p. 240 | Kurds and Turks

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Apr 13, 1915

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 42, No. 15.

Kurds and Turks

THE Armenian and Syrian Christians are just now menaced by the Kurds. Kurdistan is a tract of country lying partly in Turkey in Asia and partly in Persia, having an area of 50,000 square miles, a little larger than New York State. Its population is said to be 3,000,000. It is a mountainous country, inhabited chiefly by Kurds, nomadic and agricultural, of Indo-Germanic stock, but barbarous and savage. Their religion is a low form of Mohammedanism. They are nominally under Turkey and Persia, though really under their own chiefs; and at such a time as this, with Turkey at war, the Kurds break over all restraints, and rob and pillage and murder their ancient enemies the Armenians. Legally, Turkey is held to control them, but it seems almost impossible when she is fighting for her life. The attacks by the Kurds, however, ought not to be laid to the door of the Turks.