page_title: Sinjar
section_title: Islamic era
hierarchical_section_title: Sinjar / History / Islamic era
caption_attribution_description: English: Coin of Qutb_al_Din_mint_of_Sinjar_Roman_emperor_Caracalla_1199
context_page_description: Sinjar is a town in the Sinjar District of the Nineveh Governorate in northern Iraq. It is located about five kilometers south of the Sinjar Mountains. Its population in 2013 was estimated at 88,023. The town is one of the main settlement areas of the Yazidis and is also home to Sunni Muslim Arabs and Turkmens and Christians.
context_section_description: Sinjar was conquered in the 630s–640s by the Arab Muslims led by the commander Iyad ibn Ghanm and thereafter incorporated into the Diyar Rabi'a district of the Jazira province. In 970, the city was conquered by the Hamdanid dynasty, a branch of the Banu Taghlib tribe. Toward the end of the century, another Arab dynasty, the Uqaylids captured the city and erected a citadel there. Beginning with the rule of the Turkmen atabeg Jikirmish in 1106/07, Sinjar entered its most prosperous historical period lasting through the mid-13th century. The Zengid ruler Nur ad-Din conquered the area in 1169 and 1171; in the latter year, a cadet branch of the Zengids was established in Sinjar under Zengi II (r. 1171–1197), whose court was noted for its high culture. The scholar Ibn Shaddad (d. 1186) noted that Sinjar was protected by a double wall, the first being the original wall built by the Uqaylids and the newer wall built by the local Zengid ruler Qutb ad-Din Muhammad (r. 1197–1219). Also noted by Ibn Shaddad were two mosques, six madrasas (schools of Islamic law) for the Hanafi and Shafi'i schools of jurisprudence, a mashhad (shrine) dedicated to Ali ibn Abi Talib and three khanqas (buildings for Sufi gatherings) and Ibn al-Adim (d. 1262) further notes a zawiya (Sufi lodge). A surviving mosque minaret from this era, remarked on by the 19th-century epigraphist Max van Berchem, contains an inscription crediting Qutb ad-Din as the minaret's builder in 1201. 
  The city came under Ayyubid rule during the reign of Saladin and was controlled by the Ayyubid ruler of the Diyar Bakr district of the Jazira, al-Ashraf Muzaffar al-Din (r. 1210–1220). It later was controlled by the ruler of Mosul, Badr al-Din Lu'lu'. The Ilkhanid Mongols destroyed the double wall of Sinjar and the mashhad of Ali in 1262; the mashhad was rebuilt afterward by the Ilkhanid's Persian governor of the area Muhammad al-Yazdi. Ibn al-Adim and al-Dhahabi (d. 1348) list several Islamic scholars who hailed from Sinjar, including the polymath Ibn al-Akfani (d. 1348). The geographer Zakariya al-Qazwini (d. 1283) referred to Sinjar as "little Damascus", noting in particular the similarities of Sinjar's ornate bathhouses with their mosaic-laced floors and walls and octagonal stone pools. During his visit of the city, Ibn Batuta (d. 1369) remarked that Sinjar's congregational mosque was encircled by a perennial stream. 
  The Timurid successors of the Ilkhanids captured Sinjar after a seven-month siege according to oral traditions cited by Evliya Celebi (d. 1682).  The city was later conquered successively by the Turkmen tribes of Ak Koyunlu and Kara Koyunlu before being taken by the Safavid dynasty of Iran in 1507/08. During the Ottoman–Safavid War (1532–1555), Sinjar was captured by the Constantinople (Istanbul)-based Ottoman Empire in 1534.  The city became the center of its own sanjak (district) within Diyarbekir Eyalet (province of Diyarbakir). It was later reduced to being the administrative center of its own nahiya (subdistrict) of the Mardin Sanjak. Writing in the 17th century, Evliya Celebi noted that the population of the city of Sinjar was composed of Kurds and Arabs from the Banu Tayy tribe, while the Sinjar Mountains were inhabited by 45,000 Yazidis and Kurds. 
  After 1830, the nahiya of Sinjar became part of the Mosul Sanjak. During the 19th century, the Yazidis of the Sinjar Mountains often posed a threat to travelers in the region. The governor Dawud Pasha of Baghdad (in office in 1816–1831) was unable to suppress the Yazidis and the Yazidi revolts of 1850–1864 were ended after the diplomatic efforts of the Ottoman statesman Midhat Pasha enabled the authorities to tax and impose customs in the area.
caption: Coin of Qutb al-Din, the Zengid ruler of Sinjar in 1197–1219, with representation of Roman Emperor Caracalla, Sinjar mint 1199.
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