Baradust

   Baradust is the name of two Kurdish districts. The one in the south lies between the towns of Ushnu, Reyat, and Rawanduz and has Kani Resh—perched on a mountain at an altitude of more than 4,000 meters — as its chief town. The famous Urartu stele of Kel-i Shin is also located here. The other Baradust, called Sumay Baradust, is situated farther to the north between Targavar and Kotur and has Cehrik Kala as its main town. The Bab (Sayyid Ali Muhammad of Shiraz) was imprisoned at Cehrik Kala before he was executed at Tabriz in 1850.

   Some claim that the Hasanwayhid Kurdish dynasty (959-1095) first established Baradust. The army of Shah Abbas the Great of Persia besieged Khan Yakdas, a Baradust mir, in the mountain fortress of Dimdim in 1609-1610, an event that became famous in Kurdish folklore. The Kurdish expression "Baradust, friend of a month," refers to how a former Baradust chieftain treacherously killed one of his allies.

   In more recent times the Baradust were known as a Kurdish tribe in northern Iraq that was traditionally pro-government and opposed to the Barzanis. During the 1920s, Sheikh Rashid of Lolan led the Baradust Kurds against Sheikh Ahmad Barzani, whom Sheikh Rashid accused of heresy. The eccentric Sheikh Ahmad had apparently told his followers to eat pork to symbolize the synthesis of his Naqshbandi sufi beliefs with Christianity. Eventually Sheikh Ahmad and his younger brother Mulla Mustafa Barzani drove Sheikh Rashid into Iran.

   In the mid-1940s, however, Sheikh Rashid's Baradust helped drive the Barzanis into Iran, where Mulla Mustafa joined the Mahabad Republic of Kurdistan. After Mulla Mustafa returned from exile in 1958, he eventually repaid the Baradust in kind. As allies of the Iraqi government, the Baradust continued to battle the Kurdish nationalist movement now led by the Barzanis. However, in 1991, the Baradust joined the Kurdish uprising against the government. Karim Khan Baradust is currently a prominent Baradust leader.