Reşwan, (; ) also known as Reşiyan, is a
Kurdish tribe, native to the western frontier of
Kurdistan
Kurdistan (, ; ), or Greater Kurdistan, is a roughly defined geo- cultural region in West Asia wherein the Kurds form a prominent majority population and the Kurdish culture, languages, and national identity have historically been based. G ...
,
mostly populating
Adıyaman,
Gaziantep
Gaziantep, historically Aintab and still informally called Antep, is a major city in south-central Turkey. It is the capital of the Gaziantep Province, in the westernmost part of Turkey's Southeastern Anatolia Region and partially in the Medi ...
,
Kahramanmaraş
Kahramanmaraş (), historically Marash (; ) and Germanicea (), is a city in the Mediterranean Region, Turkey, Mediterranean region of Turkey and the administrative centre of Kahramanmaraş Province, Kahramanmaraş province. After 1973, Maraş was ...
and
Malatya
Malatya (; ; Syriac language, Syriac ܡܠܝܛܝܢܐ Malīṭīná; ; Ancient Greek: Μελιτηνή) is a city in the Eastern Anatolia region of Turkey and the capital of Malatya Province. The city has been a human settlement for thousands of y ...
provinces in
Turkey
Turkey, officially the Republic of Türkiye, is a country mainly located in Anatolia in West Asia, with a relatively small part called East Thrace in Southeast Europe. It borders the Black Sea to the north; Georgia (country), Georgia, Armen ...
and also present in
Konya
Konya is a major city in central Turkey, on the southwestern edge of the Central Anatolian Plateau, and is the capital of Konya Province. During antiquity and into Seljuk times it was known as Iconium. In 19th-century accounts of the city in En ...
and
Ankara
Ankara is the capital city of Turkey and List of national capitals by area, the largest capital by area in the world. Located in the Central Anatolia Region, central part of Anatolia, the city has a population of 5,290,822 in its urban center ( ...
provinces,
Raqqa
Raqqa (, also , Kurdish language, Kurdish: ''Reqa'') is a city in Syria on the North bank of the Euphrates River, about east of Aleppo. It is located east of the Tabqa Dam, Syria's largest dam. The Hellenistic, Roman, and Byzantine city and b ...
in
Syria
Syria, officially the Syrian Arab Republic, is a country in West Asia located in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Levant. It borders the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Turkey to Syria–Turkey border, the north, Iraq to Iraq–Syria border, t ...
, and they live in
Gilan
Gilan Province () is one of the 31 provinces of Iran, in the northwest of the country and southwest of the Caspian Sea. Its capital is the city of Rasht. The province lies along the Caspian Sea, in Iran's Region 3, west of the province of ...
,
Khorasan province
Khorasan ( ; also transcribed as Khurasan, Xorasan and Khorassan), also called Traxiane during Hellenistic and Parthian Empire, Parthian times, was a Provinces of Iran, province in northeastern Iran until September 2004, when it was divided in ...
Qazvin Province citisies in
Iran
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) and also known as Persia, is a country in West Asia. It borders Iraq to the west, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Armenia to the northwest, the Caspian Sea to the north, Turkmenistan to the nort ...
. Members of the tribe mostly adhere to the
Hanafi
The Hanafi school or Hanafism is the oldest and largest Madhhab, school of Islamic jurisprudence out of the four schools within Sunni Islam. It developed from the teachings of the Faqīh, jurist and theologian Abu Hanifa (), who systemised the ...
school of
Islam
Islam is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the Quran, and the teachings of Muhammad. Adherents of Islam are called Muslims, who are estimated to number Islam by country, 2 billion worldwide and are the world ...
but some are
Alevi
Alevism (; ; ) is a syncretic heterodox Islamic tradition, whose adherents follow the mystical Islamic teachings of Haji Bektash Veli, who taught the teachings of the Twelve Imams, whilst incorporating some traditions from shamanism. Differing ...
.
Etymology
Nuh Ateş, a scholar and editor of Bîrnebûn, suggests that the name Reşwan is a compound of the
Kurdish words () and the plural form ''-ân''.
Stefan Winter argues Reşwan can be understood as "The Blacks" in Kurdish.
Nonetheless, the name of the tribe was written in over fifty different ways in
Ottoman documents due to erroneous translations from Kurdish. The tribe also goes by the name Reşî.
History
A tribe by the name of "Reşan" is mentioned in a
Yezidi mişûr (manuscript) from 1207 AD, as one of the tribes affiliated to Pir Sini Darani, a Yezidi saint who is represented as the Lord of sea in the
Yezidi religion. and today
Yezidis
Yazidis, also spelled Yezidis (; ), are a Kurdish-speaking endogamous religious group indigenous to Kurdistan, a geographical region in Western Asia that includes parts of Iraq, Syria, Turkey, and Iran. The majority of Yazidis remaining in ...
from the Reşwan tribe live in
Shengal and
Duhok, while some of them live in Turkey and neighboring countries.
The name of the tribe was recorded in the ''
defter
A ''defter'' was a type of tax register and land cadastre in the Ottoman Empire.
Etymology
The term is derived from Greek , literally 'processed animal skin, leather, fur', meaning a book, having pages of goat parchment used along with papyrus ...
