmens and nomadic kurds were pretty free. But sedentary kurds are a different story. Among them here has been this culture of oppression not only of women by men but also of men by other men. Landlords oppressing their serfs for example. Medieval Feudal society still exists in a lot of places in south east anatolia. I think that living of agriculture and owning land makes these societies oppressive. They want to protect their land, their wealth and women and are extremely possessive of them. Pastoral peoples however are less possessive and rely more on their social cohesion. I agree totally with you that kurds have been oppressed for centuries and that this contributed to their backwards isolated position today but it is still a fact that today they are not more moderate than other muslims. What has been a long time ago doesn't apply now. So I disagree with was in the article because it gives wron information. There are a lot good things in kurdish culture but the position of women is not one of them. Luckily things are changing now and with the influence of kurdish immigrants to istanbul and europe even the most isolated regions are exposed to outside influences and idea's when these immigrants return to their hometowns for vacation or visits. Ibrahim4048 (talk) 13:01, 2 March 2009 (UTC)


 * In any case the sentence you removed should be restored as all academic sources including Britanica and encyclopaedia of Islam confirm it. Ellipi (talk) 14:42, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

If you can give an academic source (jstor, google scholar) which gives this information you can restore it. I removed it because the link didn't exist anymore and i didn't believe the information given without an academic source. I have no objections if you restore it if you provide sources for the text. Ibrahim4048 (talk) 15:07, 2 March 2009 (UTC)


 * A quick citation is Britannica's article on Lurs, where it says: As with the Kurds and Bakhtyārī, women among the Lurs have traditionally had greater freedom than other Arab or Iranian women... http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/351736/Lur
 * Yet, Encyclopaedia of Islam says, Kurds women were much freer than Lur women (see for example under the entry Laks). Ellipi (talk) 15:17, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

If you want to put that in the article go ahead, nobody is stopping you. You have the right to do that since you have a valid source. There are 100's of sources that disagree tough and anyone familiar with kurdish culture knows about the honor killings, buying and selling of brides (dowry, money, gold, cattle), polygamy, underage marriage, sexual oppression, no freedom to choose partner etc. Despite all that do you still believe kurds are more modern than for example Turks? I don't know how that britannica article came into existence but it is not very accurate. Perhaps it is based upon a comparison between kurdish Iranians and Iranians proper. Because I do remember reading something like that. But it doesn't apply to iraqi arab culture because under saddam iraq was pretty much secular and women rights improved a great deal altough not in remote isolated regions. It certainly doesn't apply on turkish culture because traditional turkish culture barely exists anymore. Read these articles/books and you will see for yourself. I won't put them in the article itself because I am against adding negative contributions to these kind of articles because every people has a right to profile itself without being constantly attacked and discredited. I just want to give counter arguments for your idea that kurdish culture is more modern than the surrounding cultures. Female Genital Mutilation (I have to admit I never heard of this among the kurmanci or zaza kurds of turkey, maybe in iraq), Honor Killings  and Polygamy

Here are some excerpts from this book '''Hassanpour, Amir. The (Re)production of Kurdish Patriarchy in the Kurdish Language and the Kurdish Women’s Rights Watch 2007'''.


 * Marriage for Kurdish women is a form of bondage traditionally decided upon by the male members of her family. These decisions have often been made in the girl’s childhood, and sometimes even before she is born (Hassanpour 2001)
 * Rural Kurdish marriages are patrilocal. The family receiving the bride pays the family she came from. This price is seen as payment for the labor that will be lost when she moves to live with the groom’s family (Hassanpour 2001).
 * Polygamy also sometimes occurs amongst Kurds. In such cases the wives are ranked in status by their age (Hassanpour 2001)
 * Like marriage, men hold women’s sexuality under a strict ideal of shame and constraint, including virginity before marriage (Hassanpour 2001).
 * This “ideal” is upheld under the threat, and use of, male violence against women. Such violence includes beatings, pouring acid on faces, shaving heads, and even “honor” killings where women are murdered to by family members to bring back the family’s good name (Kurdish Women’s Rights Watch 2007)
 * While Kurdish women may be murdered for adultery, no similar treatment is dished out to Kurdish men for the same act (Hassanpour 2001).
 * In Iraq, however, Kurdish women are not historically better off. Currently the Kurdish nationalist parties in power, working with the U.S. occupation, have done much to undermine the gains made for women’s rights during the rule of Saddam Hussein. Under Saddam Hussein’s secular government, Iraqi women had many rights found nowhere else in the historically Islamic world except in the Asian republics of the former Soviet Union. Over 50% of Iraqi doctors were women. Iraqi women were allowed to walk unescorted in the streets, to drive, to freely criticize men, and the right to work and control their own funds. Today the Kurdish parties that the U.S. has put in control of Iraqi Kurdistan are working towards adding brutally anti-woman Sharia (Islamic Law) to the constitution that would strip women of more rights. Similar moves are being made by the U.S. imposed central government in Iraq.(Kriesberg. Constructive Conflicts: From Escalation to Resolution. 1998) Ibrahim4048 (talk) 17:22, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Amir Hassanpour is certainly right, and I believe him. But what you removed was a comparison between Kurds and non-Kurds. Ellipi (talk) 17:30, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

If you want to put this in the article I have no problem with it. It is sourced at least
 * As with the Kurds and Bakhtyārī, women among the Lurs have traditionally had greater freedom than other Arab or Iranian women

What I deleted above was not sourced because the link doesn't work and besides it says kurdish women have less restrictions than other muslim women. Do you even know how many different types of muslim women are? It sounds more like someone made it up himself because a scholar would at least compare kurdish women to other specific groups of muslim women and would not take the whole group of muslim women to compare with. Ibrahim4048 (talk) 00:26, 3 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Kurds have always been among the more moderate Muslims and as a result Kurdish women have faced less restrictions in wearing hijab or holding jobs outside home than other muslim women.


 * 80% of Kurdish women are illiterate while Iran has more female students at engineering universities then USA, so don't spread propagandistic lies about "more freedom".  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.60.0.31 (talk) 19:50, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

Close this page
This page is pointless. There's already a wiki page on Kurds, which involves culture, food, religion, arts, history, and the different type of Kurdish tribes. There's no point in even merging this page with the other since the other page has more information on culture than this one.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurds#Culture — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2607:FEA8:201F:FF8D:D1B7:F328:82D2:7B6F (talk) 05:56, 4 September 2016 (UTC)