Ismail Agha Shikak
Simko Shikak (also known as
"Simitquh"; born Ismail
Agha Shikak in 1887; died 1930) was a Kurdish chieftain
of the Shakak tribe
(Shekak also Shakkak or
Shikakan) is considered as the largest among all the
Kurdish tribes in the
West Azerbaijan province of
Iran and the adjacent area of
Turkey. This large tribe lives around the city of
Maku and south as far as
Urmia. Among the clans of the Shekak are the 'Awdoǐ. According
to their oral history they came from Diyarbakır in
the 17th Century and settled west of Lake
Urmia, which displaced the
Dumbulī tribe.The first known chieftain of the 'Awdoǐ
was Ismail Agha who died in 1816 and whose tomb is beside the
Naslu River. His
grandson Jafar Agha was executed as a bandit in Tabriz in
1905, Jafar's brother, Simko Shikak,
was responsible for leading the anti-Christian massacres in the area before and
during World War I and for trying to
create an independent Kurdistan in
the 1920s.
They speak the
Kurmanji dialect of the
Kurdish language, (Shakaki sub_dialect). The Shekak consists of many clans and families).
He was born into a prominent Kurdish feudal family
based in Chihriq castle
located near the Baranduz river in the Urmia region
of northwestern Iran
n
West Azarbaijan Province,
Salmas County, near the
Turkish border.
The Feudalism was a set of legal and military customs in
medieval Europe
that flourished between the 9th and 15th centuries, which, broadly defined, was
a system for structuring society around relationships derived from the holding
of land in exchange for service or labour.
By 1920 parts of Iranian Azerbaijan located west of Lake
Urmia were under his control. He
led Kurdish farmers into battle and defeated the Iranian army on several
occasions. The Iranian
government had him assassinated in 1930Simko
took part in the massacre of the Assyrians of Khoy and
instigated the massacre of 1000 Assyrians in Salmas.
Family
background
His family was one of the most prominent and politically active Kurdish families
throughout Qajar reign
from the late 18th to early 20th century. Sadiq Khan Shikak was one of the
generals and governors in the Agha
Muhammad Khan's [1] early Qajar state and was commanding a force of 10,000
soldiers. However, he was soon fell out of favor and Qajar monarch attempted to
murder him. Sadiq Khan has been accused of taking part in the assassination of
Qajar king in the town of Shusha
[2] in
1797. Among other prominent members of the family are Ismail
Khan The Great and his son Ali
Khan, Muhammad Pasha son
of Ali Khan, Cewer (Ja'afar) Agha brother
of Simko. Many members of the family were murdered by the Qajar state such as Cewer(Dja'far)
Agha who was killed at Tabriz by
the order of governor general.
Murder of Cewer Agha
In 1905, the Qajar monarch Mozafar-al-Din Shah [3] appointed Husein Qulikhan Nizamul-saltana as the general governor of Azerbaijan. According to Iranian historian Ahmad Kasravi, Nizamul-saltana officially invited Cewer Agha to Tabriz in order to consult him on the border issues between Iran and the Ottoman Empire. Once Cewer Agha arrived in Tabriz, Nizamul-saltana ordered Muhammad Hussein Khan Zargham to invite Cewer Agha to his own residence and murder him. Cewer Agha was accompanied by seven of his guards including one of his uncles. Muhammad Ali Mirza, the Iranian Crown Prince, ordered his murder via telegraph sent to Nizamul-saltana. Five of Cewer Agha's guards managed to escape from the murder plot in Tabriz in a ferocious battle and return to Chari castle. Cewer's father, Muhammad Agha, sought help from Sultan Abdulhamid II in Istanbul to avenge the murder of his son. However Iranian envoy in Ottoman court managed to counter his efforts and according to some sources, Muhammad Agha was assassinated in a Qajar conspiracy in Istanbul. Murder of Cewer Agha caused outrage among the Kurds. Moreover many Iranian intellectuals and constitutionalists in Tabriz and Tehran condemned his assassination.
Simko Shikak revolt
In March 1918, under the pretext of meeting for the purpose of cooperation, Simko arranged the assassination of the Assyrian Nestorian patriarch, Mar Shamon, ambushing him and his 150 guards as Mar Shimon was entering his carriage. After the murder of Mar Shimun, the Hakkari Christians took revenge on the Muslim population of Salmas and most of the villages of Salmas County, while Simko and his men massacred Christians in Khoy.
