Abu Muslim Khorasani: Kurd as an ethnonym in the 8th-century

Abu Muslim Khorasani became a figure of legend after his death, and over the centuries a multitude of conflicting origin stories and fantastical tales accumulated around his name. As is often the case, the historical reality is likely to be found closer to the earliest sources. One of the most valuable testimonies comes from Abu Dulama, a contemporary of Abu Muslim, who described him as follows:

O Abu Mujrim! God never replaces by afflictions the favours which he grants to his creatures, unless his creatures misapply them. Ah thou wouldst meditate treason against the empire of al-Mansur! Is it not true that thy own progenitors, the Kurds, were always a race of traitors? Thou didst menace me with death, Abu Mujrim! but that lion with which thou didst threaten me, has turned upon thyself!

Abu Dulama's allusion is preserved in the writings of Ibn Khallikan, though he is by no means the only author to transmit it. The attribution is likely authentic. What makes the passage particularly intriguing is that it provides an eighth-century example of the Kurdish label being tied to genealogy rather than a social category. In this respect, the account aligns closely with both pre-Abbasid and post-Abbasid conceptions of Kurdish identity, suggesting a remarkable degree of continuity in how the term was understood across the centuries, contrary to assumptions that the label functioned merely as a social category.