Emin Ali Bedirxan

Emin Ali Bedirxan , also Mehmet Emin Ali Bedirxan ( Kurdish : Emîn Elî Bedirxan ; * 1851 in Crete , Ottoman Empire , † 1926 in Egypt ), was a Kurdish activist, politician and lawyer.

Emin Ali comes from the noble family of Bedirxans, who served as vassals of the Ottoman Empire. His father Bedirxan Beg rebelled against his overlords in 1847, but was defeated and first deported with his family to Istanbul , then to Crete. Emin Ali was one of seven sons of Bedirxan Beg and could speak and write fluent Arabic , French , Kurdish and Turkish .

Emin Ali studied law and worked in the civil service as a lawyer and judge in various parts of the empire. In 1906 he and his family were sent into exile in Isparta and Acre because of a suspected involvement in the murder of the city prefect Rıdvan Pasha . After the Young Turkish Revolution and the disempowerment of Sultan Abdülhamid II in 1908, Emin Ali was allowed to return to Istanbul like other exiles.

In 1908 he founded the political association Kürt Teavün ve Terakki Cemiyeti (German: Kurdish Committee for Mutual Aid and Progress) with other Kurdish intellectuals and nobles . Here began his collaboration with Seyyit Abdülkadir , who came from a very influential spiritual family. The association was dissolved a short time later. In 1918 Emin Ali and Seyyit Abdülkadir founded the new association Kürdistan Teali Cemiyeti (German: Society for the Rise of Kurdistan) with others . Over time, a dispute arose between Emin Ali and Seyyit Abdülkadir, because while Seyyit Abdülkadir worked for an autonomous Kurdistan within the Ottoman Empire, Emin Ali advocated an independent Kurdish state. The dispute ultimately led to the dissolution of the Kürdistan Teali Cemiyeti in 1920. Then Emin Ali founded his own organization with the Kürt Teskilat-i Içtimaîye (German: Kurdish social organization).

Despite these Kurdish policies, Emin Ali still saw himself as an Ottoman and participated in Ottoman parties such as the Liberal Party or the Party of Freedom and Unity . Both parties were in opposition to the Committee on Unity and Progress and opposed centralism.

When the empire lost the First World War on the side of the Central Powers , a new movement against the victorious powers and the Sultan arose with Mustafa Kemal . This secular and nationalist movement aimed to create a Turkish nation state in Anatolia. Emin Ali, who saw no chance for a Kurdish state as a result, became an opponent of the Kemalists and even wanted to fight with the Greeks against Mustafa Kemal.

In 1919, on the orders of the government in Istanbul, he set out for Sivas with his sons, the Governor of Harput and the British officer Edward WC Noel , in order to sabotage Mustafa Kemal's Congress and arrest him. But the project failed and Emin Ali left the country for Egypt before 1923, the year the Republic of Turkey was founded , where he died in 1926.

Emin Ali had several children, of whom his three sons Celadet , Kamuran and Süreyya were active and influential in the Kurdish movement and politics.

literature

• Hakan Özoğlu: Kurdish Notables and the Ottoman State: Evolving Identities, Competing Loyalties, and Shifting Boundaries . Suny Press, 2004. ISBN 0-7914-5993-4