Sinjar Mountains
The Sinjar Mountains, is a mountain range that runs east to west, rising above the surrounding alluvial steppe plains in northwestern Iraq to an elevation of. The highest segment of these mountains, about long, lies in the Nineveh Governorate. The western and lower segment of these mountains lies in Syria and is about long. The city of Sinjar is just south of the range. These mountains are regarded as sacred by the local Yazidis.
Geology
The Sinjar Mountains are a breached anticlinal structure. These mountains consist of an asymmetrical, doubly plunging anticline, which is called the "Sinjar Anticline", with a steep northern limb, gentle southern limb and a northerly vergence. The northern side of the anticline is normally faulted, which results in the repetition of the sequence of sedimentary strata exposed in it. The deeply eroded Sinjar Anticline exposes a number of sedimentary formations ranging from Late Cretaceous to Early Neogene in age. The Late Cretaceous Shiranish Formation outcrops within the middle of the Sinjar Mountains. The flanks of this mountain range consist of outward dipping strata of the Sinjar and Aliji formations ; Jaddala Formation ; Serikagne Formation ; and Jeribe Formation. The Sinjar Mountains are surrounded by exposures of Middle and Late Miocene sedimentary strataThe mountain is a groundwater recharge area and should have good quality water, although away from the mountain groundwater quality is poor. Quantities are sufficient for agricultural and stock use.
Sinjarite, a hygroscopic calcium chloride formed as soft pink mineral, was discovered in braided wadi fill, in limestone exposures near Sinjar.
Population and history
The Sinjar mountains already appear in the records from second and third millennium BCE under the name Saggar, which was also applied to a deity associated with the same area. In that period, the range was viewed as a source of basalt, as well as various nuts, especially pistachios, as evidenced by texts from Mari and Mesopotamia.The mountains primarily served as the border frontiers of empires throughout its history; it served as a battlefield between the Assyrians and the Hittite Empire, and was later occupied by the Parthians in 538 BC. The Roman Empire in turn occupied the mountains from the Parthians in 115 AD. From 363 AD, as a result of the Byzantine–Sasanian wars, the mountains lay on the Persian side of the frontier between the two empires. This Persian influence lasted for at least two hundred years and led to the introduction of Zoroastrianism in the region. In the 4th century, Christian influences on the mountains became well established, with Sinjar being part of the Nestorian Christian diocese of Nusaybin. Starting in the late 5th century, the mountains became an abode of the Banu Taghlib, an Arab tribe.
The region was conquered by the Arab Muslim general Iyad ibn Ghanm during the early Muslim conquests in the 630s–640s and came under Islamic rule, forming part of the Diyar Rabi'a district of the Jazira province. The Christian inhabitants were allowed to practice their faith in exchange for payment of a poll tax. The late 7th-century Syriac work, the Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius, which was written in Sinjar, indicates Christian culture in the area declined during the first decades of Muslim rule. The 9th-century Syriac patriarch Dionysius I Telmaharoyo records that a certain Atiq, possibly a Kharijite, raised a rebellion against the Umayyads in the Sinjar Mountains. The medieval Arabic historian al-Mas'udi notes that a Kharijite sub-sect, the Ibadis, had a presence in the area.
The Hamdanid dynasty, a branch of the Banu Taghlib, took over Sinjar in 970. Toward the end of the century, Diyar Rabi'a was conquered by another Arab dynasty, the Uqaylids, who likely built the original citadel of Sinjar. During this century, Yazidis are known to have inhabited the Sinjar Mountains, and since the 12th century, the area around the mountains have been mainly inhabited by Yazidis who venerate them and consider the highest to be the place where Noah's Ark settled after the biblical flood. The Yazidis have historically used the mountains as a place of refuge and escape during periods of persecution. Gertrude Bell wrote, in the 1920s: "Until a couple of years ago the Yezidis were ceaselessly at war with the Arabs, Turks, and with everybody else."
The most prosperous period of Sinjar's history occurred in the 12th–13th centuries, beginning with the rule of the Turkmen atabeg Jikirmish in, through the high cultural period under a cadet branch of the Zengid dynasty and ending with Ayyubid rule. The Armenian Mamluk ruler of Mosul, Badr ad-Din Lu'lu', in the first half of the 13th century, led a campaign against the Yazidis of the mountains, massacring Yazidis and desecrating the mausoleum of the Yazidi founder or reformer Sheikh Adi ibn Musafir in the Lalish valley. During roughly the same era, Sunni Muslim Kurdish tribes launched widespread campaigns against the Yazidi population.
During Ottoman rule, the historian Evliya Celebi noted that 45,000 Yazidis and so-called Baburi Kurds inhabited the Sinjar Mountains, while the city of Sinjar was inhabited by Kurds and Arabs of the Banu Tayy tribe. The Yazidis often posed a threat to travelers through the mountains during the Ottoman era and revolted against the Empire in 1850–1864. The Ottomans were unable to impose their authority by force, but through the diplomatic efforts of the reformist statesman Midhat Pasha were able to impose taxes and customs in the Sinjar Mountains. In the late 19th century, the Yazidis experienced religious persecution during campaigns by the Ottoman government, causing many to convert to Christianity to avoid the government's Islamization and conscription drives.
In 1915 the Yazidis in Sinjar harbored many Armenians and Assyrians fleeing genocide perpetrated by the Ottoman government.