Talk:Kurdish Christians

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Contents

[edit] INFORMATION

Someone add more info to the topic

There are many followers in Ranye. Thanks. Ermanos 15:38, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Followers of Jesus?

I changed followers of Jesus to "Christians" (as ip forgot to log in) because it seemed more proper and the wording of the article sounded like a brochure missionaries would hand out at a church to get donations. I believe this to be the most non-biased way of phrasing this ChrisLamb 19:31, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] POV

I removed the POV check which at the time it was added was required. However i believe the main problem with the article was refering to Christians as "Folowers of Jesus" which i corrected (see above) if anyoe disagrees please feel free to add in the pov check once again and explain. ChrisLamb 18:00, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

After re-reading the article and reading the discussion below I believe a POV check is probably in order, however before I repost it would be great to have some consenus on this ChrisLamb 19:36, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
I think yes we need POV check since the article is still POV.--Aziz1005 19:58, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
I do agree. Even if 1000 Kurds have converted as stated in the article below, to claim In recent years there has been a growing number of Muslim background Kurds who have converted to Christianity is simply blowing things out of proportion. Lets keep in mind the Kurds are a nation of 25+ million people! And I have never heard of a Christian Kurd in Turkey, Iran, Armenia as the article currently claims. Chaldean 20:14, 24 June 2007 (UTC)…
Ok the POV check is back ChrisLamb 20:16, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
The statement in question is bad as per WP:WEASEL. Weather you (Chaldean) hear about something or not is irrelevant, you are not a reliable source. :) -- Cat chi? 20:18, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Muslim Kurds conversion

The source here does not indicate any thing about Muslim Kurds who have converted to Christianity whatsoever so please remove it or place it with another source (if found).since it’s POV to say In recent years there has been a growing number of Muslim background Kurds who have converted to Christianity with out proving that. According to my knowledge most people who are referred in the article as Kurdish Christians are in fact Assyrians who inhabited that region thousands years ago and established most of those cities in northern Iraq such as Irbil,Ankawa and Aqra.--Aziz1005 18:34, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Aziz, I do agree with you, the article is kinda blowing things out of proportion. Yes Kurds have converted since 2003, but its not as big as the article is making it out to be. I dont read Arabic fully, so maybe you can skim through some of these articles and have a more accurate picture of the story in Wiki's article. [[1]] Chaldean 18:59, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
Yea the article estimated around 1000 Muslim Kurds have converted to Christianity during the past seven years and most of them or all of them converted to Protestantism and established a new church called the Kurdish church in Irbil. However, these figures are estimation and not totally accurate (The article says). Also it says those new Christians face prosecution or discrimination from the Kurdish society.
Around 300 new Christians of Ranye (in another part it says around 75 to 100) tried to open a new church in their city but the local authorities refused to give them the permission. Also the article mentioned that some of the new Christians converted back to Islam after few years because they were getting paid to convert to Christianity or because they were not satisfied with their new religion. In general, the article says the spread of Christianity among Muslim Kurds is slow and limited.--Aziz1005 18:56, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
Please, don't turn this into an ethnic feud. Kurdish converts to Christianity have already established new churches in Hawler (Arbil). Look for Kurdzman Church of Christ. These people need all the help they can get from their Christian fellows like Chaldean. Cheers. Heja Helweda 05:25, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
While you certianly have cleaned up the history part the part about muslim kurdish conversion is still a little ify considering that all the sources appear to be from a site devoted to missions in Kurdistan which make its facts a little suspect, also there are several words that are undefined such as "significant" that should be given a number, and because of these reasons I still believe a POV check is in order. ChrisLamb 13:51, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
I have added the POV template to this article since it appears it is no longer unanimously thought that this article is POV ChrisLamb 20:45, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
Dear Heja it is not a matter of an ethnic feud.we are just discussing the issue ....end of the story. The last part is still POV which contains words such as significant..etc I think the article is shownig improvement but we need more edits to make it NPOV.Also if you can provide more references.Thanks--Aziz1005 23:15, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
Word Significant removed. What else?Heja Helweda 01:28, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
even though you replaced significant with a number it would probably be better to have an actual number (or rough estimate)also I think the article might be improved if there were sources other than a website devoted to missions in kurdistan (the mission sites should be kept for now but it would give the article more credibility if there were independent sources) ChrisLamb 01:37, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
I agree withyou ChrisLamb --Aziz1005 12:52, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Christians in Kurdistan

