Turkmen, Middle-Eastern

The Middle-Eastern Turkmen are the Turkic-speaking Muslims of Iraq and Syria, descended from Oghuz Turks who entered Mesopotamia with Arab armies from the 7th century, with the Seljuks in the 11th-12th centuries and in large numbers as Ottoman soldiers, officials and settlers from 1535 to 1918. In Iraq they form the third-largest nationality after Arabs and Kurds, living along a crescent they call Turkmeneli, from Tal Afar near the Syrian border through Mosul, Erbil, Kirkuk and Tuz Khurmatu to Khanaqin and Mandali on the Iranian frontier, with a sizeable community in Baghdad; Syrian Turkmen live around Aleppo, the Turkish border, Homs, the Golan and the Latakia mountains. Their speech is a transitional Oghuz dialect group, closer to Azerbaijani in Kirkuk and to Anatolian Turkish in Tal Afar, written in standard Turkish with the Latin alphabet. They call themselves Türkmen or Türk, and Arabs call them Turkman. Kirkuk, where they were the largest community in the 1957 census, is the symbolic centre of their identity.

Turkmen culture blends Ottoman urban traditions with village life. Kirkuk is famous for khoyrat (hoyrat), improvised four-line laments sung in a free rhythm, and for its own maqam tradition; poets such as Fuzuli (born near Karbala) are claimed as part of their heritage. Families are close-knit and marriages traditionally arranged within the community, with henna nights and music on the saz and davul. Food includes Kirkuk kubba, dolma, tepsi baytinjan, pacha, kleicha and Turkish-style breads and sweets, and tea is central to hospitality. Nowruz (Nevruz) is celebrated in Kirkuk and Tuz Khurmatu with bonfires, picnics and music. Turkmeneli TV, Turkmen-medium schools and Iraqi Turkmen Front cultural centres sustain the language, and many young people study in Turkey.

About three fifths of Iraqi Turkmen are Hanafi Sunni and two fifths Twelver Shia, and the sect line runs through towns such as Tal Afar, where it fuelled bitter violence after 2003. Many Shia Turkmen descend from Qizilbash and Bektashi Alevi communities and keep traces of those traditions in shrine visits, Muharram commemorations and veneration of Ali. Sunni Turkmen follow mosque-centred practice with Sufi (Naqshbandi, Qadiri) heritage around shrines in Kirkuk and Erbil. Urban Turkmen are often secular in outlook, and identity is expressed more through language and Turkmen nationalism than through religion. A very small Catholic Turkmen community exists in Kirkuk.

The full Bible is available in Turkish and South Azerbaijani, and a New Testament in the Iraqi Turkmen dialect was printed in 2021; the JESUS film and Global Recordings audio exist in Turkish and Azerbaijani, and SAT-7 TURK broadcasts reach Turkmen homes. Very few Turkmen are Christian and there are almost no Turkmen-speaking congregations. Barriers include strong Muslim and nationalist identity, sectarian and militia pressures, and the social cost of conversion.

Kirkuk is to the Turkmen what Jerusalem is to its contending peoples: the 1957 census recorded Turkish speakers as the largest group in the city, and Turkmen remember the 1959 Kirkuk massacre, Ba'athist Arabisation, which forced them to register as Arabs or leave, and the post-2003 influx of Kurds as successive threats to their place. Since 2017, when federal forces retook the city from the Kurdish Peshmerga, Kirkuk has been governed by shifting Arab-Kurdish-Turkmen coalitions, and Turkmen parties insist that the city have a special status rather than join the Kurdistan Region.