When did the word Kurdistan appear?
When did the word Kurdistan first appear? How? Why? Which person, group, side, or political administration used this word first? Did Kurds choose this word themselves? Or did other nations choose this term for the Kurds?
The word Kurdistan consists of two words: Kurd and Stan. Kurd is a meaningful (a morpheme is the smallest linguistic unit that has semantic meaning); Stan, unlike the old days, is a suffix with no meaning nowadays.
Stan is a Seljuk word that was used in the Seljuks Era (from 995 onward) meaning "State." The word Stan generally means place nowadays.
In the Persian language, the letter S is hardly pronounced at the beginning of words. When the Persians pronounce a word that begins with S, they put the A or U sound at the beginning of it. For example, when they want to say school, they pronounce it as aschool or Ischool. I believe the word Ustan in the Persian language is the same as Stan. The Seljuks used this word to nominate the autonomous regions that they administered.
So, Stan was Ustan for Seljuks, a political-administrative term that meant State. Clearly, the Persian Ustan means governorate nowadays. The Persians derived the word Ustandar from the Western Azerbaijan Stan and Eastern Azerbaijan Stan. Ustandar means governor or state ruler.
During the 10th and 13th centuries, when the Seljuks separated a center, nation, or an ethnic group from the others and gave them an administrative autonomous region, they added the suffix Stan or Ustan. For example, they used Hindustani, the State of Hindis; Afghanistan, the State of Afghans; Arab`istan, the State of Arabs.
From 995 onward, the Seljuk Turks reached eastern Iran and occupied it. Later, in 1029, they conquered Iranian Kurdistan, and then they also occupied Mosul in 1056 and Anatolia in 1077. Thus, we can say that the 11th and 12th centuries were the era of Seljuks in the history of Kurdistan. They also spread the Seljuk culture in Kurdistan.
Al-Tanukhi, in the 10th century, used the phrase Lisan Al-Akrad (the language of the Kurds), but he didn't use the word Kurdistan. This means that before the year 900, the Kurdish language existed and was recognized by Arabs and other neighbors.
Ibn-Wahshia Al-Nabati (324-346 AH) in the book Shawq Al-Mustaham Fi Mahrifat Rmuz Al-Aqlam, in 312 AH, says: "In Baghdad city I saw three volumes of a Kurdish book. Now, I have two volumes of this book; one of them talks about edification and planting date trees, and the other is about discovering water in waterless places. I have translated these volumes of this book into Arabic." In the same way, Ibn-Wahshia didn't mention the word of Kurdistan. During 950-1050, the book One Thousand and One Nights talked about Kurds in many places (vol. 1, pp. 609-623; vol. 2, pp. 242-295). In 957, Maamun Begi Sharazur wrote Memoirs of Mamun Beg to Sultan Murad III in Turkish. He talked about Kurds in many places, but didn't mention the word Kurdistan. In 977, Ibn-Huqil, a Muslim geographer, identified the Kurdish geographical place in one of his geographical books, The Image of the Earth. Mashati Al-Akrad wa Masaifhum mentioned the name of Kurds in a geographical book called Geography of Eastern Nations without using the word Kurdistan.
From the 9th-14th centuries, many other Muslim scientists and travelers mentioned the name Kurd. For instance, Al-Tabari (838-923) talked about Caliphate Marwan that was Kurdish in origin (Kitab Akhbar Al-Rusul wa Muluk [parts 1 and 3, p. 51]); Al Yaqubi (906); Al-Astakhri (who died in 951); Al-Massudi (957) gave us some information about Kurdish tribes in the book Marwaj Al-Dhahab, published in 1965; Aba Dilf Bin Al-Muhalhal Al-Khazraji in 951 visited Kirmanshan and talked about the skill of a Kurdish carpenter on the walls of Qasri Shireen and the life of Kurdish cities; Al-Muqadasi (1048), Ibn Al-Bulkhi (1106); and others.
During the 10th-11th centuries, all of them talked about Kurdish people and the word Kurds, but they never mentioned the name Kurdistan. This is clear evidence that the word Kurdistan did not exist then. No text, either in the Kurdish language or in Western languages, mentioned the word Kurdistan until 1150.
Mahmud Al-Ghashqari, a Muslim geographer, was living in the mid 11th century in Kazhghar district. In 1076, he drew a geographical-political map on Asian countries and ethnic groups, and he published it in the book Diwan Lughat al-Turk in the Ottoman language. In this map, he mentioned the name of Kurdish people and the Kurdish country; the Kurdish state is called the Kurdish Land. This map is considered the second geographical map to mention the name of Kurdish people as a nation. But Al-Ghashqari did not mention the word Kurdistan, and we can conclude that until 1076, Kurdistan as a term had not become an administrative-political term.
How did the word Kurdistan come into being in 1150?
In 1150, the Seljuk Sultan Sanjar was obliged to separate the eastern part of Jibal Region (Kuhistan) and establish an autonomous region for the Kurds because of the Kurdish disagreement and demonstration against the tax system. Thus, Sultan Sanjar separated the eastern part of Jibal region and then named it Kurd Ustani, or the Kurdish State. The cities and towns of this new Ustan were Kirmanshan, Chamchamal, Kingawar, Dinawar, Alishtar, Bestun, Harsin, Krind, Hilwan, Sharazur, Sisar, Mahidasht, Sultan, Abad, Bahar, and others.
Later on, Sultan Sanjar asked his nephew, Suleiman Pasha, to manage this new Ustan during the years 1156-61. After that, his uncle took the administration of this Ustan and became the Sultan of the Arabic Iraq and Ajam Iraq. The city of Bahar, eight miles north of Hamadan city, was the capital city of Kurd Ustan. Later, Sultan Abad, which was close to Chamchamal and Bestun Mountain, became the capital city of Kurd Ustani.
From here, we conclude that Seljuk Sultan Sanjar gave autonomy to the Kurds of these districts and used the word Kurd Ustani; this term became an administrative-political term.
Gradually, after that period of time, the word Kurd Ustani, like Hind Ustani, Afghan Ustani, Arab Ustani, etc., became Hindustan, Afghanistan, Arabistan, Kurdistan?etc., after many phonetic changes during post-Seljuk periods.
Italian traveler Marco Polo (1254-1324) was one of the earliest Western travelers to talk about the State of Kurdistan and describe it. Forty-one years after Marco Polo, Hamdalla Mistawfi Al-Qazwini (1349) mentioned the name of this state in the book Nazhat Al-Qlub. After that, the term Kurdistan was widely used in the area.
What is worth mentioning is that this Seljuk Ustan, like many other Ustans of Iran, is still seen in the administrative-political map of the Islamic Republic of Iran. An Ustan under the name Kurdistan still exists that includes the cities of Sina, Saqiz, and other districts.
What is strange is that nowadays the Iranian people say Kurdistan Ustan. They don't know that Kurdistan means Kurd Ustan and there is no need to say Ustan twice, because Stan and Ustan have the same meaning.
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