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

On other fronts, the Assyrians were to face the impact of the contemporary international development by which France introduced itself as an ally to the Ottomans. This brought the Catholic missionaries to the region after Sultan Selim’s award of concessions to France in 1535, determined to resume the efforts to bring the Christians of the Near and Middle East into communion with Rome, which had begun during the era of the Crusades. The missionaries entered the Ottoman Asiatic dominions as early as 1536 and soon after were able to penetrate among the followers of the original patriarchal line of Rabban Hormuzd. The continual labours of the Catholics involved many attempts to sow division among the Nestorian followers of the Church of the East, who were viewed by Rome as heretics. The first recorded attempt to ‘reconcile’ the Church of the East in 1551–1553 failed with the termination of the first Catholic patriarchal line in 1575; however, a fresh opportunity presented itself to Rome when a division in the patriarchal family led the bishop of Salamas, Jelu, and Si’arat to defect from his church and join the Catholics, who encourage him by appointing him as patriarch in 1580, thus creating a second rival line to the mother church, which has ever since been known as the line of Mar Shimun. This line drew its strength and support from the independent Assyrian tribes but did not maintain its allegiance to Rome for long, owing to opposition among both the clergy and the laity. By the middle of the seventeenth century, it had severed all its relations with Rome, and its followers had returned to the doctrine of the Church of the East. Among the Assyrian Ra’aya of both the Ottoman dominions and Persian Azerbaijan, however, the Roman Catholic missionaries eventually enjoyed greater success, and the resulting religious divisions contributed to a political disunity among the Assyrians of which the Ottomans were to take full advantage in the era of centralisation.

The Tribes and the Kurds

The Kurds remained loyal to the accord of 1514 as long as the Ottomans were enjoying power and greatness. But once the Ottomans’ weakness was exposed in Europe, the Persians seized the opportunity to resume the expansionist policy of Ismael Shah.