I met a Kurd in the USA, he said he was christian. However, he wasn't a convert? (or maybe he didn't want to tell me that). Is their certain regions in Kurdistan that had historic presence of Christians? (the article mainly talks about the conversions), which is confusing. All in all does anyone know the total population of the Kurdish Christians?--Skatewalk 02:28, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] POV Check for Contemporary Kurdish Christians(9/27/07)

The wording of many phrases in the Contemporary Kurdish Christians section (especially those referring to Islam or Muslims)is extremely POV and needs to be reviewed by the community. Also while more actual numbers have been added since the last time this was discussed the section about Muslim conversion to Christianity is still ambiguous when it talks about converts. ChrisLamb 22:33, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Daniel Ali is a convert to Christianity, check out his article before putting useless tags.Heja Helweda 04:17, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Fair use rationale for Image:Kurdzman Church of Christ.jpg

Image:Kurdzman Church of Christ.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

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BetacommandBot (talk) 06:42, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Late Medieval Kurdish Christians

I remember once I was reading a medieval era book which was about visit of the German physician Leonhard Rauwolff through Kurdistan. According to the book, the majority of the Kurds were Christians or more accurately according to the book Nestorians. I cannot say wether he is right or not when saying majority of Kurds are Nestorians, but at least it gives us the information that there was significant numbers of Christian Kurds at least up to the 16th century. Peshéw (talk) 21:45, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

No your mixing things up. Nestorian Christians in what is "Kurdistan" were actually Assyrians. Kurds have never been Nestorians. Chaldean (talk) 05:05, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
I'm not mixing things up! He mentions in his book Assyria, Babylonia, Chaldea, Media, Mesopotamia, Parthians and seems to have a good knowledge of history of the region. He says ...Kurds who live in Kurdistan province of Ottoman empire, which lies between Media and Mesopotamia alongside Tigris. ...are the same people who harrassed Xenophon and his men... I don't see he is talking about Assyrians of Kurdistan. Peshéw (talk) 08:19, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
Christians of what Church were they? Chaldean (talk) 23:26, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
He says most of them are Nestorians. Peshéw (talk) 09:28, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
That I know for a fact that is not true. Kurds have never been Nestorians. But you can ask User:Garzo himself about it, since his very educated about the issue. Chaldean (talk) 16:01, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
The article already reads traditionally Christian Kurds were Nestorian. Indeed there are numerous books by travellers or reaserchers who visited Kurdistan and mention Kurdish Christians, But the one I'm talking about is notable for some reasons; one is the date of the book which is relatively old. another reason is the witness is not talking about some Kurds or a minority of Kurds. One gets the impression that as if much of Kurdish population is a recent convert to Islam under local Muslim-Kurdish emirates, probably towards the last centuies of Ottoman period. I welcome comments by Garzo. Peshéw (talk) 16:24, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
This is what I'm trying to tell you: in old/historic books and even today, scholars make the mistake of calling Assyrians "Kurdish Christians". Here is a perfect example: [[2]] - this guy and his village is wrongly labelled Kurdish, since he is really Assyrian. Chaldean (talk) 17:02, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
I'm aware of the confusion which exists between Kurdish Nestorians and Semitic Nestorians reflected in some sources. But is Assyrian a Persian-like language with Arabic and Chaldean lown-words? (answer: of course not) Isn't that tongue Kurdish? Peshéw (talk) 17:18, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
Pêşewe, I don't agree with your conjecture. There is no evidence about the claim that Nestorians were Kurds or vice versa. The only thing that I have read is that they usd to live side by side as neighbors. Nestorians have their own distinct history, language and ethnicity. This article deals strictly with Kurdish Christians not Nestorians or Assyrians.Heja Helweda (talk) 19:29, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
Heja, Nestorian is NOT an ethnic designation, it was only name of a religious sect in Kurdistan, who included both Iranians (Kurds) and Semitics (Aramaic-speakings). To this day there are sizable numbers of Kurds who bear the title of Nestori. examples can be found among the Mukri Kurds. Peshéw (talk) 14:56, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
I am NOT aware of any documnets about Kurdish Nestorians, I would be grateful if you show me references in that regard. Until then, it just remains as an unproven claim. Sorry about the strict tone, but we have to be careful not to mix rumours with serious academic work.Heja Helweda (talk) 23:30, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
Do you mean reference to Leonhard Rauwolf? Peshéw (talk) 10:16, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Assyrians are not Kurds

Why is this article portraying Assyrians as Kurdish Christians? — EliasAlucard (Discussion · contribs) 00:51, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

There is no such claim in the article. Assyrians/Chaldeans are a separate ethnic group with a very long and often tragic history. They have been persecuted for centuries by their muslim neighbors, and they truly deserve justice.Heja Helweda (talk) 23:34, 20 April 2008 (UTC)