Friday is the 104th anniversary of the execution of Sheikh Abdulsalam Barzani, the leader of one of the first Kurdish rebellions against the Ottomans in present-day Iraq. Born in Barzan village in 1887, Sheikh Abdulsalam was the older brother of Mulla Mustafa Barzani, the father of Masoud Barzani. Having studied Sufism, the mystical side of Islam, he became the leader of the Naqishbandi Sufi order after the death of his father. In 1907, he sent a telegraph to the Ottoman Sultan Abdulhamid II, with the backing of Kurdish tribal leaders and sheikhs, demanding cultural and political rights for the Kurds. His demands included Kurdish becoming an official language, Kurdish education in schools, local officials in Kurdish areas being Kurdish or speaking the language, and for locally-collected taxes to be spent on roads and schools in Kurdistan. Wary of a potential uprising, the Ottomans sent an army to Barzan to capture Sheikh Abdulsalam. In 1908, Sheikh Abdulsalam kicked the Ottoman forces out of Barzan. In 1913, Mosul's governor sent another army, forcing Sheikh Abdulsalam to flee to eastern (Iranian) Kurdistan and then to Georgia where he met the Russian tsar. He was captured on his return to Kurdistan – another Kurdish sheikh informed on him. On December 14, 1914, he was executed in Mosul. Sheikh Abdulsalam’s legacy is still felt in Barzan. An early environmentalist, he banned hunting and the cutting down of trees. The Barzan area remains a wildlife protection zone. He also introduced societal reforms – banning arranged child marriages, doing away with the dowry system, and giving Jews and Christians the freedom to worship and celebrate their religious holidays. "Sheikh Abdulsalam Barzani is the founder of the Kurdish nationalist movement, since, compared to that period in southern [Iraqi] Kurdistan, he brought in some modern concepts of political struggle into the Kurdish liberation movement at the time," said Badr Shiroki, a writer from Soran. He also used diplomacy to gain international support and established a disciplined Kurdish nationalist army. The most important part of Sheikh Abdulsalam’s legacy, said Shiroki, was establishing a “Kurdish Front,” that brought together Kurdish princes and tribal leaders. Kurds are still demanding similar things that Sheikh Abdulsalam asked for and can learn a lot from the history, added Shiroki. Disunity among Kurds played a role in Sheikh Abdulsalam having to flee, he pointed out. Sheikh Abdulsalam was a "nationalistic, religious, and knowledgeable" man, said Karam Sarhadi, a researcher and historian from Diyarbakir. According to Sarhadi, the judge and executioner of Sheikh Abdulsalam were both Kurds.
