Sema
Saturday, 01-03,2025, marked the 46th anniversary of the departure of the leader of the Kurdistan Liberation Movement and the spiritual father of the Kurdish people, Mulla Mustafa Barzani.
Mustafa Sheikh Muhammad Barzani was born on March 14, 1904, in the village of Barzan in the Kurdistan Region. He was arrested with his mother for 9 months when he was in the third year of his life, during a campaign by the Ottomans, after the arrest of his older brother, Abdul Salam.
Mulla Mustafa Barzani belongs to a religious family, adopting the Naqshbandi method. He participated in the revolution of Sheikh Mahmoud the grandson in 1919, and was assigned to lead a force consisting of 300 fighters, then he was dispatched by Sheikh Ahmed Barzani to Sheikh Saeed Piran in Northern Kurdistan (Turkish Kurdistan with the aim of coordinating with the revolution that he had ignited.
During the Kurdish revolutions 1931-1932, with the aim of defending the (Mergasor-Sherwan) axes, he led a large force to fight the British, and his influence became known at that time as a military commander with great skill and experience.
During World War II, Mullah Mustafa Barzani ignited an armed uprising in the Barzan region until the number of Peshmerga fighters at that time reached 2,500 fighters, which led to the Baghdad government losing control of the region, but after a year and a half, the Iraqi government was able to mobilize a large force to re-launch an attack on the Barzan region, and battles broke out violent violence during the months of August and September, until the beginning of October of 1945, during which the Peshmerga forces showed fierce resistance and later withdrew to the (Kani Rash) area on the Turkish border.
On the 15th of August 1945, the establishment of the Kurdistan Democratic Party was announced from Iran, and after a short period of time the party’s voice reached the regions of Kurdistan, and many leaflets were delivered and distributed to groups of the Kurdish people, which led the Iraqi government to start arresting party members.
On January 22, 1946, during the ceremony declaring the Republic of Kurdistan in Mahabad, Eastern Kurdistan (Iranian Kurdistan), Mullah Mustafa Barzani, who was standing to the right of Qadi Muhammad, was appointed commander of the Army of the Republic of Kurdistan and was given the rank of “General”.
After the end of World War II, Russia’s withdrawal from Iran and the end of the Republic of Mahabad, battles broke out between the Iranian forces and the forces led by Mulla Mustafa Barzani, and after violent resistance, the Kurdish forces managed to reach the border areas of the Soviet Union at the time and stay in this country for 12 years.
In 1968, the second coup of the Baathists took place, and Mulla Mustafa Barzani and the government began negotiations that resulted in the 1970 agreement, whose provisions and paragraphs included the participation of the Kurds in the rule of Iraq and the consideration of the Kurdish language as an official language in educational institutions in addition to the application of self-rule in Kurdistan and the rule of the Kurds in their regions, but the Iraqi government disavowed that agreement and later agreed with Iran on hostility to the Kurds, and they signed the Algiers Agreement in 1975.
After 1975, Mulla Mustafa Barzani fell ill and went to the United States of America with the aim of treatment, but he died there in 1979. His body was transferred to eastern Kurdistan and buried temporarily in the Shino region. After the March uprising, his body was returned to the Barzan region in solemn ceremonies.
His shrine has now turned into a place that is visited every year on the anniversary of his departure by Kurdish patriots from all regions of Kurdistan as an annual tradition. Students, teachers, intellectuals, Peshmerga, women, and all segments of Kurdistan society visit his tomb his who consider him the immortal leader and spiritual father of the Kurdish people everywhere.