The Kurdish presence in Islamic history was not a matter of mere followership; Kurdish scholars and Sufis actively participated in founding Sufi orders, renewing others, shaping methodologies of Hadith, jurisprudence (Fiqh), and exegesis (Tafsir), and building educational networks that extended from Kurdistan, Anatolia, and the Levant to the Hijaz and Southeast Asia. However, reducing these figures to their cities of residence and languages of authorship, along with the reshaping of some of their lineages under religious and political legitimacy pressures, contributed to obscuring a portion of this presence. When knowledge is attributed solely to the centers that received it, the environments that birthed its practitioners and contributed to their formation are lost.
Reclaiming this history requires tracing works, scholarly authorizations (Ijāzāt), chains of spiritual mentorship (Silsilas), languages of instruction, and social ties alongside lineages, while distinguishing between the founder, the renewer, and the architect of spread. A scholar’s Kurdish identity is not erased by writing in Arabic, nor is their contribution diminished because they did not found a school of thought bearing their name. Likewise, the absence of Kurdish affiliation from a common narrative is insufficient to deny it; this very absence may itself be the result of a history worthy of research and critical inquiry.
Among the oldest of these spiritual networks is the Wafa’iyya, traced back to Abu al-Wafa Taj al-Arifin al-Baghdadi (d. 1107). Accounts regarding his origins vary, including reports of a Kurdish lineage; however, the Kurdish presence in the expansion of his order transcends the dispute over the founder’s lineage. Among his successors were Ali al-Kurdi, Mu’adh al-Kurdi, and Jakir al-Kurdi. Its networks extended across Iraq, Syria, and Anatolia, intersecting with religious and social circles that later contributed to the formation of the Babai movements. This highlights the inadequacy of narratives that restrict these currents exclusively to the Turkmen element and obscure the Kurdish partnership in the transmission of teachings and the formation of communities.
The Qadiriyya, attributed to Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani (c. 1077–1166), represents one of the broadest domains of interaction between Sufism and Kurdish society. Accounts regarding his origins and lineage vary, requiring research to distinguish between familial affiliation and the linguistic and social environment; Alid lineage and belonging to a Kurdish environment are not necessarily contradictory accounts. However, the status of Kurds within the Qadiriyya does not depend on resolving this matter; its lodges (Takiyas) and religious families in Kurdistan became centers for guidance, education, and social influence, contributing to the order’s continuity and the adaptation of its presence to societal needs. Foundation is merely the beginning of history, and the communities that provide the order with continuity are partners in its shaping.
In the Rifa’iyya, attributed to Ahmad al-Rifa’i (1118–1182), another level of this presence emerges. The spread of Rifa’i lodges and leaderships among the Kurds falls within the history of the transmission of spiritual authority, knowledge, and religious practices, regardless of the dispute surrounding the founder’s origin. Authorizations and chains of mentorship allow for the study of how the order was transmitted across environments, as well as what Kurdish communities added to its practice and continuity. Here, research advances from counting followers to tracing the architects of spread.
In the sphere where the Mevlevi order developed around the heritage of Jalal al-Din Rumi (1207–1273), Husam al-Din Chalabi (d. 1284), who hailed from a Kurdish family connected to Urmia, stands out. He was linked to the proposal to compose the Mathnawi, as well as transcribing and reviewing Rumi’s dictations, later succeeding him in leading the community. This role restores Husam al-Din to the history of text production and school building, rather than leaving him on the margins of the author’s biography. A great work is inseparable from the network of dialogue, transcription, and patronage that enabled its emergence and continuity.
From this perspective, the issue of the origin of Rumi or Shams Tabrizi is also read; attribution to Rum or Tabriz alone does not settle national affiliation. Research into family, language, formation, and teachers remains legitimate, without projecting modern state borders and official identities onto older, more intertwined affiliations. However, reclaiming Husam al-Din’s role offers, in itself, a clear entry point into the Kurdish partnership in this heritage, independent of tying the entire presence to the nationality of Rumi or Shams.
The Safaviyya provides a specific testament to the impact of authority in rewriting lineages. Safi al-Din al-Ardabili (1252–1334) founded the order that bore his name, and studies present his family’s Kurdish origin. The study of copies of Safwat al-Safa reveals later alterations aimed at obscuring this origin and establishing a lineage connecting the family to the Imams. Here, altering lineage becomes part of legitimacy building; the founder’s memory is rewritten to serve the position of his successors. Nevertheless, the Sheikh’s early teachings remain distinct from the Shi’ite and military transformations the order underwent in later generations, as its dynamic history cannot be reduced to a single, static identity.
In the Bektashi order, attributed to Haji Bektash Veli (d. c. 1270–1271), Khorasani and Anatolian narratives intermingle with later hagiographical accounts. The Khorasani attribution does not definitively resolve the founder’s origin, but it places him within a broad sphere of intellectual and communal transmission. The interconnected ties among the Bektashiyya, Wafa’iyya, and Yarsan (Ahl-e Haqq) traditions open the door to studying the interaction between Kurdish, Turkmen, and other environments. Furthermore, the order acquired core characteristics after the Sheikh’s death; thus, its later identity cannot be fully projected onto his person or onto all contributors to its formation.
