'IRAQ AND THE PERSIAN GULF' [‎336r] (674/862)

PORTS AND INLAND TOWNS 523
Kirkuk passes west of the Kani Domlan hills. Tracks north-east up the
Little Zab to Taktak and south-west downstream to Fat-ha.
Air: Emergency landing-ground 1 mile east-south-east of the town.
Amadia. 37 0 06' N., 43 0 28' E.; alt. c. 3,500 feet. Pop. 3,000. Qadha cap.,
Mosul Liwa. Rainfall station (P. and T.).
Amadia is built at the north end of an oval plateau above the Sipna Nihail
tributary of the Great Zab, about 56 miles north of Mosul. The plateau,
1,400 yards long from north to south and 550 yards at its widest, is con
nected by a narrow col to the main ridge of the Ser Amadia range, which
rises 3 miles north of the town to over 6,100 feet; it falls on both sides to
tributaries of the Sipna Nihail, narrow and deep on the west, broader
and shallower on the south-east, and is approached from these by two
routes, leading to gateways on the west and north-east. At the southern
end of the plateau are the ruins of a Kurdish castle with a masonry wall
and bastions, from which there is a wide view over the Sipna Nihail valley.
The town is the local market for the agricultural produce of the Kurdish
and Christian peasantry of the district of Barwar, in the centre of which it
lies. The inhabitants include Kurds, Nestorian and Chaldean Christians,
and Jews. There is a small bazaar with the usual trades and crafts. Water
is from springs outside the town.
History
Tradition ascribes the founding of Amadia to the Dilemite prince Imad
ad Daulah (d. a.d. 949) and its restoration to the Seljuk Atabeg of Mosul,
Imad ad Din Zangi, in a.d. 1142. There was a Kurdish castle here by the
thirteenth century, and in the fourteenth the town was of a fair size.
Amadia played a notable part in local history as the stronghold of Kurdish
dynasts, ‘valley lords’ or Dere Beg, of the Bahdinan family, who were
already established in the fourteenth century and continued to rule a princi
pality extending to Aqra, Dohuk, and Zakho, under the nominal suzerainty
first of the Persian princes of Ardalan and later of the Ottoman Sultans.
The Bahdinan were wealthy, and in 1660 the Beg of Amadia could raise no
less than 10,000 horsemen. In the early eighteenth century, however, the
Mamluk Pasha An Ottoman title used after the names of certain provincial governors, high-ranking officials and military commanders. of Baghdad, Ahmad (p. 259), besieged and took Amadia, and
forced the Bahdinans to recognize the full authority of the Ottoman
Government. Their power was greatly restored during the long rule of
Bahram Pasha An Ottoman title used after the names of certain provincial governors, high-ranking officials and military commanders. and his son {c. 1735-1787), but thereafter violent family
quarrels weakened the dynasty and in 1833 the whole principality fell into
the hands of the great ruler of Ruwandiz, Mohammed Beg. In 1838 the
Ottoman Government intervened, Amadia was captured, the local dynasts
finally dispossessed, and eventually a Turkish Qaimmaqam was installed as
governor. In 1843 a notorious massacre of Nestorian Christians was insti
gated by the fanatic Nurulla and led to English protests; before 1914 the