'Kurdistan and the Kurds' [‎46v] (92/122)

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at Halabja to deal with them directly. As soon as it was seen that he
was not to be permitted to have control over any tribes who were
unwilling to submit to him, his influence began to wane almost everywhere
except in the immediate vicinity of Suleimaniyah. It is difficult to trace
exactly the subsequent course of events, but on the 22nd of May Mahmud
raised the standard of revolt.
Except in his own district he received small support. Of the two
main causes of the failure of the rebellion, the first was Mahmud’s personal
unpopularity, which outbalanced the influence derived from a famous
family and from his claim to be a sayyid of the family of the prophet
Mohammed; the other lay in the inability of the Kurds to meet trained
troops accustomed to mountain-warfare. His chief supporters were
Kurds from across the Persian frontier; apart from these, he relied for
support on the tribes living to the north and north-east of Suleimaniyah
and on the armed rabble of the town itself.
The Avromani, living about 40 miles south-east of Suleimaniyah over
the Persian frontier, sent about 100 foot and 50 horse under Mahmud
Khan Dizli; the Hamawand sent a section under Karim Fattah; the
Ismail Uzairi, a small tribe in the valley of Suleimaniyah, were engaged in
the fighting at Tashlujah, after which their levy returned home; a small
party of the Jaff took the side of Mahmud, but the majority of the tribe
were opposed to him ; about 200 men of the Jabbari, whose headquarters
are at Tawirbarz, 20 miles south of Qara Anjir, joined Mahmud, under the
leadership of Sheikh Sayyid Muhammad, but on the 5th of June it was
said that they had left him ; the Merivani, who are neighbours of the
Avromani, were originally reported to have taken sides with Mahmud, but
their attitude remained uncertain throughout the rising ; ‘Aziz Sherif Jalal,
a notorious brigand of the Shuan tribe, took part in the fighting at Qara
Anjir on the side of Mahmud, to whom he brought 250 men; Paris Agha
joined Mahmud with 50 men of the Sheikh Bazeini, but they all deserted
with the exception of a few horsemen. Otherwise, Mahmud’s principal
allies were the tribes in villages owned by him or by his relatives in the
districts of the Qara Dagh and of Qara Hasan, in the immediate vicinity
of Suleimaniyah and Chamchamal. His chief individual supporters were
Sheikh Qadir, his brother; Sheikh Sa‘id, owmer of Jigri (6 miles S.E. of
Qara Anjir); Sheikh Ismail and Sheikh Amin of Bizala (8 miles S.S.E. of
Qara Anjir); Sheikh Hamid of Qarawaisi (11 miles S.W. of Chamchamal);
Sheikh Muhi-’d-Din of Kani Kawa (in the Bazzan valley) ; and Sheikh
Sa‘id of Mamlahah (8£ miles S.S.E. of Chamchamal).
The outbreak was sudden; the small force of Kurdish levies on the
spot were speedily defeated and dispersed; the British political officers
and their staff were confined to their houses but were not maltreated in
any way, though a British motor-driver was killed^ Mahmud assumed
the entire control of affairs, appointed his own qaimmaqdm, seized the
archives of the government and took two lakhs One lakh is equal to one hundred thousand rupees of rupees Indian silver coin also widely used in the Persian Gulf. from the