Erbil is the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan and appeared originally in literary sources from 2300 BC in the archives of the Eblaite Kingdom which is considered the regions original royal dynastic hegemon; utilizing expansion and trade throughout the Levant and with neighboring sovereign powers. According to Giovanni Pettinato, Erbil, as mentioned in two tablets was named Irbilum. At the end of the 3rd millennium BC records of the Ur III period detailed the city too as so named Urbilum. King Shulgi destroyed Urbilum in his 43rd regnal year, after which his successor Amar-Sin, incorporated the site under the Ur III state. In the 18th century BC, Erbil appears in a list of cities that was conquered by Shamshi-Adad of Upper Mesopotamia and Dadusha of Eshnunna during their campaign against the land of Qabra. During the 2nd millennium BC, Erbil was incorporated into Assyria. Its populace gradually converted from the Mesopotamian religion between the 1st and 4th centuries to the Chaldean Catholic Church Christianity (and to a lesser degree to the Syriac Orthodox Church), with Pkidha traditionally becoming its first bishop around 104 AD, although the ancient Mesopotamian religion remained in the region until the 10th c. AD. The metropolitanate of Ḥadyab in Arbela (Syriac: ܐܪܒܝܠ Arbel) became a centre of eastern Syriac Christianity until late in the Middle Ages. When Christian persecutions begun in earnest, Erbil's Christian governor was said to have been martyred in 358. A Nestorian school was there founded by the School of Nisibis whilst Erbil was predicated by Zoroastrians, and as Erbil served as a seat of the Assyrian Church of the East many church fathers came from the city also well-known authors in Syriac.
During the Neo-Assyrian period, the name of the city was written as Arbi-Ilu, meaning 'Four Gods' and it so remains comparable with the cities of Babylon and Assur. Inscriptions from Assurbanipal record oracular dreams inspired by goddess Ishtar of Erbil. Assurbanipal the King of the Neo-Assyrian Empire from 668 BC to c. 627 BC likely held court in Erbil, receiving there envoys from Rusa II of Urartu after the defeat of the Elamite ruler Teumman. After the fall of the Assyrian Empire, Erbil was controlled by the Medes when Cyaxares is said to have settled a number of people from the Ancient Iranian tribe of Sagartians in the city (Arrapha in modern Kirkuk), and as a reward for their help in the capture of Nineveh. The city was later incorporated into the Achaemenid Empire, after which becoming part of the empire of Alexander the Great following the Battle of Gaugamela in 331 BC. The partition of Alexander the Great's empire by his generals relegated the city then called Arabella or Arbela under the Seleucid Kingdom. After the 1st c. BCE, the Roman and Parthian Empire fought over control of Erbil, or Arbira as it was also known.
Following the Muslim conquest of Persia, the Sasanid province of Assuristan was dissolved, and from the mid 7th century AD the region saw a gradual influx of Muslim peoples, predominantly Arabs, Kurds and Turkic peoples. The most notable Kurdish tribe in the region were the Hadhbani, of which several individuals also acted as governors for the city from the late 10th century until the 12th century when it was conquered by the Zengids and its governorship given to the Turkic Begtegenids, who retained the city during the Ayyubid era. Yaqut al-Hamawi further describes Erbil as being mostly a Kurdish population in the 13th century. The modern Kurdish name of the city is Hewlêr.
The siege of Erbil by the Ilkhanid Mongols would occur in 1258–59 after the Mongols failed to capture the citadel with the timely arrival of a Caliphate army. It would be however after the fall of Baghdad to Hülegü, a grandson of Genghis Khan, as the last Begtegenid ruler surrendered, that they returned to conqueror the Kurdish garrison of Arbil after a six month siege. Hülegü appointed an Assyrian Christian governor to the town, and a Syriac Orthodox Church was founded. Oïrat amir Nauruz would sustain persecutions of the cities Christians, Jews and Buddhists throughout the south western Mongol empire and in earnest by 1295 and lasting 2 years, deeply effecting the indigenous Assyrian Christians. In Spring 1310 a civil war struck the city as Assyrians took the citadel fleeing persecution. When the siege by Ilkhanate troops and Kurdish tribesmen succeeded under governor Malek, the Assyrian defenders and much of the lower town populous were also slaughtered.
Tamerlane — The Destruction of 1397 & the Timurid EmpireHolding on some generations yet, the Assyrians of Erbil were maintained until total destruction of the city by Timur in 1397.
Timur, Taimur or best known as Amir Timur or Tamerlane a Turco-Mongol Persianate, was born into the Barlas confederation in Transoxiana on 9 April 1336, Timur gained control of the western Chagatai Khanate by 1370. From that base, he led military campaigns across Western, South and Central Asia, the Caucasus and southern Russia, and emerged as the most powerful ruler in the Muslim world after defeating the Mamluks of Egypt and Syria, the emerging Ottoman Empire, and the declining Delhi Sultanate.
Thus founding the Timurid Empire, a Sunni Muslim dynasty in the region and inevitably the Mughal Empire (1526–1857) on the Indian subcontinent, as through his great great grandson Babur. His Turco-Mongolians were formed of the army of Genghis Khan, a people who settled today's Kazakhstan, and who became Turkicized whilst also adopting Iranian fine arts. Timur was considered a great patron of arts and architecture, inspired by Ibn Khaldun and Hafiz-i Abru; notably sparing all the artisans' lives during the sacking of Aleppo and Damascas, and for export. Solely responsible for the effective destruction of the Nestorian Christian Church of the East, enslavement of some 60,000 Armenian and Georgian Christians, along with the murder of around 17 million people at 5% of the world's population of the time; Timur whence ravaging Anatolia captured Smyrna, beheading it's Hospitalers the humanitarian arm of the Knights Templar.
Erbil (and all of Iraq) passed into the hands of the Ottoman Turks in the 16th century, becoming part of the Musul Vilayet in the Ottoman Empire for 400 years until World War I. The Ottomans and their Kurdish and Turcoman allies were defeated by the British Empire, with the aid of the Chaldeans and Armenians.
Written by Jason Steven Jowett. Sourced from historical fact. This blog may not be reproduced in whole without the author's express permission. Copyright © 2024. greatbrittania.blogspot.com