Nearly three fifths of the Kurds, almost all Kurmanji-speakers, are today at least nominally Sunni Muslims of Shafiite rite. There are also some followers of mainstream Islam among the Kurds, particulary in and around the cities of Kirmanshah,to Hamadan and Bijar in southern and eastern Kurdistan and the Khurasan.
These Shite Kurds number around half a million.
The overhelming majority of Muslim Kurds are followers of one several mystic Sufi orders, most importantly the Bektashi order of the northwest Kurdistan, the Naqshbandi order in the west and north, Qadiri orders of east and central Kurdistan, and Nurbakhshi of the south.
The rest of the Kurds are followers of several indigenous Kurdish faiths of great antiquit and orginality, which are variations on and permutation of an ancient religion that can be reasonably but looslely labeled as Yardanism or the "Cult of Angels". The three surviving major divisions of this religion are Yezidism (in west and west-central Kurdistan, ca 2% of all Kurds), Yaranism or the Ahl-i Haqq
( in southern Kurdistan, ca 13% of all Kurds), and Alevism or Kizil Nash (in western Kurdistan and the Khurasan ca 20% .
Minor communities of Kurdish Jews, Christians and Bahaís are found in varios croners of Kurdistan. The ancient Jewish community has progressively emigrated to Israel, while the Christian community is merging their identity with that of the Assyrians. |