The Khalidiyya branch of the Naqshbandiyya offers a clear example of a Kurdish renewer’s capacity to reshape a global order. The Naqshbandiyya traces back to Baha al-Din Naqshband al-Bukhari (1318–1389), whereas Mawlana Khalid al-Shahrazuri al-Baghdadi (1779–1827), from Qaradagh near Sulaymaniyah, established the Khalidi branch and expanded its network through deputies and guidance centers. His impact went beyond transmitting teachings to reorganizing their dissemination and influence across Kurdistan, Anatolia, and the Levant. Thus, the Kurdish environment transformed into a center for renewing the order and exporting its authority, having previously been a recipient of it.
Kurdish contributions were not limited to Sufi orders. In Shafi’i jurisprudence and the sciences of Hadith stands Ibn al-Salah al-Shahrazuri (1181–1245), whose biography notes his Kurdish origin and his upbringing in a scholarly family in Shahrazur. His Muqaddimah in Hadith sciences became a foundational reference followed by abridgments, commentaries, and versifications. His importance lies in his contribution to organizing the tools for classifying and evaluating narrations—that is, in crafting a methodology utilized by broad Islamic schools of thought, with an impact extending far beyond his homeland and school of jurisprudence.
The profile of Ibn Taymiyyah (1263–1328) arises within research into the origins of influential figures in sectarian development. Kurdish scholar Ahmad Khalil cited Muhammad Abu Zahra regarding the probability of his Kurdish origin. Examining this possibility requires returning to his text, arguments, and comparing them with biographical and genealogical sources; it should neither be dismissed simply because it diverges from the prevailing narrative, nor presented as a settled conclusion. As for Ibn Taymiyyah’s impact on the movement led by Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab (1703–1792), it illustrates the extension of his heritage into a later current, requiring a distinction between the figure’s origin, the content of his ideas, and the identity of the group that reclaimed and deployed those ideas.
In the fifteenth century, Mulla Ahmad al-Kurani (1410–1488) exemplified the movement of Kurdish scholars between major centers and schools of thought. Trained in Shafi’i jurisprudence, he later operated within the Ottoman Hanafi sphere, leaving behind compositions, commentaries, and educational contributions. His biography reveals the Kurdish scholar’s participation in forming and reproducing the scholarly institution, whereas reducing him solely to his connection with sultans weakens his intellectual position and obscures his formative path.
Later, Ibrahim al-Kurani (1616–1690) emerged, moving to Medina and combining Hadith, Sufism, and theological inquiry. He addressed the ideas of Ibn Arabi and the unity of existence (Wahdat al-Wujud), influencing scholars and students, including Abd al-Rauf al-Singkili, a key transmitter of Islamic knowledge to the Indonesian realm. This connection reveals the extension of Kurdish contributions through transoceanic scholarly networks. When al-Kurani is presented merely as a Medinan scholar, the center of his activity is highlighted while the environment from which he originated recedes into the margins of his biography.
Muhammad ibn Sulayman al-Kurani (1715–1780) continued this presence within the Shafi’i authority in Medina and its connections to Southeast Asia. His works and legal rulings (Fatwas) reached students in that region, including Al-Durrah al-Bahiyyah fi Jawab al-As’ilah al-Jawiyyah (The Splendid Pearl in Answering Javanese Questions). This correspondence and these answers reveal a reciprocal scholarly relationship: questions coming from distant societies, and an authoritative source contributing to guiding their jurisprudential life. Through these exchanges, the impact of Kurdish scholars in shaping religious practice outside Kurdistan can be traced.
In the modern era, Bediüzzaman Said Nursi (1878–1960), known during a period of his life as Said al-Kurdi, represents a transition to another form of influence. Around the Risale-i Nur, a vast movement for reading, education, and faith revival emerged. His authority transcended the boundaries of traditional Sufi orders and jurisprudential schools, entering into the formation of modern religious and social consciousness. His experience demonstrates the enduring capacity of the Kurdish environment to produce figures who reshape the tools of religious discourse and organize its dissemination.
On the frontiers of categorizing Islamic sects lies Yarsanism, also known as Ahl-e Haqq, and Kaka’i in the Iraqi context, with variations in usage and definition among groups and regions. Sultan Sahak occupies a foundational position in its traditions, and its religious memory is linked to Hawraman, Goran, and its Gorani literature. Addressing it requires considering how its followers define themselves and avoiding reducing it to a subordinate branch of a ready-made sectarian classification. It constitutes an essential part of Kurdish religious history and the study of its interactions with Sufism, Shi’ism, and regional traditions.
These paths reveal that the Kurdish presence encompassed foundation, renewal, transcription, and the construction of networks for dissemination, and that Kurdistan was an environment for producing religious knowledge alongside receiving and reshaping it. They also reveal that the identities that reached us were not all preserved outside the influence of power; some were reconstructed, some were reduced to the author’s language or place of residence, and others vanished with the decline of the institutions that carried their memory.
Reclaiming this presence requires subjecting both inherited and alternative narratives to a single critical standard: investigating supporting evidence alongside the circumstances of suppression and reassignment together. A history that marginalized the Kurds is not corrected by repeating it, but rather by exposing the mechanisms of its recording, and recovering the names of those who contributed to its making and their roles that extended beyond the borders of Kurdistan.
United States of America
10/18/2026 CE
Note: This text is translated from the original Arabic version. Read the Arabic version:Click here
