Sheikh Said
Sheikh Said was a Zaza Kurd religious leader, one of the leading sheikhs of the Naqshbandi order and the head of the Sheikh Said rebellion.
He was born around 1865 in Hınıs or Palu, into an influential family of the Naqshbandi order, where his grandfather was an influential sheikh. Sheikh Said studied religious sciences at the madrasa led by his father Sheikh Mahmud Fevzi as well from several Islamic scholars in the region. Later he was involved in the local tekke set up by his grandfather Sheikh Ali. His grandfather was a respected leader of the religious community and his grave was visited by thousands of pilgrims. He became the head of the religious community after his father Sheikh Mahmud died. In 1907 he toured the neighboring provinces in the east and he established contacts with officers from the Hamidiye cavalry.
Early life
Sheikh Said was born around 1865 in Hınıs or Palu to a Sunni Zaza family. His father was named Sheikh Mahmud Fevzi and his mother was Gulê Hanım. After receiving education at several Madrasa in Palu, Elazığ, Diyarbakır and Muş, he became the leader of the Naqshbandi order upon the death of his father. Sheikh Said spoke beside Zazaki, Northern Kurdish, Turkish, Arabic, and Persian fluently. He settled there after his father migrated from Palu to Hınıs. During World War I, he had to move to Pîran due to the advance of the Russian Empire into the Eastern Anatolia region, and after the war he settled to Hınıs.Sheikh Said married Amine Hanım. Amine Hanım became ill and died when the family migrated from Hınıs to Dicle due to the Russo-Turkish War. After his first wife died, Sheikh Said married Fatma Hanım, the sister of Halid Beg Cibran, one of the leaders of the Kurdish Colonel Hamidiye Regiments. Güllü Hanım, who was also Halid Bey's sister, was married to Major Kasım Ataç who betrayed Sheikh Said after the revolt was suppressed.
Sheikh Said had ten children with Fatma Hanım, five girls and five boys. His grandson Ali Rıza Efendi, entered the Turkish Grand National Assembly as an independent deputy from Erzurum in 1973.
Society for Kurdish Independence
The Azadî, officially Society for Kurdish Freedom, later Society for Kurdish Independence was a Kurdish secret organization which strived for Kurdish independency in all parts of Kurdistan. Various statements are made about the founding date of the Azadi, such as 1921, 1922 and 1923.In 1923, Sheikh Said was approached by Yusuf Zia Bey, who wanted him to join the Kurdish secret organization Azadî. He became the leader of the Azadî after Zia Bey and Halid Beg Cibran, the leader of the Azadî, were among 21 other members reportedly tipped off by the Yörük tribe and arrested. Sheikh Said became the new leader.
During its first General Congress in 1924, in which several commanders from the Hamidye cavalry and also Sheikh Said took part, it was decided that the Kurds should revolt against the newly established secular Kemalist Turkish Republic. The Azadi was to become a leading force in the Sheikh Said Rebellion which began in February 1925 and starting from in Piran, soon spread as far as the surroundings of Diyarbakır.
The rebellion
Prior to Sheikh Said's rebellion, the prominent Pashas of the War of Independence worried about the anti-religious and autocratic policy of Atatürk's government and therefore on 17 November 1924, the Terakkiperver Cumhuriyet Fırkası, the first opposition party in the history of the Republic, was established. There was a general consensus that Atatürk's actions were against religion. In the TCF's article which was led by Kazım Karabekir it says that "The political party is respectful to the religious beliefs and thoughts". One of the TCF officials, Fethi Bey, said "The members of the TCF are religious. CHF is messing up with the religion, we will save the religion and protect it".Two weeks before the Sheikh Said incident, in late January 1925, the TCF Erzurum deputy Ziyaeddin Efendi, with heavy criticism of the actions of the ruling CHF in the chair of the Grand National Assembly, said that 'innovation' had led to the encouragement of "isret", an increase in prostitution, Muslim women losing their decency and, most important of all, religious customs being dishonored and disregarded by the new regime. The Azadî forces under the lead of Halid Beg Cibran were dominated by the former members of the late Ottoman era Hamidiye regiments, a Kurdish tribal militia established during the reign of Sultan Abdul Hamid II to deal with the Armenians, and sometimes even to keep the Qizilbash under control. According to various historians, the main reason the revolt took place was that various elements of the Turkish society were unhappy with the Turkish Parliament's abolition of the Ottoman Caliphate on 3 March 1924. According to British intelligence reports, the Azadî officers had 11 grievances. Apart from Kurdish cultural demands and complaints of Turkish maltreatment, this list also detailed fears of imminent mass deportations of Kurds. They also registered annoyance that the name Kurdistan did not appear on maps, at restrictions on the Kurdish language and on Kurdish education and objections to alleged Turkish economic exploitation of Kurdish areas, at the expense of Kurds. The revolt was preceded by the smaller and less successful Beytüssebap revolt in September 1924, led by Cibran and Ihsan Nuri on the orders by the prominent Azadî member Ziya Yusuf Bey. The revolt was subdued, and its leaders Cibran and Ziya Yusuf Bey were captured and courtmartialed in Bitlis.
