# The Nestorians and their Rituals/Volume 1/Chapter 12

CHAPTER XII.
Before resuming the narrative of our mission, I shall proceed to lay before my readers a short account of the political condition of the districts around Mosul, in order that they may be the better able to understand the nature of those intrigues and machinations which finally resulted in the massacre of the mountain Nestorians.
The character of Mohammed Pasha, of Mosul, surnamed Injé Beirakdâr, has been pourtrayed in a former chapter; but as this individual acted so important a part in the after affairs of the Nestorians, I shall endeavour to expose more fully the feelings which actuated his conduct towards that unfortunate community. We have already seen by what cruelly vigorous measures he succeeded in establishing his authority, not only over the rebellious inhabitants of Mosul, but also over the predatory Arabs of the desert, and Yezeedees of Sinjâr. After having reduced these tribes to abject submission, his thirst of power and love of gain led him to hanker after an extension of ​the territory allotted to him by the Sublime Porte. The provinces of Bahdinân and Buhtân, being the nearest to Mosul on the north, were the first which excited his cupidity; and he endeavoured by every means in his power to get these two districts annexed to his pashalic. Bahdinân was at this time nominally subject to Baghdad, but had been ruled for ages by an hereditary Coordish chieftainship, of which Ismael Pasha was the living representative. In 1832 the Coordish Pasha of Rawandooz took possession of the strong fortress of Amedia, and placed it under the command of Rasool Beg his brother. The constant disturbances and insurrections which arose in consequence of the intrigues of these two rival chiefs, the one striving to hold what he had obtained by conquest, and the other to regain possession of what he had lost (fomented as they were by Mohammed Pasha, who nevertheless was the first to report to the supreme government the anarchical state of the district), finally induced the Porte to add the whole of Bahdinân to the Mosul pashalic, by which concession the authority of Mohammed Pasha was extended to the borders of the Tyari country.
But not satisfied with this addition of territory, Mohammed Pasha found means to prevail upon the Porte to place Buhtân also under his sway. This province, which comprises the whole of the district west of Bahdinân as far as Jezeerah, and stretches northward to the west of Tyari, was under the immediate jurisdiction of Bedr Khan Beg, and, in a late reform attempted by the Turkish government for regulating the condition and political relations of the Coordish and other mountain tribes in this part of its dominions, had been annexed to the pashalic of Diarbekir. Mohammed Pasha found it a comparatively easy task to convince the Porte that this arrangement was likely to be productive of great inconvenience to the two pashalics, and upon his repeatedly promising to establish the Sultan's authority more firmly in Coordistan, and thus to increase the revenue of the government, Buhtân was transferred from Diarbekir and made a dependency of Mosul.
These concessions took place in the early part of 1841, and ​Mohammed Pasha lost no time in endeavouring to make good his jurisdiction over the newly-acquired districts. His first efforts were directed against the hereditary Coordish chiefs, being fully persuaded that whilst these continued to share the government with him, his ambitious designs must fail of perfect success. Accordingly, in December of that year, he sent a party of soldiers to Zakho, under pretence of escorting some military clothing to Mosul, but with secret instructions of a widely different nature. The soldiers executed their mission to the letter by murdering the governor, his nephew, and several other members of his household. Zakho was then placed under a Mutsellim appointed by the Pasha of Mosul.
Shortly after this, Mohammed Pasha requested Bedr Khan Beg to appear before him: but the treachery practised upon the governor of Zakho was of two recent occurrence to induce the wily Coord to accept the invitation. His refusal to obey so incensed the pasha, that he sent him word to prepare for a visit which he intended to pay him at Jezeerah. The threat concealed under this message was not lost upon Bedr Khan Beg, who forthwith proceeded to build castles in different parts of the mountains, and otherwise to fortify himself against any sudden attack on the part of Mohammed Pasha. The poor Christians of Buhtân were the principal labourers employed on these military works, and not only were they made to serve without pay, but numbers were maimed for life by the heavy weights which they were forced to carry.
About this time a party of Berwari Coords seized upon some flocks belonging to the Tyari Nestorians, and killed several of their men. This act was followed by instant reprisals: the Nestorians entered the Berwari district, took from the Coords more than they had lost, and then retired to their mountain fastnesses. There is reason to believe that Mohammed Pasha himself was the instigator of this outrage, in order to compromise the Christians of Tyari, against whom he sought some real ground of complaint. On hearing what had occurred, he ordered several of the Bahdinân tribes to assist those of Berwari against the Nestorians; but the winter of 1841 having set in, put a stop to the projected invasion. He also wrote to the Pasha of Erzeroom, requesting him to send a force from Van ​during the following spring to attack the Nestorians on the east, while he promised to co-operate with him and fall upon them on the south and west.