'' for
Kahta,
Besni and
Adıyaman in 1519, after Sultan
Selim I
Selim I (; ; 10 October 1470 – 22 September 1520), known as Selim the Grim or Selim the Resolute (), was the List of sultans of the Ottoman Empire, sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1512 to 1520. Despite lasting only eight years, his reign is ...
conquered the area. The tribe was recorded again in 1524 and 1536. During this period, there were inconsistencies about which families were part of the tribe and its population. Nonetheless, they were mainly
transhumant nomadic and engaged in agriculture as well.
Reşwan Kurds are mentioned in the geography book
Cihannuma, which began being written in 1648 by the Ottoman intellectual,
Katip Çelebi. He describes Reşwan Kurds as
Yazidis
Yazidis, also spelled Yezidis (; ), are a Kurdish languages, Kurdish-speaking Endogamy, endogamous religious group indigenous to Kurdistan, a geographical region in Western Asia that includes parts of Iraq, Syria, Turkey, and Iran. The major ...
who live in
Ufacıḳlı,
Baḳrāṣlı and
Behisnī. Additionally, it is mentioned that most of the people of
Malatya
Malatya (; ; Syriac language, Syriac ܡܠܝܛܝܢܐ Malīṭīná; ; Ancient Greek: Μελιτηνή) is a city in the Eastern Anatolia region of Turkey and the capital of Malatya Province. The city has been a human settlement for thousands of y ...
are Kurds and that one of their clans in these parts are "mischievous rebels" and "highway robbers".
Somewhen in the 17th century, the earliest mention is from 1683, the tribes taxes were included into the Ottoman foundation financing the construction and maintenance of the
Atik Valide Mosque.
According to
Johann Ludwig Burckhardt
Johann Ludwig (also known as John Lewis, Jean Louis) Burckhardt (24 November 1784 – 15 October 1817) was a Swiss traveller, geographer and Orientalist. Burckhardt assumed the alias ''Sheikh Ibrahim Ibn Abdallah'' during his travels in Arabia ...
, Reşwans were often in contact and at war with nearby
Turkoman tribes, who didn't hold the Reşwans in esteem.
During the 1890s, the leader of the tribe Yakup Ragıp protected
Armenians
Armenians (, ) are an ethnic group indigenous to the Armenian highlands of West Asia.Robert Hewsen, Hewsen, Robert H. "The Geography of Armenia" in ''The Armenian People From Ancient to Modern Times Volume I: The Dynastic Periods: From Antiq ...
from Ottoman massacres.
Sedentarization in Central Anatolia (1830–1880)
In early 19th century, Reşwan members who lived a nomadic life around
Ankara
Ankara is the capital city of Turkey and List of national capitals by area, the largest capital by area in the world. Located in the Central Anatolia Region, central part of Anatolia, the city has a population of 5,290,822 in its urban center ( ...
and
Konya
Konya is a major city in central Turkey, on the southwestern edge of the Central Anatolian Plateau, and is the capital of Konya Province. During antiquity and into Seljuk times it was known as Iconium. In 19th-century accounts of the city in En ...
were subjected to sedentarization attempts by the Ottomans, as part of the
Tanzimat
The (, , lit. 'Reorganization') was a period of liberal reforms in the Ottoman Empire that began with the Edict of Gülhane of 1839 and ended with the First Constitutional Era in 1876. Driven by reformist statesmen such as Mustafa Reşid Pash ...
. The first attempt took place in 1830, wherein the authorities notified the Reşwan headmen of the
Central Anatolian plains regarding their plans to settle them around
Sivas
Sivas is a city in central Turkey. It is the seat of Sivas Province and Sivas District.[İl Beledi ...]
. This led to discontent among the leaders who suggested Konya and Ankara as areas of settlement, which the Ottomans agreed on. In other places, the tribe resisted and it is well-documented that they would bribe and even give up everything to continue their semi-nomadic life. During the sedentarization, authorities would both construct new villages for the tribe but also divide and distribute them to already-existing villages to mitigate any rebellion. An 1859 document shows that about 500 households of the tribe lived in
Haymana, being sedentarized in 43 villages. By 1880, this section of the tribe had been sedentarized. These tribe members were originally from Adıyaman,
Islahiye and
Gaziantep Province
Gaziantep Province () is a Provinces of Turkey, province and Metropolitan municipalities in Turkey, metropolitan municipality in south-central Turkey. It is located in the westernmost part of Turkey's Southeastern Anatolia Region and partially in ...
.
Politics and elections
In the 2000s, the tribe mainly voted for the conservative
Justice and Development Party (AKP)
until 2014, when the well-known Reşvan Kurdish politician
Dengir Mir Mehmet Fırat resigned from AKP and decided to run for the pro-Kurdish
Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) in the local election in 2015. The leaders of the tribe decided to vote for HDP in the
general election
A general election is an electoral process to choose most or all members of a governing body at the same time. They are distinct from By-election, by-elections, which fill individual seats that have become vacant between general elections. Gener ...
in June 2015.
See also
*
Kurdish tribes
Kurdish tribes are tribes of Kurds, Kurdish people, an ethnic group from the geo-cultural region of Kurdistan in West Asia, Western Asia.
The tribes are socio-political and generally also a territorial unit based on descent and kinship, real or ...
*
Kurds of Central Anatolia
*
Çelikhan
*
Sincik
Notes
Bibliography
*
Further reading
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Resvan (Kurdish tribe)
History of the Kurdish people
History of Adıyaman Province
History of Ankara Province
History of Konya Province
Kurdish tribes