page_title: Kurds
section_title: Islam
hierarchical_section_title: Kurds / Religion / Islam
caption_attribution_description: The Shahadah (first part ašhadu 'al-lā ilāha illā-llāh - I testify that there is no god (ilah) but God (Allah)), the creed of Islam. The letter Alif is highlighted in red to demonstrate its different usage in Arabic scripture. This illustration was designed in order to teach the letter Alif, but not the creed itself!
context_page_description: Kurds or Kurdish people are an Iranic ethnic group native to a mountainous region of Western Asia known as Kurdistan, which spans southeastern Turkey, northwestern Iran, northern Iraq, and northern Syria. There are exclaves of Kurds in Central Anatolia, Khorasan, and the Caucasus, as well as significant Kurdish diaspora communities in the cities of western Turkey and Western Europe. The Kurdish population is estimated to be between 30 and 45 million.
  Kurds speak the Kurdish languages and the Zaza–Gorani languages, which belong to the Western Iranian branch of the Iranian languages in the Indo-European language family. A majority of Kurds belong to the Shafi‘i school of Sunni Islam, but significant numbers practise Shia Islam and Alevism, while some are adherents of Yarsanism, Yazidism, Zoroastrianism and Christianity.
  After World War I and the defeat of the Ottoman Empire, the victorious Western allies made provision for a Kurdish state in the 1920 Treaty of Sevres. However, that promise was broken three years later, when the Treaty of Lausanne set the boundaries of modern Turkey and made no such provision, leaving Kurds with minority status in all of the new countries.
context_section_description: Today, the majority of Kurds are Sunni Muslim, belonging to the Shafi school.  The Kurdish following of the Shafi legal code has caused some tension when pushed up against Sunni Turks and Sunni Arabs who subscribe to the Hanafi legal code.
  The majority of Sunni Muslim Kurds belonging to the Shafi school speak the Northern Kurdish (Kurmanji) dialect.
  There is also a significant minority of Kurds who are Shia Muslims. A side of sources mention that most of Kurds in Iran are Shias, who primarily living in the Ilam, Kermanshah and Khorasan provinces of Iran; the other Shia Kurds are (often) in eastern Iraq (Feyli Kurds) as well as Shia Kurds who are in Syria and especially in Turkey. Amongst Shia Muslim Kurdish communities, in particular the practitioners of Alevism in Anatolia, the Zaza language is found more commonly.
  Mystical practices and participation in Sufi orders are also widespread among Kurds, with prominent Kurdish Sufi saints including Piryones.
caption: The Shahadah - "I testify that there is no god (ilah) but (the) God (Allah)", the creed of Islam.
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