The protracted siege of Amedia, which resisted for several months the most vigorous measures made to reduce it, and the disturbances created in Bahdinân and Berwari by Ismael Pasha in his efforts to regain possession of his hereditary rights, gave Mohammed Pasha's army full employment during the spring of 1842, and diverted him from any warlike attempt upon the Tyari country. Mohammed Pasha, however, proved that he could at least think of more than one enemy at a time, and could wield other than military weapons. After some persuasion, he succeeded in inducing Said Beg, a nephew of Bedr Khan Beg's, to come to Mosul, where he entered into a secret league with him to betray his uncle and compass his death. Said Beg was accordingly despatched to the valley of Zakho with a friendly message from Mohammed Pasha to the Emeer of Buhtân; but the object of his mission becoming known to the Coordish chief, a strong detachment of soldiers was sent against him, who inflicted a severe chastisement upon the tribe to which he belonged, and carried away with them a considerable booty. When Mohammed Pasha learned that his stratagem had signally failed, he wrote a letter to Bedr Khan Beg congratulating him on his fortunate escape, and praising him for the rigour with which he had punished the offenders!
During the summer of this year (1842) the late Dr. Grant, of the American Independent Board of Missions, commenced building premises for an extensive missionary establishment at Asheetha, the largest village in Tyari, and the nearest to the Berwari district. He himself informed me before his death, that on asking leave of Mar Shimoon to commence the undertaking, the Patriarch referred him to Noorallah Beg, the Coordish Emeer of Hakkari, pleading at the time that he had not the power of granting his request. Noorallah Beg gave the necessary permission, and the Doctor remained in the Tyari country to superintend the building. There is reason to ​believe that the Nestorians generally looked upon this proceeding with suspicion, not so much on account of any plans which the zealous missionary had in view, but because the work was carried on under the sanction of Noorallah Beg, their avowed master and secret enemy. It appears that it was part of the doctor's plan to sink several wells within the walls of the house, in order to obviate the necessity of bringing water from the stream which runs below the village. The Nestorians stoutly refused to dig these wells, and on being expostulated with, demanded of the doctor whether he expected to be besieged. This fact, which I relate upon Dr. Grant's own testimony, is sufficient to prove that the Nestorians had some misgivings with respect to the undertaking; and I am inclined to believe, from the after-fate of the building, that the crafty Emeer, in giving his permission for its erection, secretly entertained the hope, that at no distant day it would be of essential service to him in his designs upon the indomitable Nestorians. He had not as yet sufficient power or authority to attempt himself the erection of a fortress in the Tyari country; but under the guise of friendship for Dr. Grant, to whom he was indebted for his valuable professional services, and of good-will towards the Nestorians who manifested some regard for him, he gave his sanction to the building of a mission-house, which he eventually hoped to turn into a castle. Supposing, however, that this hypothesis is well founded, the most prejudiced judgment must acquit the departed missionary of having been a conscious party to any such scheme of aggression on the part of the Coords, or of ever having knowingly acted otherwise than as he sincerely believed would tend to the spiritual and temporal benefit of the mountain Nestorians.
Whilst Dr. Grant was residing in the Tyari country Mutran Yoosef, the Chaldean bishop of Amedia, accompanied by a Dominican monk, found their way to Asheetha, and held a long conference with Mar Shimoon and several of his clergy. The object of this mission was to induce the Nestorian patriarch by promises of large sums of money, and political assistance from France, to submit to the Roman See. Mons. Boré, who had been deputed by the Society of Lyons to report upon the probable success of a scheme of this nature, had given his opinion ​in these words: "Le clef de leur pays est dans les mains du patriarche qui habite le couvent de Kochânes. S'il revenait à l'Eglise, tout le peuple des montagnes, son troupeau spirituel, imiterait cette soumission." Two thousand francs were accordingly remitted from the aforesaid Society with the avowed object of making a proselyte of Mar Shimoon, and the most sanguine hopes of success were entertained by the papal party. After a discussion which lasted for several days, the missionaries were obliged to leave the country without having made the least favourable impression upon the Nestorians or their chief; and it is to be feared that had they not retreated in time they would have been expelled from the Tyari by force. A native eyewitness informed me that the conference was broken up by Mar Yohanan, a Nestorian bishop of Ooroomiah, and a zealous supporter of the Independent missionaries, who addressed the meeting to the following effect: "Fathers and brethren! If a Mohammedan were to come amongst us, and ask us to embrace the religion of the False Prophet, should we listen to him or bid him welcome? Even so these men are come hither to seduce us, and I beg that they be no longer entertained."
