Qazi Muhammad

Qazi Mohammad Qazi Muhammad (1893-1947) was the Nationalist and Religious Kurdish leader and the Head of Republic of Kurdistan,(Republic of Mahabad) the second modern Kurdish state in the Middle East (after Republic of Ararat).

Qazi Muhammad acted as the president of the Soviet backed Republic of Mahabad, in Kurdistan of Iran (Eastern Kurdistan) in 1946. He was also the founder of the Kurdish Democratic Party of Iran. A year later, the Kurdish national movement (Komeley Jiyanewey Kurd) that he helped organize was crushed by Iran's central government. The Iranian military court sentenced him to death, and he was hanged in Chwarchira Square in the center of city of Mahabad at March 30, 1947. Mustafa Barzani, the father of nationalist Kurdish movement in Iraqi Kurdistan (Southern Kurdistan), was the defence minister in his cabinet. One of his sons Ali Qazi is today an active member in the kurdish movement. His cousin Mohammed Hossein Saif Qazi was also a minister in his cabinet.