High in the Zagros, where Rojhilat meets Başûr, the villages of Hewraman climb the mountainsides in steps, the flat roof of one house is the courtyard of the next. In 2021 UNESCO added the “Cultural Landscape of Hawraman/Uramanat” to its World Heritage list, the first Kurdish site in Iran to be recognised, and the outside world began to see what Kurds have always known.
An older Kurdistan
Hewraman’s people speak Hewramî, a Gorani language distinct from Sorani and Kurmanji and possibly the oldest living form of Kurdish. For centuries it was the literary language of the Ardalan court in Sine and of the Yarsan religious poetry. Villages like Hewraman Text, Paweh, Nowsud and, across the border in Başûr, Tewêle and Biyare kept the traditions alive: the spring festival of Pîr Şalyar, when hundreds of daf drummers gather in a circle; hand-woven klash shoes; and the çûxe û ranek costume with its distinctive felt jacket.
The music
If you have heard the tanbur played by Ali Akbar Moradi, or the daf ensembles of Kirmaşan, you have heard Hewraman. The region is the source of much of the sacred and folk music of Rojhilat, and its singers, from Seyed Ali Asghar Kurdistani a century ago to today’s young performers, are staples of Kurdistan.fm.
Visiting
The Iranian side is reached from Sine or Merîwan; the Iraqi side from Silêmanî via Helebce. Spring and early summer are best, when the valleys are green and the festivals fall. Whichever side you are on, you are in the same valley, speaking to the same families, one of the places where the border between the parts of Kurdistan feels thinnest.