Mohammed Pasha had not forgotten the Nestorians all this time, but continued his intrigues against them, and sent frequent reports to Constantinople representing them as a race of robbers and rebels who set at nought the authority of the Sultan. He moreover directed Abd-ool-Samed Beg, the Emeer of Berwari, to write him a letter respecting the house which Dr. Grant was then erecting it Asheetha, and dictated to him how he was to describe it. This letter, which was accordingly written, informed the Pasha that a certain Englishman was raising an extraordinary edifice in the Tyari countiy measuring 300 yards square, and containing no less than 250 rooms, and that as many Nestorians were engaged in completing it. Mohammed Pasha lost no time in forwarding this lying production to the Porte, hoping that it might induce the government to place the Tyari under his supervision, and authorize him to put a stop to the building. There can be no doubt, moreover, that as he anticipated ultimate success in his projects, he was anxious that no Franks should be present when he first assumed the government of the Tyari ​provinces. He had already begun to feel that the existence of a British Vice-Consul at Mosul, acted as a restraint upon his proceedings generally, and that he could no longer exercise his former tyranny and despotism with the same recklessness and publicity; and he could not brook the idea that any foreigner should have the opportunity of acting as a spy or reporter upon his projected rule over the Nestorians. He had written frequent complaints against Mr. Rassam, hoping to get him removed from the consulate, and there is good ground for believing that he actually directed Khaled Beg, his Persian secretary, to write to his brother Tatar Beg, the governor of Nerwa, in Bahdinân, to put Dr. Grant out of the way, first by decoying him to a place of safety, and then by murdering him in cold blood with as much secresy as possible. The unsettled state of the Tyari, and rumours of a projected attack upon the Nestorians by the Coords, induced the doctor to leave Asheetha before this nefarious scheme could be put into execution, and he returned to Mosul in December, 1842, bringing with him all his moveable property which he did not consider safe to be left in the mountains. The treacherous Pasha welcomed his arrival, and shortly after requested him to attend him professionally.
About this time Bedr Khan Beg and Ziner Beg, the generalissimo of the Buhtân army, accompanied by Ismael Pasha, the ex-governor of Amedia, marched to the frontiers of Berwari, and invited the Coordish chiefs of that district to join them in an attempt to throw off their subjection to the Ottoman government. They also sent a message to Mar Shimoon, calling upon him to take part in the same league; whereupon the Nestorian patriarch lost no time in forwarding an account of this confederacy to Mohammed Pasha of Mosul, disclaiming any participation in the insurrection, and expressing a sincere desire to act in accordance with the wishes of the Sultan. The Pasha, who saw in this fresh outbreak a valid ground of complaint against the Coords, was highly delighted that he had been referred to by the patriarch, and was now led to hope that the government of the Tyari would not be withheld from him much longer. For the present, at least, his anticipations were destined to be disappointed. The Pasha of Erzeroom, who was nominally the governor of the Hakkari and Tyari tribes, having laid several ​complaints against him, the Porte sent him a severe reproof for his intrigues in Coordistan, and ordered him to abstain in future from meddling with the affairs of other pashalics.
I have now brought down the account of the different external influences which were in active operation to compass the downfall of the Nestorians up to the period of our arrival at Mosul, and I can confidently say that the authority upon which the foregoing statements rest is indisputable. Of the internal political condition of the mountain tribes, little was known with any degree of certainty at that time, and I shall reserve for the present what I afterwards learned of the causes springing therefrom which conspired with those already adduced to bring about the massacre of the unfortunate Nestorians. That the country was in a very disturbed state owing to the dissensions which existed betwixt the Coords and Nestorians is clear from the separate testimony of Mons. Boré and Mr. Ainsworth, and their statements alone, made several years before my visit to the Tyari, are sufficient to belie the malicious slanders which were so freely circulated respecting our mission. A correspondent of one of the London daily newspapers, in giving an account of the slaughter of the Nestorians, made me in conjunction with the American and Romish missionaries the immediate cause of this outrage. Who his informant was is not stated, neither on what grounds the accusation was made, but there is every reason to believe that the author of the libel was an enemy to the Church and to religion generally. The following extracts go indeed to show that the Coords were becoming jealous of the frequent visits made by Franks to the mountain Nestorians; but I shall hereafter be able to prove beyond all doubt, that this circumstance had really very little influence in hastening a crisis which had long before been planned and anticipated. Unsettled feuds of long standing were still rife and open betwixt the Coords and Christians of