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

Prince Baderkhan the Great. It is very unfortunate to see
that this historical event repeated throughout the history
of our Kurdish society in the ancient and modern times.
The Revolution of Sheikh Ubaidullah Nehri and
the Kurdistan National Congress
In 1880, Sheikh Ubaidullah Nehri contacted the British
through the British General Consul in Anatolia asking
for international support to the cause of Kurdistan and
stressing that he would guarantee the rights for the
Christians in Kurdistan. In the same year, Sheikh
Ubaidullah held a Kurdistan National Congress in
Shamdinan and invited all the Kurdish leaders. This was
the greatest national congress in the Nineteenth century,
in which 220 tribal and religious leaders and
representatives of the regions of Sulaimany, Amedy,
Horaman, Botan, Sason, Sirt, Diarbakir, Moush, Van and
various areas of Eastern Kurdistan came together. During
the congress, Sheikh Ubaidullah declared his principal
aim, which was to establish a union between the Kurdish
tribes and preparation for a revolution against the Ottoman
and Iranian states. He spoke also about the necessity for
the independence of Kurdistan. Before the start of the
revolution, Sheikh Ubaidullah sent a letter to the Persian
ruler of Urmia informing him about the decision to declare
a Kurdish revolution. In his letter he mentioned the
reasons for the revolution, which were the cruel treatment
of the Kurdish tribes by the Iranian and Ottoman
authorities and that the Kurds in Iran and Ottoman state
“have decided to form one state …” His revolution
started in 1880 in the town of Shamdinan and involved
the forces of more than fifty thousand fighters. However,
the armies of Russia, Ottomans and Iran surrounded him
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