Kurdish paths to nation.
Martin van Bruinessen,
Published in: Faleh A. Jabar & Hosham Dawod (eds), The Kurds: Nationalism and Politics, London: Saqi, 2006, pp. 21-48.

In this chapter, I shall be using terms like ‘Kurdish society’ and ‘Kurdish culture’ in a rather loose sense, and include in it groups and individuals who may not in all contexts identify themselves as Kurds. Kurdish society is highly heterogeneous; there are not only a vast cultural differences between one region and another, but within any single region there are populations that differ in language, religion or way of life from the majority and that may consider themselves — or may be considered by the majority — as less Kurdish or not Kurdish at all. Christian and Jewish minorities have generally not been considered as Kurds, although culturally they may have much in common with their Muslim neighbours and although they may even have Kurdish as their mother tongue. Heterodox communities living among the Kurds, such as the Alevis, the Ahl-i Haqq or Kaka’is and the Yezidis, tend to have an ambivalent relation with Kurdish identity, especially when they also differ from their more orthodox Muslim neighbours in spoken language. [1]