Sheikh Said of Piran was a Sunni religious leader and freedom fighter of the Zaza Kurdish ethnicity from the town of Bismil, who led a rebellion against Turkish rule in 1925. Sheikh Said was a widely respected religious figure in Southeastern Turkey, and a prominent member of the mystic school of Sufism. In the face of Kemal Ataturk’s purge against the Kurds, Sheikh Said mobilized diverse elements of the population to resist, numbering over 15,000. His forces were largely Kurdish citizens, religious and members of the Hamidiye militia cavalry. Said merged the interests of Kurdish tribal chieftains and experienced military officers who had served in the first World War. The goals of the movement were broad, but included a restoration of Islamic governance as well as guaranteed rights of language, freedom, and expression for Kurds. The rebellion would ultimately fail, after an unsuccessful siege of the city of Diyarbakir, where the rebels were outmatched by the modern military equipment of the Turks, which included machine guns and airplanes. Sheikh Said was captured in spring of 1925, and was publicly hanged. After his death, the Turkish government launched a brutal punitive campaign of reprisals and mass killings in the Kurdish region of Turkey.[1]