All that night, I pictured Amin back home, alone with his mother and sister, and wished that things had worked out differently. We’d been having an interesting conversation; I hadn’t been ready to leave.
THE NEXT DAY, I telephoned Dr. Shawkat to complain.
“But you can’t stay with just anyone!” he said angrily. “We don’t know this family. Who is this family?”
“They’re not just anyone—Amin works at the Institute of Fine Arts, and his father’s a lawyer. Many people know them,” I said, while noticing Dr. Shawkat’s telling use of the word we.
“It doesn’t matter—who are their neighbors? You don’t know their neighbors,” he said, while I silently thought that he’d made a good point. “You must be careful.”
CHAPTER SIX
Balancing Acts
THE ROAD TO AMADIYA HEADS NORTHEAST OUT OF DOHUK through a land of red earth, tan clay, and granite. Bypassing the ruins of Saddam Hussein’s old castles, it slips through rolling, jutting, jockeying hills, climbs up a steep crest, and points down again into a wide, fertile plain. Black and blue mountains with snowcaps tower in the distance.
Descending, the road enters a valley, flecked here and there with reconstructed villages and stone outposts guarded by peshmerga—sitting, watching, waiting. More black mountains arise from behind, as if sprouting out of the earth, and, suddenly, the whole world seems contained in the valley, the villages, the peshmerga, the mountains.
The sun pours silver dust down from the sky and the far wall of mountains moves closer, evolving as it does so from black to green. Diamond-necklace waterfalls appear, along with dark caves, hard to pick out at first, but then seemingly everywhere.
The road turns a corner, to abruptly reveal a mesa sitting alone in a valley, surrounded by shiny, lime-colored fields. Steep cliffs drop off the mesa’s sides like a curtain, while scattered across the saddle on top are what look like broken pieces of rock: Amadiya, straight out of the Arabian Nights. Best known in Kurdistan today as the capital of the Bahdinan emirate, founded about A.D. 1200, Amadiya is one of the world’s oldest continuously inhabited cities, dating back to the Assyrian Empire in the first millennium B.C.
The Bahdinan princes were among the most respected of the Kurdish rulers who reigned during the Ottoman Empire. Tracing their ancestry back to the early caliphs of Islam, they were honored as a near-saintly family, so much so that no person dared use the same dish or pipe that was used by a Bahdinan. Some Bahdinan rulers even “covered their heads with a veil whenever they rode out, that no profane eye could see their countenance.”
Like other Kurdish princes in power during the Ottoman Empire, the Bahdinans reigned over a confederation of diverse tribes who were sometimes cooperative with their rulers, sometimes too busy at war with one another to heed the princely word. During periods of strength, the Bahdinans could intervene in tribal affairs, demanding taxes and military service, but during periods of weakness, the tribal aghas often stopped paying taxes and declined to lend the princes military aid.
One of the greatest princes of Amadiya was Bahram Pasha, who ruled from 1726 until 1767, to be succeeded by his son Ismail, who reigned for another thirty years. But upon his death, fierce fighting broke out within the Bahdinan family, and by the time it was over, the dependencies of Amadiya—the cities of Dohuk, Aqra, and Zakho—had been split up among various Bahdinan males.
One generation later, in 1833, the Bahdinan family fell from power altogether, thanks to the bloody work of Mir Muhammad, the ambitious, one-eyed “Blind Pasha” of the Soran emirate in nearby Rowanduz. After his father died under suspicious circumstances in 1826, Mir Muhammad seized the throne, immediately killing his father’s old treasurer, both his uncles, and their sons. He next advanced ruthlessly and victoriously on his neighbors, including the Bahdinan emirate, and put most of Amadiya’s leading citizens to death, including the entire princely line. However, the name “Bahdinan” is still applied to the northernmost area of today’s Iraqi Kurdistan, which loosely corresponds to the Dohuk governorate.
The road curling up the mesa to Amadiya bypasses several lookout posts and occasional elderly men, crouched on skinny haunches atop boulders, a principality still at their feet. Near the top arches a flimsy modern gateway, painted with the names of the thirty-seven Kurdish princes who ruled Amadiya until Sultan Muhammad II consolidated all the principalities of the Ottoman Empire in the 1840s, thereby ending the Kurdish states.
