Page:EB1911 - Volume 15.djvu/985

Rh Behistun near the Kūrdish capital of Kermānshāh. Under the caliphs of Bagdad the Kūrds were always giving trouble in one quarter or another. In 838, and again in 905, there were formidable insurrections in northern Kūrdistān; the amir, Adod-addaula, was obliged to lead the forces of the caliphate against the southern Kūrds, capturing the famous fortress of Sermāj, of which the ruins are to be seen at the present day near Behistun, and reducing the province of Shahrizor with its capital city now marked by the great mound of Yassin Teppeh. The most flourishing period of Kūrdish power was probably during the 12th century of our era, when the great Saladin, who belonged to the Rawendi branch of the Hadabāni tribe, founded the Ayyubite dynasty of Syria, and Kūrdish chiefships were established, not only to the east and west of the Kūrdistān mountains, but as far as Khorāsān upon one side and Egypt and Yemen on the other. During the Mongol and Tatar domination of western Asia the Kūrds in the mountains remained for the most part passive, yielding a reluctant obedience to the provincial governors of the plains.

When Sultan Selim I., after defeating Shah Ismail, 1514, annexed Armenia and Kūrdistān, he entrusted the organization of the conquered territories to Idris, the historian, who was a Kūrd of Bitlis. Idris found Kūrdistān bristling with castles, held by hereditary tribal chiefs of Kūrd, Arab, and Armenian descent, who were practically independent, and passed their time in tribal warfare or in raiding the agricultural population. He divided the territory into sanjaks or districts, and, making no attempt to interfere with the principle of heredity, installed the local chiefs as governors. He also resettled the rich pastoral country between Erzerūm and Erivan, which had lain waste since the passage of Timūr, with Kūrds from the Hakkiari and Bohtan districts. The system of administration introduced by Idris remained unchanged until the close of the Russo-Turkish War of 1828–29. But the Kūrds, owing to the remoteness of their country from the capital and the decline of Turkey, had greatly increased in influence and power, and had spread westwards over the country as far as Angora. After the war the Kūrds attempted to free themselves from Turkish control, and in 1834 it became necessary to reduce them to subjection. This was done by Reshid Pasha. The principal towns were strongly garrisoned, and many of the Kūrd beys were replaced by Turkish governors. A rising under Bedr Khān Bey in 1843 was firmly repressed, and after the Crimean War the Turks strengthened their hold on the country. The Russo-Turkish War of 1877–78 was followed by the attempt of Sheikh Obaidullah, 1880–81, to found an independent Kūrd principality under the protection of Turkey. The attempt, at first encouraged by the Porte, as a reply to the projected creation of an Armenian state under the suzerainty of Russia (see ), collapsed after Obaidullah’s raid into Persia, when various circumstances led the central government to reassert its supreme authority. Until the Russo-Turkish War of 1828–29 there had been little hostile feeling between the Kūrds and the Armenians, and as late as 1877–1878 the mountaineers of both races had got on fairly well together. Both suffered from Turkey, both dreaded Russia. But the national movement amongst the Armenians, and its encouragement by Russia after the last war, gradually aroused race hatred and fanaticism. In 1891 the activity of the Armenian Committees induced the Porte to strengthen the position of the Kūrds by raising a body of Kūrdish irregular cavalry, which was well armed and called Hamidieh after the Sultan. The opportunities thus offered for plunder and the gratification of race hatred brought out the worst qualities of the Kūrds. Minor disturbances constantly occurred, and were soon followed by the massacre of Armenians at Sasūn and other places, 1894–96, in which the Kūrds took an active part.

