Many of the Kurds in Khorasan Province are descendants of the tens of thousands of Kurds whom Abbas the Great, the shah of Iran, moved from Iranian Kurdistan to the borders of Afghanistan and the land that is now Turkmenistan. Shah Abbas's government did this between 1598 and 1610. The government had moved many Kurds there in the 16th century, in order to make the Kurds fight against the Uzbek people who were then attacking Iran. 