The British archaeologist Austen Henry Layard, famous for excavating the ancient Assyrian capital of Nineveh, across the Tigris River from today’s Mosul, visited Amadiya in the early 1840s, not long after Mir Muhammad’s rampage and the end of the Bahdinan emirate. “We found ourselves in the midst of a heap of ruins—porches, bazars, baths, habitations, all laid open to their inmost recesses,” he writes. “Falling walls would have threatened passers-by, had there been any; but the place was a desert.”
For all Amadiya’s glorious setting, a similar unhappy atmosphere hovers over the town today, its population dwindled to about ten thousand. Amadiya has lost most of its antiquities and is poor and barren in feel— a jumble of cement-poured edifices, crooked buildings, and abandoned storefronts. Its streets throng with grizzled men, a sure sign of high unemployment.
Near the town center stands a statue of Ezzet Abdul Aziz, an Amadiya Kurd martyred for his role in the 1946 Kurdish Republic of Mahabad. A near-independent Kurdish state, Mahabad was established in Iran on January 22, 1946, by the Iranian leader Qazi Mohammed and his followers, with the support of the Russians, then occupying parts of northern Iran. Joining the republic one month later was Mulla Mustafa Barzani and twelve hundred of his fighters, forced out of Iraq after their failed early revolt. But the Mahabad Republic was short-lived. The Russians withdrew from Iran in late May, leading to internal conflicts within the new republic, and it fell to the Iranian army in December 1946, almost a year to the date of its founding.
THANKS TO AN introduction from a friend, I had an invitation to stay with a branch of Ezzet Abdul Aziz’s family—his nephew, Muhsen Saleh Abdul Aziz, a representative in the Kurdish Parliament, and his grand-nephew, Hakar Muhsen Saleh, the commander of an elite group of peshmerga. Another grandnephew—out of town during my visit—was the Amadiya mayor.
Hakar Muhsen Saleh lived with his wife and children in a second-story home overlooking the Ezzet Abdul statue. My taxi driver and I had some trouble finding the place, but when we did, I was warmly welcomed into a small room filled with ledgelike couches and about a half-dozen men.
Hickmat Mustafa Mahmoud arrived, a youngish man in a tan jacket. A high school teacher, and apparently one of Amadiya’s only English speakers, he had been pressed into service as my translator—a role he greatly relished, he said, as it relieved him from his classroom duties. His job was difficult and exhausting; he taught weekdays from eight-thirty A.M. to nine-thirty P.M., for a total of eighty-eight classes and 500 dinars (about $30) a week.
With Hickmat was Muhammad Abdullah Amadi, the city historian, who had also taken the day off to introduce me to his city. A short, round-faced man dressed in a dark brown shal u shapik and red-and-white turban, Muhammad was the author of several books on Amadiya, copies of which he carried with him.
We settled down to talk, along with my hosts, the parliamentarian Muhsen Saleh, and his son Hakar. Muhsen Saleh was an elegant, older man with a long, tanned face, dressed in a steel blue shal u shapik and a black-and-white turban. His son Hakar, a handsome man with salt-and-pepper hair, wore a Western suit.
After a short general introduction to Amadiya’s history, the historian zeroed in on the Bahdinan ruler Sultan Hussein Wali. In power from 1520 to 1561, at a time when much of Kurdistan was at war, Sultan Wali had succeeded in establishing a peaceful principality, envied by much of the land, he said. Enlightened and farsighted, the sultan had not only constructed many public buildings, mosques, bridges, roads, and hotels for travelers, but also built an extensive network of seventy-two religious scho
ols. During Sultan Wali’s reign, Amadiya had become one of the most educated emirates in the Ottoman Empire.
“Truly, it was the golden period for Bahdinan and the Kurds,” Muhammad concluded, “and now we hope America will make another.”
I couldn’t help but wince at his optimism.
We set out to explore the city, in a BMW and two sport-utility vehicles, the latter filled with guards, friends, and neighbors—all male. As during many of my more formal visits in Iraqi Kurdistan, the women kept themselves strictly in the background, emerging only occasionally to join us for meals. Being in the large all-male groups was occasionally disconcerting to me, but usually I felt at ease, as I was treated as neither woman nor man, but as honored Westerner.