By summer 1918, Simko had established his authority in the region west of Lake Urmia. After this, he organized his forces to fight the Iranian army in the region and managed to expand the area under his control to nearby towns and cities such as Mahabad, Khoy, Miandoab, Maku and Piranshahr in a series of battles.
At this time, government in Tehran tried to reach an agreement with Simko on the basis of limited Kurdish autonomy. Simko had organized a strong Kurdish army which was much stronger than Iranian government forces. Since the central government could not control his activities, he continued to expand the area under his control and by 1922, cities of Baneh and Sardasht were under his administration.
In the battle of sari Taj in 1922, Simko's forces could not resist the Iranian Army's onslaught in the region of Salmas and were finally defeated and the castle of Chari was occupied. The strength of the Iranian Army force dispatched against Simko was 10,000 soldiers. Simko and one thousand of his mounted soldiers took refuge in nearby Turkey, and they were forced to lay down their weapons.
Defeat and assassination
After the murder of Shimun
XXI Benyamin
[4] by Simko, Agha
Petros
[5] joined forces with Malik
Khoshaba [6] and defeated Simko's
forces driving Simko from his stronghold at Koynashahr. In 1930, the commander
of Iranian Army General Hassan
Muqaddam sent a letter to Simko
who was residing in the village of Barzan, and invited him for a meeting in the
town of Oshnaviyeh
[7].
After consulting with his friends, Simko along with Khorshid
Agha Harki went to Oshnaviyeh and
were invited to the house of local army commander, Colonel Norouzi and
were told to wait for the Iranian general. Colonel Norouzi convinced Simko to go
to the outskirts of the town to welcome the general's arrival. However, this was
a trap and Simko was ambushed and killed on the evening of June 30, 1930.
Political life
There are different and conflicting views about Simko among Kurdish historians. After the murder of Cewer Agha, Simko became the head of Shikak forces. At this time, Iranian government was trying to assassinate him like the other members of his family. In 1919, Mukarramul-Molk, the governor of Azerbaijan, with the help of Armenians, devised a plot to kill Simko by sending him a present with a bomb hidden in it. Although the plot failed, but it revealed the intentions of the Iranian government, and propelled Simko into a turbulent period of political and military confrontation with Iran.
Simko was in contact with other Kurdish nationalists such as Abdurrazaq Badrkhan (Bedirxan) and Seyyed Taha Gilani (grandson of Sheikh Ubaidullah Nahri who had revolted against Iran in 1880s). Seyyed Taha was a Kurdish nationalist who was conducting propaganda among the Iranian Kurds for the union of east Kurdistan (Iranian Kurdistan) and north kurdistan (Turkish Kurdistan) in an independent state. He was also aware of the international geopolitics and modern nationalism. In one of his letters to Iranian authorities, he talks about the right of self-rule and autonomy for the Kurds and compares Kurdish demands with similar demands of other nationalities in Europe.
Cultral activities
The first schools for Kurds were established in Mahabaad in 1909 by international missionaries operating under the Lutheran Orient Mission. This is also where the first Kurdish periodical appeared, though it did not last long. Simko attacked the Kurdish and other inhabitants of Mahabaad operating on the fringes of the Ottoman army. The schools in Mahabaad recovered only when the surviving missionaries dared to return in 1920 when Simko's rampaging was being brought in check by the Iranian army. In 1912, Simko and Abdul-razzaq Badirkhan established a Kurdish journal in Iran , a monthly magazine titled Kurdistan. Moreover, he opened a Kurdish school in the north-western city of Khoy. These cultural activities were mainly organized by an association named C�handan� based in Khoy. From 1919 up to the end of his movement in 1922, he also published a newspaper titled Roja Kurd which was the official organ of his government in Urmia. The editor-in-chief of Roja Kurd was Muhammad Turjanizade.
Mozaffar ad-Din Shah Qajar
Shahanshah of Persia
Agha Muhammad Khān Qājār (21 March 1782 � 17 June 1797) (Persian:
آغا محمد خان قاجار) was the chief of the
Qajar tribe, succeeding his father Mohammad Hassan Khan, who was killed on the orders of
Adil Shah. He became the Emperor/Shah
of Persia in 1794 and established the Qajar dynasty. He was succeeded by his nephew,
Fat′h Ali Shah Qajar.
