Sanjak of Hakkari

Hakkari (Syriac: ܚܟܐܪܝ‎ Ḥakkāri, or ܗܟܐܪܝ Hakkāri, Kurdish: Colemêrg‎), was a historical mountainous region lying between the plains of Nineveh to the south of Lake Van, encompassing parts of the modern provinces of Hakkâri, Şırnak, Van in Turkey and Dohuk in Iraq. During the late Ottoman Empire it was a sanjak within the old Vilayet of Van.

The region stretching from Tur Abdin to Hakkari formed the Nairi lands which served as the northern Assyrian frontier and border with their Urartian rivals. The Assyrians of this region were Nestorian Christians adhering to the Assyrian Church of the East and lived here until 1924, when the very last Assyrians who survived the Assyrian Genocide and massacres that occurred during 1918 were expelled. Most subsequently moved to the Nahla valley in northern Iraq or elsewhere.

Following the devastation of the urban centres of Mesopotamia at the hands of Timur, a Turkic military leader operating under the guise of restoring the Mongol Empire, he was known as "the Sword of Islam." His conquest of Baghdad and the general area, especially the destruction of Tikrit, effected the Syrian Orthodox Church which sheltered near Nineveh at Mar Mattai Monastery following the destruction of Christians in the region, the Ismailis and Sunni and Shi'a Muslims indiscriminately by Timur during the second part of the 14th century. The few survivors sought refuge among the Assyrians of Hakkari and the surrounding region. This region also produced many bishops and patriarchs as hereditary succession was used to prevent a full ecclesiastical collapse of the church. By the 16th century, the Assyrians disappeared from many cities where they previously thrived, such as in Tabriz and Nisibis. The head of the Church of the East moved from Baghdad to Maragha in Urmia by 1553.

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