Hickmat, Muhammad, and I were assigned to the BMW, driven by the parliamentarian Muhsen Saleh, whom Hickmat addressed as “Mam,” or “Uncle”—a term of respect in Kurdistan. The PUK president Jalal Talabani was often referred to as “Mam Jalal,” while the KDP’s Massoud Barzani was “Kak Massoud,” or “Brother Massoud”—more signs, I thought, of the intimate connection the Kurds feel with their leaders. A fine drizzle had begun, and when Mam Muhsen opened his trunk to retrieve his parka, I noticed a large pile of guns inside, covered with a plastic tarp.
Our first stop was the ruins of the Quba Khan school, outside the city at the base of the mesa. We had to hike down a muddy hill to reach it. Leading the way, going fast and sure, was the seventy-one-year-old Mam Muhsen. He had spent many years as a peshmerga and was still in peak physical condition.
Built by Sultan Hussein Wali in the mid-1500s, the Quba Khan school had been in operation until the 1920s, drawing scholars from all over the region, the historian said as we explored the romantic, overgrown ruins. Famous for its library, the school had functioned much like a small university, offering classes in Islamic studies, science, math, medicine, philosophy, astronomy, and agriculture. Sultan Wali had also paid handsome salaries to teachers, stipends to students, and grants to writers and scholars—my kind of ruler, I thought.
“When we have more peace, I would like to restore these ruins and build a road down this hill so that tourists can visit,” said Mam Muhsen, bending to pick a flower.
I nodded. I could easily see tourists in Amadiya. In the early green of spring, it was one of the most beautiful settings I’d ever seen.
BACK ATOP THE Amadiya mesa, we proceeded directly to the Mosul Gate, once one of four ancient entrances to the city and the only one still relatively intact. Built of large white stones, leaning heavily in upon one another, the gate was engraved with pre-Islamic figures of a sun, eagle, prince, and snake, along with four faint warriors marching along a wall. Gazing down the steep mesa from the wall, I could just make out a path that had once been a road leading up to the city from the valley below.
Not far from the Mosul Gate stood the minaret of the Amadiya mosque. Twenty-seven meters tall, with 103 steps leading to its top, it was built of a warm brown stone. Probably erected during the time of Sultan Wali, the minaret had been partially destroyed by the Iraqis in 1961, but rebuilt by the townspeople in 1965. They’d used the original stones, said to have come from Gara Mountain, miles away, and transported across the plain and up the Amadiya mesa one by one, through the work of hundreds of people in a queue.
On the eastern edge of the city stood the tomb of the Sultan Wali, looking like a simple gray igloo on the outside, but lovely within, with a graceful dome, coffin made of grape wood, and Kufi calligraphy script. A verse from the Quran on the tomb read: “Everything (that exists) will perish except His own Face.”
THAT EVENING, OVER BEER, soft drinks, and nuts, Mam Muhsen told me his history. We were relaxing on the floor of a large front room with a kerosene heater and picture window overlooking the town; later that night, mattresses would be rolled out on the floor for the family’s teenage daughter and myself.
We all stretched out, Mam Muhsen half reclining on his elbow as he rubbed his green stocking feet together. He was still in his shal u shapik and black-and-white turban, and looking as elegant as ever. He, his son, and I were the only ones drinking alcohol. Hickmat and Muhammad, as stricter Muslims, refrained.
A servant tiptoed in to discuss the dinner menu. Something simple perhaps, like chicken kebab and salad? We all agreed. We had feasted earlier, on the Amadiya specialty dughabba, which are wheat patties stuffed with ground lamb and served in a broth of goat’s milk flavored with mint. I’d been skeptical, but they’d been delicious.
Mam Muhsen spoke about his childhood, when he and his family had fled to Iran following the first failed Barzani revolt of 1943–45—thirty years before the Algiers Accord. They had lived in the Kurdish Republic of Mahabad but, when it fell, were forced to return to Iraq. His uncle was executed, and his father was imprisoned for seven years.
As an adult, Mam Muhsen himself joined the Barzani movement. “I worked as a peshmerga from 1961 until 1975,” he said. “All that time, except for the cease-fires, I was living in the mountains, with about one hundred men at my command.
“My most memorable battle was on Hindren Mountain, where I was in charge of three thousand peshmerga. There was constant shelling. We took positions in the openings in the rocks, but when the shelling started, we went into shelters. They were covered with thick branches and soil with two stones on top. One time in the shelter, I counted fifty-one explosions in one minute around me. But when the shelling stopped, we went back into position, and we were successful. We captured three Iraqi battalions, and took them prisoner.
