Egyptian researcher documents centenary of Sheikh Said Piran’s uprising

The book, released recently, examines one of the most prominent uprisings in modern Kurdish history, shedding light on its origins, consequences, and its enduring influence over the past hundred years.

This publication comes on the centennial of the uprising, offering a renewed reading of its historical, human, and political context in an attempt to understand the Kurdish question today through the lens of its past.

The author explores the details of Sheikh Said Piran’s uprising, which erupted in the spring of 1925 against the nascent Turkish Republic, representing broad rejection of Turkification policies and attempts to erase Kurdish national identity.

The book reviews the regional and international circumstances surrounding the uprising and the Turkish state’s response to it, including the brutal suppression that culminated in the execution of Sheikh Said and a number of his companions.

It also highlights how these events contributed to shaping Kurdish national consciousness and laid the early foundations for Kurdish political and intellectual movements that remain influential to this day.

Combining historical narrative with political analysis, the book draws on rare archival sources, documentary texts, contemporary memoirs, as well as critical readings of earlier studies.

The author stresses that studying the uprising a century later is not only about revisiting the past but also about interpreting the present and anticipating the future.

He further notes that Sheikh Said Piran’s uprising is not merely a historical episode, but part of a longer trajectory of struggle over Kurdish identity, rights, and citizenship. This book, he argues, may open a wide-ranging discussion in academic and cultural circles on the relationship between history and the present, and on the role of collective memory in shaping the Kurdish future.

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ANHA