Religion in Kurdistan
Nabaz Ismail also says that 99% of the mosques have been built through philanthropy, relying on private donors and their charity in the form of zakat or sadaqah.
The exact proportion is uncertain but McDowall gives the percentage as 'approximately 75%',[7] while Martin van Bruinessen estimates around two thirds or three quarters at least.
Most Sunni Kurds follow the Shafi‘i madhhab, which distinguishes them from Arab and Turkish neighbors who in general are Hanafi.
Moreover, due to the location of Kurdistan between the three major cultural Islamic regions, many Kurdish ulama not only knew Kurdish but also Arabic, Persian and Turkish giving them an important role in mediating between Indian Muslims who communicated in Persian, Arabic, and Turkish speaking world.
[8] Sunni Islam among Kurds is characterized by a strong overtone of mysticism and its scholars’ affiliation with Sufi orders.
Strong influences of sheikhs in the late 19th and the early 20th centuries were attributed to the Ottoman administrative reforms and the defense against the intrusion of Christian missionaries.
While studying youth religiosity in Iraqi Kurdistan, Kurdish sociologist Ibrahim Sadiq Malazada through his 2021 empirical research estimates the religious youth to stand at around 50%, or roughly half, noting that the rise of ISIS has had no real impact (with 8-9% decreasing their religiosity but 7% increasing due to ISIS) while COVID-19 instead strengthened religiosity (as 29% consider it "a divine test for society"), Malazada concluding that the "religious identity among youth in Kurdistan tended to be stable and that there has been no significant change in the religious tendencies of young people.
"[14] There are also concerns about youth radicalization because of the worsening socio-economic conditions in Iraqi Kurdistan, even though they go for a quietist form of Salafism, often favored by the local parties in order to reduce the influence of Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated groups, instead of the more violent and revolutionary Salafi jihadism.
[20][22] Its adherents number from 700,000 to 1 million worldwide[23] and are indigenous to the Kurdish regions of Iraq, Syria and Turkey, with some significant, more recent communities in Russia, Georgia and Armenia established by refugees fleeing Muslim persecution in Ottoman Empire.
The Assyrian and Armenian communities in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq live primarily in the Erbil and Dohuk Governorates.
In the beginning of 20 century, the cities of Kermanshah, Orumieh, Piranshahr and Mahabad had the largest Jewish populations in Iranian Kurdistan.
[41] On October 18, 2015, the Kurdistan Regional Government named Sherzad Omar Mamsani, a Kurdish Jew, as the Jewish representative of the Ministry of Endowment and Religious Affairs.
In 2012, the semi-autonomous Kurdistan Region declared that public schools were to be religiously neutral and that all major religions of the world are taught on an equal basis.
As of 2012, KRG and Rojava (Syrian Kurdistan), are the only administrations in the entire region that do not openly endorse a single religion in public schools.
