Bapir Restaurant, Sulav
Old City gate
November 2019
Hadi's Insider Tour of Amedi
HB, one of my students, invited me on a crisp November weekend day to visit his family hometown of Amedi. Amedi is nearly mythical in both its appearance and history. It doesn't even look real approaching it from a distance and more recalls a fort from Rajasthan, India than a Kurdish citadel in northern Iraq. Add to that, no one really knows who exactly built Amedi, only that "it is extremely old". I had only viewed it from afar in the past, so this would be my first true visit. I felt excited, especially to be shown around by a "native" (or so I thought).
HB insisted his good friend DA join us. DA held a special place in my heart because he was the first student I met while working in Duhok at the university. He is an affable, tall, lanky guy from Sulamaniya, on the opposite side of Iraqi Kurdistan (where they speak Sorani dialect). I shared a degree of sympatico with him as he often explained he felt as much a foreigner in Kurmanji-speaking Duhok as I did. HB and I waited a very long time for DA to wake up and realize that yes, in fact, today WAS the day he was tagging along to show Mr. Matthew Amedi. Honestly, I was not surprised, but on short winter days, daylight is a precious commodity, so the delay was irksome.
DA finally arrived, he parked his car, and we cruised to Amedi in style in HB's Mercedes - no complaints from me. We stopped at a few "beauty spots" along the way and took in the waning Fall colors. I was getting hungry and pushed the guys to get on with it. HB knew "the perfect place" for lunch in Sulav, a little resort town that clung to the mountainside across from Amedi with extraordinary views. We ate at "Bapir" (Kurdish: grandfather) restaurant and had traditional food. I must note that I was never once disappointed with Kurdish food. One of the dishes served even resembled Tharid {See: Searching for Saudi food in Mythical Al Khobar} as it was made with pieces of bread. The view from our table of the Amedi tabletop mountain was stunning.
Amedi is noteworthy in so many aspects. Physically, it is a mesa more akin to formations found in the desert southwest of the United States. As a location for a city, back in the day, it could not be beat for defensive capability - one road in and out, a winding switchback to a narrow gate. These days a modern road also accesses Amedi, but in historical times, it was a nearly impenetrable fortress town. The main entry gate has carvings on it that are so lost to history, no one is sure who made them. People mostly agree that they are from the Bahdinan Principality dating back to the 14th century although Amedi itself has been occupied since the time of the Assyrians two thousand years prior to that. Amedi is OLD.
Amedi is often held up as a place of religious harmony prior to modern Iraq. People say that Muslims, Jews, and Christians all lived there in harmony while in other areas they were always squabbling. While true that Amedi has had diverse people living there over the centuries, whether or not they lived in a Shangri La type existence is up for debate. There is nothing left of the Jewish community and there are only a few Christians left in town. EVERYONE seems to claim that THEIR forefathers were the ones who built Amedi - Jews, Yazidis, Assyrians, Arabs, Kurds - take your pick. For the record, what exists in Amedi now is mostly Kurdish and very old. There is no denying that.
The Magi, those gift-bearers to the Christ-child, traditionally set out for Bethlehem from Amedi. There are so many versions of that story, it would be hard to decide which one to relate. I will go with: Amedi was an ancient commercial center with some important religious leaders. Other important leaders came there to discuss the "sign in the heavens" and they all decided to follow it. It would not be too much of a stretch to think people coming overland from Turkey or Iran would stop there on the way to the Levant. Whatever the case, the "Three Kings" are supposed to have set out from Amedi.
As Amedi was the capitol of a prosperous and powerful Kurdish principality, its Qubehan School and attached library once held a great collection of ancient manuscripts. The ruins of that school are still visible below Sulav in the valley under Amedi. Unfortunately, British troops destroyed the school in 1919 in a punitive attack, thwarting a native uprising. Luckily, some of the books were saved and now rest in the National Library in Baghdad. Imagine in 1919 British troops were destroying an ancient library and a scant 20 years later condemned the Nazis in Germany for their great book burnings. The world is filled with pots and black kettles. Additionally, as Amedi was a seat of power and learning, the Jesuits sent missionaries, too. The first known study of Kurdish language was undertaken there by an Italian priest. Alas, the poor Kurds never seem to seize the moment and take charge of anything to their benefit. The first official grammar of their language was written by a foreigner and not a Kurd.
HB told DA and me multiple times about his knowledge of Amedi and what a great place it was. Think of Butterfly McQueen in "Gone with the Wind" - I know everything about birthin' babies, Miss Scarlett. Alas, upon arrival to his ancestral town, it became clear that HB, in fact, knew little about Amedi and barely knew anyone who lived in the citadel! It was actually humorous - I don't know nothing about Amedi, Mr Matthew! This was painfully obvious when we visited the venerable old mosque in town. He had never been inside, knew nothing about it, and was not even sure we could visit. Luckily, we managed a short peak inside - very plain but well kept. I discovered later that it is the oldest mosque in the region and one of the oldest in all of Iraq. Ooops, HB, you kind of let us down on that one.
We walked down through the old bazaar and onto the Bahdinan Gate. This well-worn gate is the money shot for Amedi. It was crowded with people taking photos of the fabulous view over the Zagros Mountains and the valley below. The gate itself is noteworthy for being ancient. Worn and weathered, the details are almost gone. After Pira Delal {See: Pira Delal}, it is the next most iconic image of Iraqi Kurdistan. The best thing for me about seeing these places was the young Kurdish people visiting and appreciating their own history and culture. The dearth of such appreciation in Saudi Arabia was something that saddened me. That country has an abundance of such places, but few admirers. Kurds, by contrast, LOVE their history.
As the light was fading, we drove down off the mesa into the valley below to a local tahina (sesame paste) factory where that food was being ground out in the original process with an old millstone. Of the several mills around, HB took us to one beside a creek and an old stone bridge. The setting was idyllic in the setting sun. The smell of the roasted seeds coming from the wood fired ovens was heavenly. We were offered tea and had a piece of fresh bread with some just-ground tahina slathered on it. The taste was otherworldly. Comparing that tahina to others would be like comparing an espresso from a cafe in Milan with a cup of Nescafe. I didn't want to just eat it, I wanted to jump into a vat of it!
We got back to Duhok long after dark and I went straight to my room and slept. Amedi had one more gift for me though, bad stomach. I was up all night. Apparently something from Bapir had not agreed with me. I could go to work the next day (barely) and I wanted to take HB to task about it. He was absent. When I finally caught up with him, he meekly admitted he got sick as well. Most hilariously, DA, who ate all the same food we did, was absolutely fine! That became a long-running joke among us. Apparently, DA could eat literally ANYTHING with no side effects. I would also like to note that in two years in Iraq, it was the only time I had a stomach problem!
Thus ends the tale of the (sometimes) great adventure to the Citadel of Amedi with one of its native sons.