Kurds in Lebanon
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The Kurds in Lebanon have not received public or official attention except at times when Kurdish youngsters were needed to fight a certain battle for a certain part, or at times when Kurdish votes were need by a local leader to be successful in an election.[1]:25 There is virtually nothing published on Kurds in Lebanon, because of failure of the Kurdish community to produce necessary intelligence. Kurds in Lebanon are considered as Sunni Muslims with no special status accorded to their ethnicity.
Estimates about the number of Kurds in Lebanon prior to 1985 were between 60,000 and 90,000 people.[1]:28
There are tens of thousands of Kurds in Lebanon, mainly in Beirut.[2]
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[edit] History
The existence of a community of at least 100,000 Kurds is the product of several waves of immigrants, the first major wave was in the period of 1925-1950 when thousands of Kurds fled violence and poverty in Turkey.[3] Kurds in Lebanon go back far as the twelfth century A.D. when the Ayyubids arrived there. Over the next few centuries, several other Kurdish families were sent to Lebanon by a number of powers to maintain rule in those regions, others moved as a result of poverty and violence in Kurdistan. These Kurdish groups settled in and ruled many areas of Lebanon for a long period of time.[1]:27 Kurds of Lebanon settled in Lebanon because of Lebanon's pluralistic society.[4]
