7 FACTS about the Kurds and Kurdistan
1. Historical evidence show clearly that eponyms such as Qardu, Kardu, Corduene, Kardukh that appear in much earlier historical records, are not accepted linguistically (scholarly) as direct linguistic ancestors to the modern ethnonym Kurd.
2. Until the Sassanid Dynasty (3rd-7th centuries) there is no mention of distinct people known under this exact term of Kurds.
3. The Sassanids applied the Middle Persian term Kwrt for the first time onto ALL the nomads of the Zagros Mountains. The term functioned more like a social category that was synonymous with tent-dwellers or nomads.
4. With the birth of Islam (7th century), the conversion of Kurds to Islam and mixing with the Arabs, the term Kwrt evolved and was adopted by the Arabs as singular Kurd and plural Akrad.
5. Through early Islam, the terms Kurd and Akrad reflected nomad/nomads and in some records as bandit(s) and robber(s).
6. Around the 10th – 12th centuries, as these nomads integrated deeper into the socio-political fabric of the Islamic world, the Arabs began to treat the term Kurd as an ethnic label.
7. After the term Kurd became treated as an ethnic designation (10th – 12th centuries), the term Kurdistan (the vague land of Kurds) was born as well.