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

Chapter 13

The End of the Kurdish Wars

1. The Rise and Fall of Bedr Khan Beg

After his attack on the Assyrian tribes and occupation of their country, Bedr Khan Beg emerged as the only Kurdish leader affecting the lives and fortunes of the non-Turkish people under his control. Being devoted to the fanatical teachings of the extremist Muslim Darwish order, he treated the non-Muslim inhabitants of al Jazirah with severe cruelty in a vigorous attempt to convert them to Islam. In January 1844, Rassam reported a new general campaign against the Yazidi settlements throughout the region. In it, Bedr Khan used every means to further his desire to convert all the inhabitants of al Jazirah to Islam, in which he finally succeeded.¹ The Christians were treated in the same way, and this policy was so violently practised that one of its victims was a bishop of the Jacobite Church in Tur Abdin. Kemal Effendi, the sultan’s envoy, was convinced that Bedr Khan had committed this atrocity. The governor of Diarbekir, who had under his authority Midyat, one of the largest Syrian Orthodox towns in the region, summoned the head of the clergy there to obtain from him the necessary evidence to prove Bedr Khan’s complicity.²