The Azadi was to become a leading force in the Sheikh Said Rebellion which began in February 1925 and starting from in Piran, soon spread as far as the surroundings of Diyarbakır. In 1924, Yusuf Ziya was arrested. Yusuf Ziya Bey, who confessed to the organization were Sheikh Said along with Halid Beg Cibran, Hasananlı Halit and Hacı Musa. Traveling to the tribes in the eastern provinces, Sheikh Said made propaganda saying that the Republic and Mustafa Kemal Atatürk were irreligious, that Islam, marriage, chastity and honour, and the Quran would be abolished with the laws passed, and that the lords and Hodjas would be executed or exiled.
Sheikh Said appealed to all Muslims of Turkey to join in the rebellion being planned. The tribes which actually participated were mostly Kurds. Kurds of the Xormak and Herkî, two Kurdish-Qizilbash tribes were the most active and effective opponents of this rebellion. experience in confronting the Turkish government. The Azadî, and several officers from the Ottoman empire have supported the rebellion. Robert Olson states that viewing the several sources, a number of 15'000 rebels is about the average of the involved rebels in the revolt.
The men of his brother-in-law, Colonel Halit Beg, said that they would inform the League of Nations, that there were no state military forces in the region and that they could easily capture the region. He prepared a fatwa of rebellion against the Republic and the revolutions and wrote that the lives and property of those who supported the revolutions were halal. He sent the fatwa to the elders of the tribes. The Hormekî tribe in Varto announced that they would not comply with the uprising because they were pro-state. When Sheikh Said was invited to the Bitlis War Court to testify, he did not go to testify because he was old and sick, and his statement was taken in Hınıs. After wandering around Diyarbakır, Bingöl, Ergani and Genç regions for about a month, he settled in his brother's house in Dicle on February 13, 1925. The uprising started ahead of schedule due to the conflict that broke out in Piran over the gendarmerie's attempt to arrest 5 criminals.
Following the suppression of the Beytüssebap revolt, the Turks attempted to prevent an other rebellion. In February 1925, they moved into the Piran area to detain some Kurdish notables, but were prevented by from it by men loyal to Sheikh Said. The intrusion by the Turkish army provoked Kurds around Sheikh Said, and reportedly they have either killed or arrested all the Turkish officers in the areas under their control. On 13 February 1925, Sheikh Said addressed the people in his sermon in the Piran mosque and stated:
Sheikh Said was elected as the next commander of the Kurdish independence movement gathered around Azadî and Darhini was declared the capital of Kurdistan on the 14 February 1925. Sheikh Said, who had taken the governor and the other officers captive while charging against Darhini, tried to gather the movement under a single center with a declaration urging the people to rise up in the name of Islam. In this statement, he used his seal which means 'the leader of the fighters for the sake of religion' and called everyone to fight for the sake of religion. Initially, the rebellion was initiated on behalf of the Islamic Sharia, but was later converted to the Kurdish independence movement. The rebellion soon expanded and by 20 February, the town Lice, where the 5th Army corps was headquartered was captured. Sheikh Said had invited Kurdish scholar Said Nursi to join the rebellion, although Said Nursi had rejected and criticised it. Despite his tensions with Sheikh Said, he was mistaken for Sheikh Said and targeted on many occasions. Said Nursi opposed Kurdish independence and advocated for the revival of the Ottoman Empire.
After receiving the support of the tribes of Mistan, Botan and Mhallami, he headed to Diyarbakır via Genç and Çapakçur and captured Maden, Siverek and Ergani. Another uprising, directed by Sheikh Abdullah attempted to capture Muş coming from Hınıs. But the rebels were defeated around Murat bridge and made them to retreat. On 21 February, the government declared martial law in the eastern provinces. Army troops sent to the insurgents on 23 February were forced to retreat to Diyarbakir in the Winter Plain against the Sheikh Said forces. The next day, another uprising under the leadership of Sheikh Sharif, who entered Elazığ, kept the city under control for a short time. Elazığ was looted by rebels for several days. At the 1 of March, the Kurds managed to assault the Diyarbakır airport and destroy three of the airplanes.
In one of the bigger engagements, in the night of 6–7 March, the forces of Sheikh Said laid siege to the city of Diyarbakır
By the end of March, most of the major battles of the Sheikh Said rebellion were over. The Turkish authorities, according to Martin van Bruinessen, crushed the rebellion with continual aerial bombardments and a massive concentration of forces. The rebels were unable to penetrate beyond Hınıs, this was one of the two major areas where Sheikh Said was well known and he enjoyed considerable influence there. This failure excluded the possibility of extending the rebellion.
On the other hand, Hasan Hayri Efendi, who was Dersim Deputy and Alevi Zaza, entered into solidarity with Sheikh Sharif, appointed by Sheikh Said as Commander of the Elaziz Front. A joint letter with Sheikh Sharif in Elaziz was sent to all the tribal leaders of Dersim on 6 March 1925.
The Turkish army then opposed the rebellion and he was captured in mid-April 1925 after having been surrounded by the Turkish troops. He was condemned to death by the Independence Tribunal in Diyarbakır on the 28 June 1925 and hanged the next day in Diyarbakır with 47 of his followers. Sheikh Said remains were buried in an anonymous mass grave in order to prevent his memorization by the Kurds.