Syriac Christians under Ottoman rule

Assyrians (also called Chaldeans and Syriacs) are the ethno-linguistic descendants of the Roman and Achaemenid provinces of Syria and Assyria.^[1] The Assyrian people adopted Christianity as one of the first nations, in the 1st to 3rd centuries.^[2]

Culturally, linguistically, and ethnically distinct from their neighbours in the Middle East - the Arabs, Persians, Kurds, Turks, and Armenians - the Assyrians have, throughout their recent history, endured much hardship, largely as a result of religious and ethnic persecution.

Prehistory to Early Bronze Age

The oldest neolithic site in Assyria is at Tell Hassuna (in Mosul, Iraq), the center of the Hassuna culture. The Assyrian roots ultimately go back to the ancient Akkadians, from whom the ancient Assyrians are believed to have descended. The Akkad region laid in north and central Mesopotamia. The main city, Akkad (or Agade), is thought to have been situated on the west bank of the Euphrates, between Sippar and Kish, close to modern Baghdad. The Akkadian Kingdom reached the height of its power between the 24th and 22nd centuries BC, following the conquests of king Sargon.

Assyrian Empire

The first inscriptions of Assyrian rulers appear after 2000 BC. Assyria then consisted of a number of city states and small Semitic kingdoms. The foundation of the Assyrian monarchy was traditionally ascribed to Zulilu, who is said to have lived after Bel-kap-kapu (Bel-kapkapi or Belkabi, circa 1900 BC), the ancestor of Shalmaneser I. The Assyrian kings controlled a large kingdom at three different times in history. These are called the Old, Middle, and Neo-Assyrian kingdoms, or periods. The most powerful and best-known nation of these periods is the Neo-Assyrian kingdom (911-612 BC), or the Assyrian empire, the first true empire in human history.^[1]^[3] However, its capital was captured in the Battle of Nineveh, ending the dynasty. The Assyrians moved their capital to Harran, and when Harran was captured, the Assyrians once again moved their capital to Carchemish. ^[4]

Perso-Roman rule

Pre-Christian Period

After the defeat of Ashur-uballit II in 608 BC at Haran, the last Assyrian stronghold of resistance, the Assyrian empire was divided up by the key invading forces, the Babylonians and the Medes. Sumer and Akkad and the bulk of the Western half of the empire came under the realm of the Babylonian king Nabopolassar, whereas the Eastern half of Assyria-proper and Urartu were controlled by the Medes, led by Cyaxares. The Median empire was then conquered by Cyrus in 547 BC.^[5], under the Achaemenid dynasty, and the Persian empire was thus founded, which later consumed the Neo-Babylonian or "Chaldean" Empire. King Cyrus changed Assyria's capital from Nineveh to Arbela. Assyrians became front line soldiers for the Persian empire under King Xerxes, because of their strategic locations, playing a big role in the Battle of Marathon under King Darius I in 490 BC.^[6]

Early Christian Period

From the 1st century BC, Assyria was the theatre of the protracted Perso-Roman Wars. It would eventually become a Roman province between 161 and 363 AD, although Roman control of this province was unstable and was often returned to the Persians. Along with the Armenians and Ethiopians, the Assyrians were among the first people to convert to Christianity and spread Eastern Christianity to the Far East.

Islamic empires

The ancient Assyrian capital of Nineveh had its own bishop of the Church of the East at the time of the Arab conquest of Mesopotamia.^[7] During the era of the Islamic Empire, Assyrians maintained their autonomy; in a fatwa, Mohammed, the prophet of Islam, demanded the "protection of the Assyrian people of Mesopotamia".^[8] The Assyrians eventually lost their autonomy when the region was conquered by the Ottoman Empire and the written fatwa destroyed in 1847, after which thirty thousand Assyrians were subsequently massacred.^[9]

20th century

By the beginning of the twentieth century, the Ottoman Empire was disintegrating. World War I and its aftermath saw its end, during which time Assyrians – like Armenians – claim a genocide occurred (1914 to 1922), where an estimated two-thirds of Assyrians died in organized massacres, starvation, disease, and systematic kidnapping and rape. In 1932, Assyrians refused to become part of the newly-formed state of Iraq and instead demanded their recognition as a nation within a nation. The Assyrian leader Mar Eshai Shimun XXIII asked the League of Nations to recognize the right of Assyrians to govern the area known as the "Assyrian triangle" in northern Iraq.^[10] Eventually this led to the Iraqi government to commit its first of many massacres against its minority populations (see Simele massacre).^[11]

Post-Ba'thist Iraq

With the fall of Saddam Hussein and the 2003 invasion of Iraq, no reliable census figures exist on the Assyrians in Iraq (as they do not for Iraqi Kurds or Turkmen), though the number of Assyrians is estimated to be approximately 800,000.

The Assyrian Democratic Movement (or ADM) was one of the smaller political parties that emerged in the social chaos of the occupation. Its officials say that while members of the ADM also took part in the liberation of the key oil cities of Kirkuk and Mosul in the north, the Assyrians were not invited to join the steering committee that was charged with defining Iraq's future. The ethnic make-up of the Iraq Interim Governing Council briefly (September 2003 - June 2004) guided Iraq after the invasion included a single Assyrian Christian, Younadem Kana, a leader of the Assyrian Democratic Movement and an opponent of Saddam Hussein since 1979.

Timeline

Contents