The Kurds

Al-Mas'udi gives several accounts of the origin of the Kurds, and says that the most famous is that they are descended from Rabi'a. ²

• Some say they are from Rabi'a ibn Nizar, who long ago kept to the mountains and valleys alone, and so changed their language into a foreign tongue; each kind of them has a language in Kurdish.
• Some saw them as from Mudar, descended from Kurd ibn Marad ibn Sa'sa'a ibn Hawazin.
• Some joined them to the slave-women of Solomon, when he lost his kingdom and said: "Settle them in the mountains."
• Some made them among those who escaped the brains of the victims of Dahhak the Serpent-Shouldered, and who were driven into the mountains, became wild and multiplied. ²

Al-Mas'udi says that the Shuhajan, in the lands between Kufa and Basra, are acknowledged by all to be of Rabi'a. The Majardan of Kankur in Adharbayjan, and the Halbaniyya and al-Surat, are of Mudar. Among them are the Ya'qubiyya and the Jawraqan, Christians of their lands on the side of Mosul and Mount Judi. Among them are some whose view is the view of the Kharijites. ³