User:Paradise Chronicle/Kurdish Society for Progress and Mutual Aid

The Kurdish Society for Progress and Mutual Aid (Kürt Terraki ve Teavun Cemiyeti) was a Kurdish organization aimed to support the Kurdish culture. It was founded in the aftermath of the Young Turk Revolution in 1908 by several members of the Kurdish political elite. Some of the co-founders were Sheikh Abdulkadir, the son of Sheikh Ubeydullah; Emin Ali Bedir Khan of the Bedir Khan family and the former ottoman official Muhammad Şerif Pasha. In one of the first meetings of the KTTC, a policy was announced that Kurdish politicians, who have a violent past, were not to be elected to the chamber of deputies. KTTC sections were established through several towns in Kurdistan, like Diyarbakirır, Muş, Erzurum and Bitlis, but also in Mosul. In the sections apart from Istanbul, several Kurdish notables were eager to show their support for the new government in order to disguise their real aims, that often were rather hostile towards the Committee for Union and Progress. Many officers of the Hamidiye were persecuted by the new government and who deemed them to be in opposition to the government in power. With the establishment of.a school it has also supported the education of the Kurdish population in Istanbul, which at the time amounted to around 30'000. The institution was attended by Said Nursi, who in the future was to become the leader of the Nurculuk. The society also continued to distribute the newspaper Kurdistan, which was led my members of the Bedir Khan family. In 1909, the Society was prohibited by the Committee of Union and Progress who opposed the organization of the Kurds. But the societies structure kept being active throughout the Kurdish provinces for some time.