Kurdistan and The Kurds A Divided Homeland and a Nation without ...

conquering the Assyrian Empire and in taking over its
capital Ninveh in 612 BC. By doing this, he lay the
foundations of the great Median Kurdish Empire and
that is the start of the Kurdish calendar, the 1st of Nawroz,
corresponding to the 21st of March, which became the
Kurdish New Year. The country was in the height of its
glory during his reign and its borders extended from
Bakhtriana-Bukhara in the East to the river Qezil Ermaq
in the West and from the Caspian Sea in the North to the
Persian Gulf in the South. The Empire lasted until 550
BC until it fell by the hand of the Akhmini King – Korsh.
After that, Alexander the Macedonian defeated Kurdistan
as one of the many Eastern countries he conquered.
The Greek Historian and Army General Xenophon
refers to the Kurdish people as Kardokhoy in his book
(Anabasis–Return of the Ten Thousand). He describes
the trials and tribulations suffered by his ten thousand
head army at the hands of the Kardokhoy people on its
way back after his battle with the Persians. In the Zakho
pass they were defeated and were driven all the way to
Trebizond in an unending battle. Xenophon also writes
in his book that: “The Kardokhoy people will never submit
to the Persians or obey them. One of the Persian kings
had once marched on them with a huge army of one
hundred and twenty thousand soldiers and the Kardokhoy
people had destroyed them completely.”
God the Almighty bears Holy witness to the Kurdish
people’s valour in the holy Koran. According to the scholar
Mahmoud Al Alousi’s eminent interpretation, like many
other prominent interpreters’ words, in the Al-Fatih Surat
of the Koran we read the following compassionate verse:
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