Dinever

Dinever is a historical city located in the el-Cibal (Cebel) region in present-day northwestern Iran, densely populated by Kurds in the Middle Ages. In the early Islamic period, it emerged as an important center of learning and settlement, and was mentioned in sources among the Cebel cities inhabited by Kurds.

Scholars It Produced

The city is known for being a center that produced leading scholars of the Islamic world. Dîneverî (d. 282/895), whose full name was Ebû Hanîfe Ahmed b. Dâvûd b. Venend, famous for his botanical encyclopedia Kitâbü'n-Nebât, was born around 820 in the city of Dinever, a densely Kurdish-populated area in the Cibal region. After completing his traditional Islamic education, Dîneverî conducted research trips in Iran, Iraq, the Arabian Peninsula, Palestine, and Syria, and after returning to his homeland, he performed astronomical observations with an apparatus he set up on the roof of his house and compiled the results in his work Kitâbü'l-Envâʾ; he is considered one of the great scientists of the 9th century (Vol. 1, p. 90).

The Legend of the Origin of Kurds

Another important figure bearing the nisba of the city is the historian and geographer İbn Kuteybe ed-Dineverî (d. 276/889). It was he who first included the Dahhak (Biyorasif) legend regarding the origin of the Kurds in his work el-Maârif; according to this legend, those whom Dahhak's vizier spared from the people he had killed every day were sent to the mountains, and the Kurds are descended from them (Vol. 2, p. 51).

In Geographical Sources

Geographical sources describe the el-Cibal region, where Dinever is located, as one of the areas densely populated by Kurds. Mes'ûdî states that the Kurdish tribes he mentioned lived in the regions of Dinever, Hemedan, Azerbaycan, Cibal, and Şam; according to him, among the Kurdish tribes, there are Sunni, Shia, and Kharijite Muslims, as well as Christian and Jacobite communities, and each tribe has its own distinct dialect (Vol. 1, p. 95; Vol. 1, p. 97).

Yakut el-Hamevî (d. 626/1229), the author of Muʿcemü'l-büldân, the most comprehensive geographical encyclopedia written by Islamic scholars, also lists Cezîre, Cibal, Ermeniyye, and Azerbaycan as regions densely populated by Kurds; in his work, he provides detailed information about the region, including the Cebel cities of Karmîsîn (Kirmanşah), Hulvân, Nihavend, Şehrezor, and Hakkâri (Vol. 2, p. 26).