“I was never taken prisoner or injured in the fighting, but in 1983, I was arrested by Iraqi intelligence. They took me to Mosul, blindfolded me, and put me in a room so small that I couldn’t lie down. But my cousin Esmat Kattani was in the Iraqi ministry then, and he got me released. I came back to Amadiya.
“Later, Kattani was chosen to be an Iraqi representative to the United Nations. When I heard that news, I took a taxi straight to the mountains, and asked my family to join me. Without his protection, I was afraid that I or my family would be arrested again.
“That happened in 1987, and it was the first time our women and children joined us in the mountains. We dug a small shelter into the hillside. My grandchildren were very small, and they learned to run in there when they heard the airplanes.
“We stayed in the mountains until 1988, when we smelled chemical weapons and fled at night to Turkey. One of our dogs came with us to the border, but he wouldn’t cross—he just sat down and howled. We saw him again when we returned. It was months later, and everything was destroyed, but the dog was still here, weak and thin. He recognized us, but he was very angry. He wouldn’t come when we called.”
Two or three days later, I was startled to hear this same story regarding a dog who refused to cross the border from another man in a different part of Kurdistan. Had the incident actually happened to both parties, or was something else going on—myths in the making, perhaps? Where does the line between myth and reality start? And does it matter? Either way, the story is emblematic.
WHEN I FIRST started learning about the peshmerga—themselves both mythic and real—I felt confused. To me, the term connotes armed fighters. But many Iraqis used the word, which is generally applied only to the Iraqi Kurds, much more loosely than that, to refer to any Kurd who fled to the mountains to resist or escape Iraqi repression.
When I first asked if there had been women peshmerga, the Iraqi Kurds often replied, “Oh, yes, many.” But upon further questioning, it usually turned out that the women peshmerga had served primarily as support staff, cooking and caring for the men. Only a handful had actively borne arms; for that, I would have to wait until I reached Turkey, where the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) included many women guerrillas.
Living in the mountains for years at a time, the peshmerga, like most soldiers, had spent only a fraction of their days in actual battle or preparation for battle; for the rest, they’d engaged in everyday activities. In some pla
ces and periods, the peshmerga had lived only among other men, sometimes isolated in inaccessible areas for many months at a stretch, other times serving in shifts, with perhaps two weeks on, two weeks off to visit their families. In other places and periods, the peshmerga had taken their families with them, sometimes living in small groups, sometimes in large makeshift mountain communities, complete with schools, hospitals, courts, and entertainment. I met teachers, doctors, lawyers, judges, and even actors who had all once plied their trades in the mountains and therefore described themselves as peshmerga, though they had never actually borne arms.
For most peshmerga, life in the mountains had been hard. They’d lived in caves and in small unobtrusive shelters built of stone and wood, sometimes sleeping under branches to keep warm. Free time was spent dancing, singing, telling stories, and watching Iraqi military movements. Food and other necessities were supplied by nearby villages. Without their help, the peshmerga could not have survived.
One peshmerga I met, Suleyman Hadji Badri Sindi of Zakho, explained to me how he had operated as a guerrilla leader in the early 1960s. In charge of overseeing villages in the then-government-controlled Sindi territory, he had known exactly how much wheat and barley, and how many horses and sheep, every family had, as well as who owned guns or had men of fighting age. Whenever the peshmerga needed wheat, he would contact those villagers with grain to spare, and they would hide the wheat in covered holes in the earth, to be retrieved by the guerrillas at night. Whenever Mulla Mustafa needed extra men, Suleyman Hadji would send out the word, and the Sindi men would appear, to fight for a day or two, and then return home as if nothing had happened.
At the time of my visit, the peshmerga were still a force in Iraq, although they were not as fierce as they once had been and functioned more like ordinary militias. The KDP had about thirty-five thousand peshmerga at its command, and the PUK, about twenty-five thousand. In addition, there were about forty thousand irregular peshmerga in reserve. During the 2003 war in Iraq, peshmerga enthusiastically joined the American forces, fighting with the same weaponry they had used for decades, and after the war, plans were to incorporate them into a new Iraqi army.
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