Almost due east of the Beit el Khalîfah there rises out of the middle of the plain a large artificial mound, Tell ’Alîj. It is surrounded by a moat, and beyond the moat there are traces of a circular wall. A little to the east of north a raised causeway leads down from the top of the tell, crosses the moat by what must once have been a bridge and runs straight as an arrow over the space between moat and wall (Ross made it 110 paces) and across the plain for about half-a-mile. It ends at a low mound where Ross found remains of brickwork. On either side of the point where the causeway reaches the outer edge of the ditch, a low mound, fanning out from the causeway, stretches from ditch to rampart. These mounds are the remains of walls that protected the causeway. Local tradition says that the moat was fed with water by a canal from the Tigris; Ross adds that the ḳanât, or cut as he calls it, brought water from a channel (he uses the word tunnel, by which he probably means ḳanât, underground conduit) which ran from the Jebel Ḥamrîn to Sâmarrâ. What this singular fortified mound can be I do not know, but I should be surprised if it did not belong to a period earlier than the days of the Abbâsids.
All the area of the city is strewn with Mohammadan potsherds, but the pottery is markedly different in character from that of Raḳḳah. Coloured ware, though it is not entirely absent, is rare; by far the greater number of pieces are unglazed and ornamented only with incised patterns which are frequently divided into zones by raised notched bands. I saw, too, a few fragments of a better class of pottery with beautiful patterns or inscriptions in relief, worked with the utmost care. When the peasants discovered that the patterned clay excited my interest they brought basket loads of broken pots to my tents and I drew and photographed innumerable examples, two of which I here reproduce (Fig. 162 and Fig. 163).
In the mosque of Abu Dulâf (Fig. 164) the arcades are carried on massive brick piers and the effect of the long, half-ruined aisles is very imposing (Fig. 165). The area embraced by the outer wall of sun-dried brick is slightly smaller than at Sâmarrâ (213·20 × 136·50 m.) and the arcades are more widely spaced, but the type of plan is the same, even to the spiral minaret to the north. Although the enclosing wall is no better than a crumbling mound, it is possible to make out the gateways, inasmuch as the jambs, which were built of burnt brick, stand more or less intact. The arcades and their returns against the wall are also of burnt brick, and so are the remains of the three bastions which are all that can be seen in the south wall. In the centre of this wall there is another fragment of burnt brick which might be the curve of a miḥrâb but is more probably a door leading into a small building or vestibule, of which the shapeless mounds can be distinguished immediately to the south of the wall. There is a space of 10·40 m. between the outer wall and the southernmost row of piers, and the ruins give no indication of its having been roofed over. But if this transept were open to the sky it is unlikely that the miḥrâb should have been placed in it, and I should therefore place a door in the centre of the south wall as at Sâmarrâ. The space between the arcades at the northern and southern ends of the mosque averages 6·20 m., but the alley which conducts to the central door at either end measures 7·33 m. in width. Similarly the alley conducting to the central doors leading into the court from east and west is 4·90 m. wide, whereas the average width of the intercolumniation of the east and west arcades is 4·15 m. The plan exhibits everywhere noticeable irregularities; the arcades vary in width, sometimes by as much as ten centimetres. The small piers in the ḥaram average 2·10 × 1·73 m., the greater length being from north to south. The piers of the arcades to east and west of the ṣaḥn average 4·03 × 1·57 m.; the small piers of the northern arcades 2·18 × 1·52 m. All the piers bordering the central court are adorned upon the face which is turned towards the court with a brick niche covered with a cusped arch and placed high up on the pier (Fig. 166). There is also a decoration of small niches upon the north side of the base of the minaret; the other sides are too much ruined to have retained the trace of it. The north wall of the mosque is the best preserved, and shows in places the same drainage runnels that were described at Sâmarrâ.