Top
After its foundation in 1750 Shusha was turned into the capital of the
Karabakh khanate. The town became one of the cultural centers of the
South Caucasus after the
Russian conquest of the region in the first half of the 19th century. Over time, it became a home to many intellectuals, poets, writers and especially, musicians (e.g., the
ashugs,
mugham singers,
kobuz players). Shusha was the only large settlement within the
Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast that had a predominantly
Azerbaijani population. In 1977 Shusha was declared reservation of Azerbaijani architecture and history. The city was often referred to as "musical capital or conservatory of Transcaucasia".
The city was also a major center of Armenian cultural and economic life until the closing years of World War I. Along with
Tbilisi; it was one of the two main Armenian cities of the
Transcaucasus and the center of a self-governing Armenian principality from medieval times through the 1750s. It also had religious and strategic importance to the Armenians, housing the
Ghazanchetsots Cathedral, the church of
Kanach Zham and serving (along with
Lachin district to the west) as a land link to
Armenia. Following the
capture of Shusha
in 1992 by Armenian forces, its population diminished dramatically and is now
almost exclusively Armenian.
Top
Mar Shimun XXI Benyamin
(1887� 3 March 1918) (Syriac:
ܡܪܝ ܒܢܝܡܝܢ ܫܡܥܘܢ ܥܣܪܝܢ ܘܩܕܡܝܐ)
was a
Catholicos Patriarch
of the
Assyrian Church of the East.
He was born in 1887 in the village of
Qochanis in the
Hakkari Province,
Ottoman Empire (modern-day southeastern
Turkey). He was consecrated a
Metropolitan on March 1, 1903 by
Mar Shimun XVIII of Rubil,
the Catholicos Patriarch who died on March 16, 1903. He succeeded his predecessor at the age of eighteen and occupied the
patriarchal See of
Seleucia-Ctesiphon at Qudchanis for 15 years. In March, 1918, Mar Benyamin along with 150 of his bodyguards were
assassinated by
Simko Shikak (Ismail Agha Shikak), a Kurdish agha, in the town of
Salmas
(Persia)
under
a
truce
flag
(see Assyrian Genocide).
Top
Petros Elia was from the Lower Baz village,
Ottoman Empire, but was born at Taftia in 1880. There he received his elementary education before attending a European missionary school in the Iranian city of Urmia. After finishing his studies, he went back to his village of Baz and became a teacher there. It was thanks to his fluency in numerous languages, including Syriac, Turkish, Arabic, French, Persian, Kurdish, English, and Russian, he was appointed by the Ottomans as a secretary, and as a Consul in Urmia briefly in 1909.
Malik Yosep Khoshaba
(died 1952) was an Assyrian leader (Malik/Malka) of the ancient Bit-Tyari tribe (Ţyār� (Syriac: ܛܝܪܐ, Kurdish: T�yar) is an Assyrian tribe of ancient origins, and a historical district within Hakkari) who played a significant role during the Assyrian war of independence during World War I.
Khoshaba led forces in counterattacks against
the
Ottoman Army and allied
Kurdish troops during and after the period known as
the
Assyrian Genocide
with some success. Khoshaba was known for his bravery,
cruelty and military capabilities during this time.
Later in life however, Khoshaba became a figure
of great controversy among Assyrians. He was seen by many (though not all) as a
divisive figure, particularly with regards to undermining the cause of Assyrian
autonomy within the newly created state of
Iraq in 1932.
Khoshaba murdered his own wife and daughters,
believing her to have been unfaithful to him. He escaped to Turkey, where he is
rumoured to have killed a bear, while armed only with a knife.Oshnavieh (Persian: اشنويه; Kurdish:'اشنۆ'شنۆ'شنه; also Romanized as Oshnavīyeh, Oshnooyeh, Ashnooyeh, Oshnovīeh, Oshnovīyeh, and Ushnūīyeh; also known as Ushnū) is a city in and the capital of Oshnavieh County, West Azerbaijan Province, Iran. At the 2006 census, its population was 29,896, in 6,572 families.
Oshnaviyeh is located west of Lake Urmia about 1,300 metres above sea level. It lies on the border to the another Kurdish provinces in Turkey and Iraq. The city is surrounded by huge mountains who keep the mild weather even under the summers.Oshnaviyeh is located in an agricultural area and has water flows from mountains entire the year. The most agricultural products are wheat, beetroots and main tree fruits like apple and grape.
Oshnaviyeh is a historic city and there are many historic sites from the Hurrian and Urartian periods onward. It likely corresponds to the ancient city of Suguniya which was attacked by Shalmaneser III of Assyria as recorded in his annals dealing with his accession year. The ethnic population of Oshnaviyeh is mostly Kurdish. In 2010 the population has fallen by more than a thousand people.