AMADIYAH,
a town and district in Kurdistan. The town is
situated upon a lofty isolated rock in 36° 47'
N. lat. 433 21' E. long, in a plain which is
screened on the north and south by
mountain-ranges and drained by the Ghara River,
which flows eastward into the Great Zab. The
southern range called Ghara is high, well-wooded,
and in parts precipitous and very difficult of
access. It separates the Amadiyah district from
the country of the Missouri Kurds. The northern
range, which is also well wooded but does not
seem to be so high as the southern one, separates
the plain of Amadiyah from the extensive valley
of Berwari.
The
plain of Amadiyah is cut up into innumerable
ravines by the torrents which rush down the
mountains into the Ghara River, by which they are
carried to the Zab. It is well wooded with the
gall-bearing oak and with fruit and forest trees.
It contains many villages, which were formerly
inhabited by Chaldean or Nestorian Christians and
were very flourishing, but many of them have been
deserted by the inhabitants in order to escape
the violence of the Kurds and the tyranny of
their Turkish governors; most of those who remain
have joined the Roman Catholic Church. Around the
town and the villages are well-cultivated gardens
and orchards. Tobacco, rice, grain, water-melons,
fruit, and gall-nuts are among the products, out
Kurdish robberies and Turkish oppression afford
little encouragement to cultivate the land.
The
town is described by Dr. Layard as a heap of
ruins ; porches, bazaars, baths, and habitations
were laid open to their inmost recesses ; every
part seemed crumbling to ruin, filthy, and nearly
deserted ; for the population at the time of his
visit, in August, had retired to their summer
habitations in the mountain valleys. The fort or
castle, which is surrounded by walls flanked with
towers, is considered of great importance as a
key to Kurdistan and is defended by a small
garrison. Amadiyah was formerly a place of
considerable importance and strength, and
contained a very large and flourishing
population. It was governed by hereditary pashas,
who traced their descent from the Abbasside
Caliphs, and were on this account always regarded
with religious respect by the Kurds. The ladies
of their family enjoyed the title of Khan. Ismail
Pasha, the last of these hereditary chiefs
defended himself long against the Turks in his
inaccessible castle, but at last a mine was
sprung under a part of the walls, which the Kurds
thought safe from attack, and the place was taken
by assault Amadiyah (which is said to mean ' Town
of the Medes ') is frequently mentioned by early
Arab geographers and historians, and its
foundation most probably dates from a very early
epoch. Some have asserted that it was called
Ecbatana. To a defaced bas-relief on the rock
near the northern gate, Dr. Layard assigns the
date of the Arsacian kings. Amadiyah is
proverbially unhealthy. Fever and agues are very
prevalent in summer, at which season the
population remove to the neighboring mountains,
in the valleys of which they live in tents and
ozailis, or sheds made with boughs. The
population has greatly diminished since the place
became subject to the Turks.
(Dr.
Layard's Nineveh and its Remains ; Colonel
Chesney's Expedition to the Euphrates and
Tigris.)
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