The ruins of which I have here given a brief account are of the first importance for the elucidation of the early history of the arts of Islâm. They can all be dated within a period of forty years falling in the middle of the ninth century, and are therefore among the earliest existing examples of Mohammadan architecture. They bear witness to the Mesopotamian influences under which it arose. The spiral towers of Sâmarrâ and Abu Dulâf are an adaptation of the temple pyramids of Assyria and Babylonia which had a spiral path leading to the summit; the technique of arch and vault was invented by the ancient East and transmitted through Sassanian builders to the Arab invaders; the decoration is Persian or Mesopotamian and almost untouched by the genius of the West. In the palaces and mosques of Sâmarrâ, we can see the conquerors themselves conquered by a culture which had been developing during thousands of years on Mesopotamian soil, a culture which had received indeed new elements into its composition, which had learnt from the Greek and from the Persian, but had maintained in spite of all modifications its distinctive character. Side by side with Sâmarrâ stand the ruins at Raḳḳah, where the mosque repaired by Nûr ed Dîn probably preserves a plan which can be dated even earlier than the two mosques on the Tigris; and finally the scheme and decoration of the Mesopotamian mosque is reproduced with certain variations in the latter half of the ninth century by Ibn Ṭûlûn, and the last descendant of the Babylonian zigurrat is the minaret of his mosque at Cairo.
Fig. 117.—WNEH, IMM MUḤAMMAD ’ALÎ.
Fig. 118.—WNEH, IMM MUḤAMMAD ’ALÎ.
Fig. 119.—ḲDISÎYAH FROM SOUTH-EAST.
Fig. 120.—SMARR, RUINED MOSQUE FROM SOUTH.
Fig. 121.—SMARR, FROM MALWÎYEH.
Fig. 122.—SMARR, RUINED MOSQUE, INTERIOR OF SOUTH WALL.
Fig. 123.—ABU DULF, FROM EAST.
Fig. 124.—ABU DULF, INTERIOR, LOOKING NORTH.
Fig. 125.—NAHRAWN CANAL.
Fig. 126.—IMM DÛR.
Fig. 127.—IMM DÛR.
Fig. 128.—TEKRÎT FERRY.
Fig. 129.—COFFEE-MAKING, SHEIKH ’ASKAR.
Fig. 130.—TEKRÎT, THE ARBAÎN.
Fig. 131.—KHN KHERNÎNA, MIḤRB.
Fig. 132.—KHN KHERNÎNA, DETAIL OF FLAT VAULT.
Fig. 133.—KHN KHERNÎNA, VAULT, SHOWING TUBE.
Fig. 134.—KHN KHERNÎNA, SETTING OF DOME.
Fig. 135.—TELL NIMRÛD.
Fig. 136.—ḲAL’T SHERGT, THE ZIGURRAT AND RUINS OF NORTH WALL.
Fig. 137.—SMARR, MOSQUE.
Fig. 138.—SMARR, INTERIOR OF SOUTH GATE, RUINED MOSQUE.
FIG 139.—SMARR, MOSQUE. DETAIL OF PIER, SOUTH DOOR.
Fig. 140.—SMARR, RUINED MOSQUE, SMALL DOOR IN WEST WALL.
Fig. 141.—SMARR, RUINED MOSQUE, SOUTH-WEST ANGLE TOWER.
Fig. 142.—SMARR, RUINED MOSQUE, WINDOW IN SOUTH WALL.
Fig. 143.—SMARR, RUINED MOSQUE, BIG DOOR IN NORTH WALL.
Fig. 144.—SMARR, EL ’ASHIḲ, WEST END OF NORTH FAÇADE.
Fig. 145.—EL ’ASHIḲ.
Fig. 148.—EL ’ASHIḲ, DETAIL OF NICHING ON NORTH FAÇADE.
Fig. 146.—SMARR, EL ’ASHIḲ FROM NORTH.
Fig. 147.—SMARR, EL ’ASHIḲ FROM SOUTH.
Fig. 149.—ṢLEBÎYEH.
Fig. 150.—SMARR, ṢLEBÎYEH.
Fig. 151.—SMARR, ṢLEBÎYEH, SETTING OF DOME.
Fig. 152.—SMARR, BEIT EL KHALÎFAH.
Fig. 153.—SMARR, BEIT EL KHALÎFAH.
Fig. 154.—SMARR, BEIT EL KHALÎFAH, DETAIL OF VAULT OF SIDE CHAMBER.
Fig. 155.—BEIT EL KHALÎFAH, FRAGMENT OF STUCCO DECORATION ON ARCH.
Fig. 156.—SMARR, BEIT EL KHALÎFAH, STUCCO DECORATION.
