Before Islam, the majority of Kurds followed a western Iranic pre-Zoroastrian faith which derived directly from Indo-Iranian tradition, some elements of this faith survived in Yezidism, Yarsanism and Kurdish Alevism.
Kurds lost their lands when the Ottoman Empire took over most Kurdish-held territory in the 1500s. Kurds were mostly nomadic until the end of World War I and the breakup of the Ottoman Empire.
Kurds have never achieved nation-state status, making Kurdistan a non-governmental region and one of the largest stateless nations in the world.
The 1916 Sykes-Picot agreement divides the Middle East into British and French zones of influence and delineates the borders of the modern Middle East. After World War One and the defeat of the Ottoman Empire, the victorious Western allies made provision for a Kurdish state in the 1920 Treaty of Sevres.
Such hopes were dashed three years later, however, when the Treaty of Lausanne, which set the boundaries of modern Turkey, made no provision for a Kurdish state. Since then, the Kurds have made multiple attempts to set up their own state, but their efforts have been in vain.
Kurds make up about 10% of the population in Syria, 19% of the population of Turkey, 15-20% of the population of Iraq and are one of the largest ethnic minorities in Iran.
History of Kurdish people