—Rich, Narrative of a Residence in Koordistan (1836); Wagner, Reise nach Persien und dem Lande der Kurden (Leipzig, 1852); Consul Taylor in R. G. S. Journal (1865); Millingen, Wild Life among the Koords (1870); Von Luschan, “Die Wandervölker Kleinasiens,” in ''Vn. d. G. für Anthropologie'' (Berlin, 1886); Clayton, “The Mountains of Kūrdistān,” in Alpine Journal (1887); Binder, Au Kūrdistan (Paris, 1887); Naumann, Vom Goldnen Horn zu den Quellen des Euphrat (Munich, 1893); Murray, Handbook to Asia Minor, &c. (1895); Lerch, Forschungen über die Kurden (St Petersburg, 1857–58); Jaba, ''Dict. Kurde-Français (St Petersburg, 1879); Justi, Kurdische Grammatik'' (1880); Prym and Socin, Kurdische Sammlungen (1890); Makas, Kurdische Studien (1901); Earl Percy, Highlands of Asiatic Turkey (1901); Lynch, Armenia (1901); A. V. Williams Jackson, Persia, Past and Present (1906).

 KŪRDISTĀN, in the narrower sense, a province of Persia, situated in the hilly districts between Azerbaijan and Kermanshah, and extending to the Turkish frontier on the W., and bounded on the E. by Gerrus and Hamadan. In proportion to its size and population it pays a very small yearly revenue—only about £14,000—due to the fact that a great part of the population consists of wild and disorderly nomad Kūrds. Some of these nomads pass their winters in Turkish territory, and have their summer pasture-grounds in the highlands of Kūrdistān. This adds much to the difficulty of collecting taxation. The province is divided into sixteen districts, and its eastern part, in which the capital is situated, is known as Ardelan. The capital is Senendij, usually known as Sinna (not Sihna, or Sahna, as some writers have it), situated 60 m. N.W. of Hamadan, in 35° 15′ N., 47° 18′ E., at an elevation of 5300 ft. The city has a population of about 35,000 and manufactures great quantities of carpets and felts for the supply of the province and for export. Some of the carpets are very fine and expensive, rugs 2 yards by 1 costing £15 to £20. Post and telegraph offices have been established since 1879.  KURGAN, a town (founded 1553) of West Siberia, in the government of Tobolsk, on the Siberian railway, 160 m. E. of Chelyabinsk, and on the left bank of the Tobol, in a wealthy agricultural district. Pop. (1897), 10,579. Owing to its position at the terminus of steam navigation up the river Tobol, it has become second only to Tyumeń as a commercial centre. It has a public library and a botanic garden. There is a large trade in cattle with Petropavlovsk, and considerable export of grain, tallow, meat, hides, butter, game and fish, there being three large fairs in the year. In the vicinity are a great number of prehistoric kurgans or burial-mounds.  KURIA MURIA ISLANDS, a group of five islands in the Arabian Sea, close under the coast of Arabia, belonging to Britain and forming a dependency of Aden. They are lofty and rocky, and have a total area of 28 sq. m., that of the largest, Hallania, being 22 sq. m. They are identified with the ancient Insulae Zenobii, and were ceded by the sultan of Muscat to Britain in 1854 for the purposes of a cable station. They are inhabited by a few families of Arabs, who however speak a dialect differing considerably from the ordinary Arabic. The islands yield some guano.  KURILES (Jap. Chishima, “thousand islands”), a chain of small islands belonging to Japan, stretching in a north-easterly direction from Nemuro Bay, on the extreme east of the island of Yezo, to Chishima-kaikyo (Kuriles Strait), which separates them from the southernmost point of Kamchatka. They extend from 44° 45′ to 50° 56′ N. and from 145° 25′ to 156° 32′ E. Their coasts measure 1496 m.; their area is 6159 sq. m.; their total number is 32, and the names of the eight principal islands, counting from the south, are Kunashiri, Shikotan, Etorofu (generally called Etorop, and known formerly to Europe as Staten Island), Urup, Simusir, Onnekotan, Paramoshiri (Paramusir) and Shumshiri. From Noshapzaki (Notsu-no-sake or Notsu Cape), the most easterly point of Nemuro province, to Tomari, the most westerly point in Kunashiri, the distance is 7 m., and the Kuriles Strait separating Shumshiri from Kamchatka is about the same width. The name “Kurile” is derived from the Russian kurit (to smoke), in allusion to the active volcanic character of the group. The dense fogs that envelop these islands, and the violence of the currents in their vicinity, have greatly hindered exploration, so that little is known of their physiography. They lie entangled in a vast net of sea-weed; are the resort of innumerable birds, and used to be largely frequented by seals and sea-otters, which, however, have been