Fig. 157.—SMARR, BEIT EL KHALÎFAH, FRAGMENT OF
RINCEAUX WORKED IN MARBLE. Fig. 158.—SMARR, BEIT EL KHALÎFAH, STUCCO
DECORATION.
Fig. 159.—STUCC
O DECORATIONS, SMARR.
Fig. 160.—SMARR, STUCCO DECORATION.
Fig. 161.—SMARR, STUCCO DECORATION. Fig. 162.—SMARR, FRAGMENT OF POTTERY.
Fig. 163.—SMARR, FRAGMENT OF POTTERY.
Fig. 165.—ABU DULF, ARCADE.
Fig. 166.—ABU DULF, NICHED PIER OF NORTHERN ARCADE.
Fig. 164.—ABU DULF.
CHAPTER VII
MÔṢUL TO ZKHÔ
April 28—May 10
The City of Môṣul has a turbulent record which has lost nothing of its quality during the past few years. It lies upon the frontier of the Arab and the Kurdish populations, and the meeting between those two is seldom accompanied by cordiality or good-will on either side. Upon the unhappy province of Môṣul hatred and the lust of slaughter weigh like inherited evils, transmitted (who can say?) through all the varying generations of conquerors since first the savage might of the Assyrian empire set its stamp upon the land. The town is distracted by the ambitions of powerful Arab families who ruled, until less than a century ago, each over his estate in undisputed sovereignty. These lordlings have witnessed, with an antagonism which they are scarcely at the pains to hide, the hand of the Turk tightening slowly over the district; nowhere will the Arab national movement, if it reaches the blossoming point, find a more congenial soil, and nowhere will it be watered by fuller streams of lawless vanity. Cruel and bloody as Ottoman rule has shown itself upon these remote frontiers, it is better than the untrammelled mastery of Arab beg or Kurdish âghâ, and if the half-exterminated Christian sects, the persecuted Yezîdîs, the wretched fellaḥîn of every creed, who sow in terror crops which they may never reap, are to win protection and prosperity, it is to the Turk that they must look. He, and he only, can control the warring races of his empire, and when he has learnt to use his power impartially and with rectitude, peace will follow. But it is yet far from Môṣul, and seldom has it seemed further than in the beginning of the year 1909.
Except inasmuch as a greater distance from Constantinople and Salonica meant a thinner trickle of western ideas, I do not believe that there existed in Môṣul a more definite opposition to the new order than in other places, though there, as elsewhere in Asiatic Turkey, the forces of reaction were numerous and strong. But Môṣul has always been against the government, whatever form it should happen to assume; the begs have always played with the authorities as you play with a fish on the hook, and the fact that they were now constitutional authorities gave an even better zest to the sport and barbed the hook yet more sharply. The affairs of the Committee had been ill managed. The local committee, which had formed on the proclamation of the constitution, had received with open arms the delegates who were sent from Salonica to instruct it in its duties—indeed the whole town had gone out to meet them, with the Vâlî and other notables at its head. But the delegates had been unfortunately chosen. Both were ignorant and tactless; one was a native of Kerkûk, the bitter rival of Môṣul, and he had, besides, anything but an unclouded personal reputation. The local committee lost rather than gained by their coming, and when they left, they rode unescorted across the bridge, and no one took notice of their departure. With them vanished the slender hopes of improvement which the proclamation of liberty, fraternity and equality had excited, and the begs were left with a clear field. To their ears the words had sounded like a knell. Universal liberty is not a gift prized by tyrants, and equality stinks in the nostrils of men who are accustomed to see their Christian fellow citizens cower into the nearest doorway when they ride through the streets. They had no difficulty in causing their dissatisfaction to be felt. The organization of discord is carried to a high pitch of perfection in Môṣul. The town is full of bravos who live by outrage, and live well. Whenever the unruly magnates wish to create a disturbance, they pass a word and a gratuity to these ruffians; the riot takes place, and who is to be blamed for it? The begs were all in their villages and could have had no hand in the matter; it was Abu’l Ḳâsim, the noted bandit, it was Ibn this or Ibn that. As for the opportunity, it is never far to seek, and upon this occasion it occurred on the last day of the feast of Bairam, January 1, 1909. The people were out in the streets, dressed in their best, as is proper to a festival, when a man of the Kurdish mule corps from Kerkûk insulted (so it is said) a Moslem woman of Môṣul. In an instant arms were out, the Arab soldiery attacked the Kerkûkî sowwârs, a fight ensued that lasted many hours, and in the confusion several Mohammadan women, holiday-makers, who had not had time to seek refuge in their houses, were killed and wounded, a most unusual disaster. Meantime, the Vâlî sat trembling in the serai and lifted not a finger to restore order. Late at night the Kerkûkîs retired to their own barracks, surrendered at discretion to the government, and gave up their arms. This episode might be dismissed as a natural ebullition of racial animosities, but the events of the following day can scarcely be explained except on the assumption that they were instigated by the begs. In the morning a rabble assembled before the serai and cried out for vengeance on the Kerkûkî sowwârs, who were awaiting judgment at the hands of the government. The Vâlî hesitated, and the ringleaders called upon the crowd to arm. The people executed this order with the alacrity of the forewarned, shops and private houses barred their doors and the town was thrown into a state of civil war.
