Sheikh Mahmud Barzanji, also known as Mahmud Hafid Zadeh (1878 in Sulaymaniyah – October 9, 1956 in Baghdad) was a Kurdish leader who led a series of Kurdish uprisings against the British Mandate of Iraq. He was sheikh of a Qadiriyah Sufi family of the Barzanji clan from the city of Sulaymaniyah, which is now in the Kurdistan Region. He was subsequently given the title King of Kurdistan after the uprisings.
When the British Mandate of Mesopotamia was established in what is now Iraq after World War I, the British sought a suitable means of governing the Kurdish north. In 1918, following the tribal government in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of what is now Pakistan, then part of British India, the British appointed Barzaniji as governor over the Kurds in Sulaimaniyah. However, the determination of Barzanji was not in the interests of all Kurds, as the rivalry between tribes and orders was great.
Mahmud Barzanji was born 1878 in Sulaymaniyah as the son of parents who belonged to the Barzanji clan. Barzanji‘s family also were Sufi Qadiriyya, of which he later became sheikh. Mahmud Barzanji was a direct descendant of a brother of Sultan Sahak. Sheikh Mahmud was also appointed Governor of the former sanjak of Duhok from 1911 to 1919.
First struggles with Ottoman politics
The Kurdish nationalist struggle first emerged in the late 19th century when a unified movement demanded the establishment of a Kurdish state. Revolts occurred sporadically, but only decades after the Ottoman centralist policies of the 19th century began did the first modern Kurdish nationalist movement emerge with an uprising led by a Kurdish landowner and head of the powerful Shamdinan family, Sheikh Ubeydullah. In 1880 Ubeydullah demanded political autonomy or outright independence for Kurds and the recognition of a Kurdistan state without interference from Turkish or Persian authorities." The uprising against Qajar Persia and the Ottoman Empire was ultimately suppressed by the Ottomans, and Ubeydullah, along with Sheikh Mahmud and other notables, was exiled to Istanbul. After World War I, the British and other Western powers occupied parts of the Ottoman Empire. Plans made with the French in the Sykes–Picot Agreement designated Britain as the mandate power. The British were able to form their own borders to their pleasure to gain an advantage in this region. The British had firm control of Baghdad and Basra and the regions around these cities mostly consisted of Shiite and Sunni Arabs. Western powers (particularly the United Kingdom) fighting the Turks promised the Kurdish tribal leaders (under them Sheikh Mahmud) that they would act as guarantors for Kurdish freedom, a promise they subsequently broke. One particular organization, the Society for the Elevation of Kurdistan (Kürdistan Teali Cemiyeti) was central to the forging of a distinct Kurdish identity. It took advantage of period of political liberalization in during the Second Constitutional Era (1908–1920) of Turkey to transform a renewed interest in Kurdish culture and language into a political Kurdish nationalist movement based on ethnicity. Around the start of the 20th century Russian anthropologists encouraged this emphasis on Kurds as a distinct ethnicity from the Arabs, suggesting that the Kurds were a European race (compared to the Asiatic Turks) based on physical characteristics and on the Kurdish language (which forms part of the Indo-European language-group). While these researchers had ulterior political motives (to sow dissent in the Ottoman Empire) their findings were embraced and still accepted today by many.
Strivings for an independent Kurdish state
In 1921, the British appointed Faisal I the King of Iraq. It was an interesting choice because Faisal had no local connections, as he was part of the Hashemite family in Western Arabia. As events were unfolding in the southern part of Iraq, the British were also developing new policies in northern Iraq, which was primarily inhabited by Kurds, and was known as Greater Kurdistan in the Paris (Versailles) Peace Conference of 1919. The borders that the British formed had the Kurds between central Iraq (Baghdad) and the Ottoman lands of the north.
The Kurdish people of Iraq lived in the mountainous and terrain of the Mosul Vilayet. It was a difficult region to control from the British perspective because of the terrain and tribal loyalties of the Kurds. There was much conflict after the Great War between the Ottoman government and British on how the borders should be established. The Ottomans were unhappy with the outcome of the Treaty of Sèvres, which allowed the Great War victors control over much of the former Ottoman lands through the distribution of formerly Ottoman territory as League of Nations mandates.
In particular, the Turks felt that the Mosul Vilayet was theirs because the British had illegally conquered it after the Mudros Armistice, which had ended hostilities in the war. With the discovery of oil in northern Iraq, the British were unwilling to relinquish the Mosul Vilayet. Also, it was to the British advantage to have the Kurds play a buffer role between themselves and the Ottoman Empire. All that led to the importance of Sheikh Mahmud Barzanji.
The British government promised the Kurds during the First World War that they would receive their own land to form a Kurdish state. However, the British government did not keep their promise at the end of the war, leading to resentment among the Kurds. There was mistrust on the part of the Kurds. In 1919, uneasiness began to evolve in the Kurdish regions because they were unhappy with their current situation and in their dealings with the British government. The Kurds revolted a year later.
The British government attempted to establish a Kurdish protectorate in the region and so appointed a popular leader of the region, which was how Mahmud became governor of southern Kurdistan.
Mahmud was a very ambitious Kurdish national leader and promoted the idea of Kurds controlling their own state and gaining independence from the British. As Charles Tripp relates, the British appointed him governor of Sulaimaniah in southern Kurdistan as a way of gaining an indirect rule in this region. The British wanted this indirect rule with the popular Mahmud at the helm, which they believed would give them a face and a leader to control and calm the region. However, with a little taste of power, Mahmud had ambitions for more for himself and for the Kurdish people. He was declared "King of Kurdistan" and claimed to be the ruler of all Kurds, but the opinion of Mahmud among Kurds was mixed because he was becoming too powerful and ambitious for some.
Mahmud hoped to create Kurdistan and initially the British allowed Mahmud to pursue his ambitions because he was bringing the region and people together under indirect British control. However, by 1920 Mahmud, to British displeasure, was using his power against the British by arresting British officials in the Kurd region and starting uprisings against the British. As historian Kevin McKierman writes, "The rebellion lasted until Mahmud was wounded in combat, which occurred on the road between Kirkuk and Sulaimaniah. Captured by British forces, he was sentenced to death but later imprisoned in a British fort in Lahore." Mahmud remained in India until 1922.
With the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in October 1918, Barzanji sought to break away from the Ottomans and create an autonomous southern Kurdistan under British supervision. He was elected as the head of government by a council of Kurdish notables in the Sulaimaniya region, and as soon as the British captured Kirkuk (25 October 1918) he captured Ottoman troops present in his district and declared the end of Ottoman rule, pledging allegiance to Britain. Other Kurdish regions followed suit, such as Rania and Keuisenjaq.
The Ottoman position was that the region was still legally under their rule, despite the armistice. (Further information: Mosul Question) They did not recognize the Kurdish state. In contrast, British officials on the ground chose to accept Kurdish cooperation, despite officially lacking a well-defined policy on southern Kurdistan.