Shafaq The characteristics distinguishing Faily Kurds from the mainstream Kurdish population in Iraq are briefly the following:…

-         Their dialect;

-         Their branch of Islam, being Shia Muslims;

-         They live outside Kurdistan proper. Geography and geo-politics have extensively influenced their lives and greatly shape their social position;

-         They live in the midst of another and larger culture and language, namely Arabic culture and language. This has greatly shaped Faily Kurd culture. Faily Kurds have a duel culture and language. Arabic culture and language in writing, in schooling, in public and in society at large and a spoken Faily Kurdish culture and language among themselves and at home;

-         They have been victimization and stigmatization as being of “foreign origin” referred to sometimes as “Taba´iya” (dependents, subjects) and sometimes as “Iranians”, “Persians” or “deportee Iranians”;

-         Facing different set of problems because of the afore-mentioned factors that threaten their culture, language traditions and existence