There lived at that time in Môṣul a certain Kurdish holy man, a native of Suleimânîyeh on the Persian frontier. Some years earlier Sheikh Sayyid had fallen foul of the Turkish authorities—his own influence having swelled into too great a force—and had received a summons, which was regarded as implying the blackest misfortune, to present himself in Constantinople. It happened, when he arrived in the capital, that a favourite son of the Sultan was lying sick, and since the sheikh had a great reputation for sanctity, his punishment was delayed while he put up an intercession on behalf of the child. It was effectual: the boy recovered, and the sheikh returned in honour to his native place, with a chaplet of priceless pearls about his neck and a celebrity immensely enhanced. He was old and had long been harmless, but his sons traded upon his position and presently made Suleimânîyeh too hot to hold them. The whole family was under the direct protection of ’Abdu’l Ḥamîd; it was considered advisable to remove them to a spot where they would be equally directly under the eye of his deputy, the Vâlî, and they were brought to Môṣul. They came in like princes on a triumphal progress. The streets were choked with the mules that carried their possessions, and a house opposite the serai was assigned to them as a lodging.
No sooner had the rioters reassembled with arms on January 2, than they were directed to the house of the Kurdish family. Sheikh Sayyid was a man of eighty-five, but he had the courage of his race. When he heard the mob storming at his doors, he took the Ḳurân in his hand and clothed in years and sanctity stepped out into the street, intending to take refuge in the serai. Its door was opposite his own, and the Vâlî from a window watched the scene. The rabble gave way before the venerable figure clasping the holy book, but before he could reach the serai, it closed in upon him, he was cut down and hacked to pieces. His house was then sacked and seventeen of his descendants were murdered. If the leaders of the reactionary party had wished to embarrass the government and to show up its weakness, they were more than commonly successful. During the six weeks that elapsed before the arrival of troops from Diyârbekr and elsewhere, Môṣul was in a state of complete anarchy. Christians were openly insulted in the streets, the civil and military authorities were helpless, and no less helpless was the local committee of Union and Progress. When the troops came some degree of order was restored, but the reactionary movement was not arrested. The formation of the League of Mohammad, which was designed as a counterblast to the Committee of Union and Progress, went on apace. It appealed to Moslems of the old school, who had a genuine dread of the effects of the new spirit upon the observance of the laws of Islâm; it appealed to the ignorant, to whom the conception of the equality of Christian and Moslem is incomprehensible, and it was ea
gerly welcomed by all who were opposed to constitutional government on grounds more or less personal to themselves. One great magnate went through the bazaars collecting the signatures of adherents to the Muḥammadîyeh, and for a time the situation was exceedingly critical. It was however significant that the Naḳîb of Môṣul, the leading doctor of Islâm, steadily refused to sign the papers or to have anything to do with the League. Meanwhile a new and capable Vâlî had been appointed to the province, but he had gone straight to Kerkûk, where matters were in a still more parlous state, and lawlessness walked abroad unchecked in the streets of Môṣul. At length the Vâlî realized the dangers that threatened the province through its capital, and being a man of action he travelled post haste to Môṣul, and set about the restoration of order. He arrested and imprisoned a number of persons and administered severe rebukes to the leading Moslems, together with assurances that the government would protect the rights of the Christians. These warnings were repeated in strong language the day after the accession of Muḥammad Reshâd when the first rumours of a massacre of Armenians at Adana reached the bazaars.
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