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Foreword
Hirmis Aboona’s Assyrians, Kurds, and Ottomans: Intercommunal Relations on the Periphery of the Ottoman Empire is a work that will be of great interest and use to scholars of history, Middle East studies, international rela-tions, and anthropology. It presents compelling research into numerous primary sources in English, Arabic, and Syriac on the ancient origins, modern struggles, and distinctive culture of the Assyrian tribes living in northern Mesopotamia, from the plains of Nineveh north and east, to southeastern Anatolia and the Lake Urmia region. Among other find-ings, the work debunks the tendency of modern scholars to question the continuity of the Assyrian identity to the modern day by confirming that the Assyrians of northern Mesopotamia told some of the earliest English and American visitors to the region that they descended from the ancient Assyrians and that their churches and identity predated the Arab conquest.1 It details how the Assyrian tribes of the mountain dioceses of the ‘Nestorian’ Church of the East maintained a surprising degree of independence until the Ottoman governor of Mosul author-ised Kurdish militia to attack and subjugate or evict them.