central Coordistan, and the growing power of the former, fostered as it now was by the countenance and support of the bigoted Emeer of Buhtân, made them more and more ​impatient that a people whom they looked upon as infidels should share with them the government of the mountains. Mons. Boré, writing from Persia in 1839, thus describes the state of feeling existing between the Nestorian patriarch and Noorallah Beg: "Mar Simon vit en fort mauvaise intelligence avec le petit souverain de Djulamerk; et, si celui-ci ne craignait le vengeance des montagnards, il l'aurait expulse depuis longtemps du monastère, situé à quatre lieues de sa ville." And, again, speaking of the internal dissensions of the mountain tribes he says: "La tribu de Tiari, qui compte sept mille âmes, a une charte commune avec les cantons de Thekboumi et d'Artousch, où vivent des Curdes, amis de leur confederation. Diz, Baz, Bervez, Djélon et des Curdes Pinochi forment un parti opposé. Des dissensions, entretenues par un interet contraire, divisent leurs forces, et font celle des princes curdes qui les entourent. S'ils étaient unis, toutes les tribus des Curdes, que des rivalités et des querelles interminables affaiblissent et épuisent, ne pourraient leur résister … En plusieurs rencontres, les Chaldéens [Nestoriens] leur ont donné de sanglantes preuves de leur supériorité. C'est la terreur que leur inspirent ces hommes libres qui les empêche d'opprimer les autres Chaldéens [Nestoriens,] et qui force le bey de Djulamerk à souflfrir sur son territoire leur patriarche, dont il est l'ennemi. Les Chaldéens [Nestoriens] des montagnes se vengent, à l'égard des Curdes vivant au milieu d'eux, des humiliations que ceux-ci, comme musulmans, prodiguent ailleurs aux chrétiens; et ils les appellent, à titre de représailles, leur raïas."
Ainsworth also describes the unsettled state of the mountaineers during his visit in 1840. Not far from Julamerk his party was met by the governor of a Coordish village, who addressed him as follows: "What do you do here? are you not aware that Franks are not allowed in this country? No dissimulation! I must know what you are, and what is your business. Who brought these people here?" turning round in a haughty peremptory way. "I," said one of the Chaldeans [Nestorians], laying his hand upon his breast in an undaunted manner. The bey turned again, and said more deliberately and quietly: "You are the forerunners of those who come to take this country; ​therefore it is best that we should first take what you have, as you will afterwards take our property." And again, speaking of Noorallah Beg, the same author writes: "This chieftain had foreseen that the changes occurring in the east, must sooner or later cause his country to fall under the domination of a stronger power than his; but above all, he disliked the position in which he stood with regard to the Patriarch of the Chaldeans [Nestorians,] over whom he claimed superiority, and whom yet he could not dictate to. He had thus been led to barter his independence for a recognition of his power by Hafiz Pasha of Erzeroom, and had returned back by the influence of Turkey, at once to keep in control his own restless predatory tribes, and also to extinguish the power of the Patriarch, of which he had always been extremely jealous. From the new ties of friendship that the Christian bishop had been lately and suddenly entering into, with the English on the one hand, and the Americans of Ooroomiah on the other, his enmity now burst into an open flame, and ultimately led to the Patriarch beingbetrayed into the hands of the Turks. As far as I am concerned, I extremely regret that the mission I was engaged in, should have hastened a catastrophe, painful in itself, and calculated, unless timely assistance and consolation, and strengthening advice is given to the mountaineers, to subvert the sacred independence which has withstood so many ages of trial and persecution, and to sap the ancient institutions of their glorious Church to the very foundations."
After the above testimonies I shall leave the reader to judge how a friendly visit of three days which I made to Mar Shimoon at Asheetha, in February, 1843, (a detailed account of which shall be given in the sequel,) could have had any influence whatever in bringing about the slaughter of the Nestorians in the month of June following. The charge is too preposterous to be dwelt upon, and I shall therefore drop this division of our subject for the present to resume the narrative of our mission from the date of our arrival at Mosul.
* ↑ The province of Bahdinân borders upon the Tyari country on the north, and contains two towns, namely, Zakho and Amedia.
* ↑ Dr. Grant is well known in Europe and America as the author of "The Nestorians, or the Lost Tribes," an ingenious attempt made to prove that the Nestorians are the descendants of the "dispersed of Israel."
* ↑ Correspondance d'Orient, vol. ii. p. 232.
* ↑ The Coords of these districts look upon all the late changes in the Turkish government as the result of European influence; and I have no doubt that the jealousy of Franks manifested by the Coords of central Coordistan sprung from this source,—they regarded them as the forerunner of Osmanli despotism.
* ↑ Correspondance d'Orient, vol. ii. pp. 236, 244, 245.
* ↑ On this subject Mr. Ainsworth was wrongly informed; Mar Shimoon was never betrayed into the hands of the Turks.
* ↑ Travels and researches in Asia Minor, &c. vol. ii. pp. 242, 253, 254.