Assyrians, Kurds, and Ottomans: Intercommunal Relations on the Pe ...

Following the routes of Timur’s invasion from 1393 to 1401,⁷⁴ we find his advance covering both zones A and B. In practice, people who face danger try to flee for safety and escape the threat of massacre. Those with the best chance to escape were the inhabitants of zone B, because their homes were nearest to the place of refuge in the mountains (average thirty to fifty kilometres), while those who were living in the flat regions, zone A, had comparatively less chance to escape. The shortest distance from central and southern Mesopotamia to places of safety ranged between six hundred and twelve hundred kilometres. So it must be kept in mind that even if refugees from central and south Mesopotamia managed to leave their homes, they still faced a journey of about one month on foot across the country where Timur and his armies were constantly scouring. Between 1393 and 1401, Baghdad was sacked in three successive campaigns, each of which inflicted severe destruction throughout Mesopotamia and Assyria.⁷⁵

Since ancient times and up to the present, when faced with imminent danger, the people of Mesopotamia have taken refuge in the mountains for a time, and then when the danger seems over, returned to their homes. A native historian of Mosul mentioned in the eighteenth century that Nineveh had been repopulated once again during the Muslim advance of the seventh century.⁷⁶ Just so, during the horrible massacres of Timur and his followers, the only survivors were the mountain people or others, mostly from zone B as seems likely, who managed to flee their homes and take refuge among their brethren in the high country.⁷⁷ The non-Turkish ethnic and religious groups adopted the same survival strategy during the Ottoman military campaigns of centralisation.⁷⁸

While it seems fair to assume that the invasion of Timur Lang brought destruction to many Assyrian provinces, common sense and the analogy of what happened during later invasions support the Assyrians’ own tradition, which is that many people from the rolling regions that came within the reach of the invaders managed to flee temporarily from their homes.