Selahaddin: Kurd or Turk?

[Birdjaguar]

Or there might even be a thread in the Civ 7 game forums where that topic is actively being discussed.

 

[Takhisis]

So Civilization highlighting him as part of Eyyubid and it being Arab is actually correct, since they had Arab origins, their descendants claimed Arabness and their state was run in Arabic.

Welcome to the forum!

At the time loyalties were personal/feudal and not ethnic in an 19th-century style. Just because a state is run in one language does not mean anybody else uses it or identifies as such. E.g. England was run in French and Latin for centuries and nobody considers the often monolingual-French successors of William to be anything other than English.

National identities simply did not apply at the time. Not that I'd object to Saladin being an Arab, but how would you qualify the Persian-speaking Turks who ruled Arab lands at the time, including the Bahri and Burji Mamluks that came after the Ayyubids?

Also, my question from 20 years ago still stands: what do the Kurds say?

 

[r16]

kurds are not the owners of history .

 

[H4run]

Geez Salahudin is a Kurd, and undeniably a Muslim as well. It's insane how these Arabs and Turks nationalist want to claim every Muslims heroes and leaders as theirs, from Salman The Persian, Bilal the Abyssinian till now Salahudin the Kurd. Give some space also for others lol

Asabiyah (tribalism) is the calling of jahiliyah (days of ignorance)

"All mankind is from Adam and Eve, an Arab has no superiority over a non-Arab nor a non-Arab has any superiority over an Arab; also a White has no superiority over a Black nor a Black has any superiority over a White except by piety and good action. Learn that every Muslim is a brother to every Muslim and that the Muslims constitute one brotherhood"

 

[Mukhayriq]

Welcome to the forum!

At the time loyalties were personal/feudal and not ethnic in an 19th-century style. Just because a state is run in one language does not mean anybody else uses it or identifies as such. E.g. England was run in French and Latin for centuries and nobody considers the often monolingual-French successors of William to be anything other than English.

National identities simply did not apply at the time. Not that I'd object to Saladin being an Arab, but how would you qualify the Persian-speaking Turks who ruled Arab lands at the time, including the Bahri and Burji Mamluks that came after the Ayyubids?

Also, my question from 20 years ago still stands: what do the Kurds say?

Persianized Turks, Turks in ancestry, but Persian in culture and customs, Mamluks were Circassian, Turk and Georgian in ancestry, but Arab in culture.

Rawadiyya were Kurd in culture, but Arab in ancestry. So the Arab claim to Ayyubid which has always existed isn't dumbfounded. It has solid grounds. It's only with advent of Western scholarship that Salaheddin ancestry has been ignored and Ayyubids written letters of them denouncing being Kurdish in ancestry or their genealogies to Azd being denounced as ''claiming prestige'' , but that was an error on their part. Western scholars thought since medieval sources said they were part of Hadhbani Kurds that they were originally of them, but that was an error, they merely intermarried them and associated with them through marrriage ( which is common in the Muslim world and tribal sphere)

Many Ayyubid Kings never claimed to be Kurds through ethnicity , rather through marriage only.

You now have Kurds trying to say Rawaddiya were full Kurds which is laughable and can never be done, because even the Emir of Rawadiyya, Wahsuddan was praised by Poet Qatran Tabrizi who lived during that time for his Arab ancestry.

This is the poem:

در مدح ابو‌منصور وهسودان بن مملان In Praise of Abu Mansur Wahsudan ibn Mamlan
ز بهر آنکه نسب زی عجم کند سوی ام
ز بهر آنکه گهر زی عرب کشد سوی اب

Because his lineage through his mother goes to the Ajam
Because his noble essence through his father goes to the Arabs

Furthermore check the following book on the history of Kurds.

In this book A MODERN HISTORY OF THE KURDS scholar admits the tribe the Ayyubidd claim descent from ''Rawaddiya'' were Kurdified Arabs” “ was considered to be Kurdish within 200 years” although its Arab origin was well known.

And for anyone claiming the poem about Abu Mansur Wahsudan the Emir of Rawaddiya in the 11th century is fake check this.

 

[Hygro]

I'm not sure I understand what very particular delineation of heritage you are claiming is "real". You have more in common with me, American with euro ancestry, than any living Arab or Kurd has with Saladin. How are you defining any of these identities while arguing for your particular cutoff?

 

[Lexicus]

Also important to remember that premodern identities typically layer rather than being like Highlander ("there can only be one"), in fact the idea that people have only one fundamental identity is a product of modern racism/nationalism, but I digress: there is nothing, to my knowledge, that would prevent Saladin from being both Kurd and Arab.
Indeed, judging from this bit on his wikipedia page:

His family was of Kurdish ancestry,[8][9][10][11][12] and had originated from the village of Ajdanakan[9] near the city of Dvin in central Armenia.[13][14] He was the son of a Kurdish mercenary, Najm ad-Din Ayyub.[6] The Rawadiya tribe he hailed from had been partially assimilated into the Arabic-speaking world by this time.[15]

I would be somewhat surprised if he did not claim both Kurdish and Arabic identity.

 

[NovaKart]

I haven’t read much about this. From what little I’ve read, it seems like one of the main sources for Selahaddin’s ancestry is Vladimir Minorsky. However, it seems like he was using primary sources (?) so I would guess it’s likely accurate that he was from that tribe. I personally don’t see why it’s relevant if the tribe had an Arab origin if they later became assimilated as Kurds.

Vladimir Minorsky is responsible for the claim that Kurds descend from the Medes, which is generally accepted in Kurdish nationalism and taught in Kurdish schools. However at least according to Wikipedia there’s less factual basis for this. That’s why I’m a bit skeptical when Minorsky is mentioned, he seems like he was a genius scholar but that doesn’t mean he didn’t get some things wrong and unfortunately early Kurdish history is such an obscure subject. I think relying so much on one person can be a mistake.

These claims can get really serious because Kurdish people will likely see it as an attempt to erase their presence in the Middle East or their existence as a people, which some Turkish nationalists and others try to do. There are also Kurdish nationalists who get into pseudo historical claims that Kurds are connected to Sumerians, I’ve also seen some Turkish nationalists do this. It always involves superficial comparisons of Sumerian with their languages.

I’ve never heard a Kurd say that Selahaddin wasn’t Kurdish but he seems a bit controversial. Some Kurds don’t like that he can’t really be tied to Kurdish nationalism and some secular Kurds don’t like that he’s an Islamic hero. There don’t seem to be many things named after him in Kurdistan and Selahattin Demirtaş is the only modern Kurd I’ve heard of with the name. Kurdish nationalist heroes seem to be more popular.

Recently I saw a post on twitter that claimed Selahaddin’s inner circle and generals were all Kurds and they spoke Kurdish as a way to communicate without others understanding. I didn’t see a source for this and I’m skeptical of it. This was used as evidence that Palestinians who claim a Kurdish ancestry are not genuine, since none of them know the Kurdish language. I think even if this were true it’s doubtful they’d still speak Kurdish after hundreds of years.