Hakkâri Province

Districts of Hakkâri province

Hakkâri province is divided into five districts (capital district in bold):

• Çukurca
• Derecik (since 2018)
• Hakkâri
• Şemdinli
• Yüksekova

Hakkari Province is located in Turkish Kurdistan[6] and has an overwhelmingly Kurdish population.[7] The province is tribal and most of the Kurds adhere to the Shafiʽi school with the Naqshbandi order having a strong presence around Şemdinli.[8] The Kurdish tribes in the province include the Doski, Ertuşi, Gerdi, Herki, Jirki and Pinyaniş.[9] The area had a significant Christian Assyrian population from various tribes before the Assyrian genocide in 1915. The Assyrian tribes in the region were Jilu, Dez, Baz, Tkhuma, Tal and Tyari.[10] Relations between Assyrians and Kurds have been described as 'tense coexistence' due to the ability to coexist despite the recurring disputes over land and life stock and robbery of each other and of travelers. Assyrian resentment in the region was more directed towards the Ottomans than the Kurds, due to the Ottoman hostility towards the Christian minority, viewing them as a disloyal non-Muslim component.[11]

Hakkari Sanjak, part of Van Vilayet, had a population of 5,896 in 1881-1882 of which 81.9% was Muslim and 18.1% Christian.[12]

98.8% of the population was Muslim, while Jews constituted the largest religious minority with 0.1% in the 1945 census. Only one Christian was enumerated in 1945, being from the Protestant denomination.[13] In the same census, Kurdish and Turkish were the first language for 87.8% and 11.4% of the population, respectively.[14] The Jewish population in province left for Israel shortly after 1948.[15] In the 1950 census, 89.5% of the population spoke Kurdish as first language, while the second largest first language was Turkish being 9%.[16] In the subsequent census of 1955, Kurdish constituted the first language for 88.4% of the population and Turkish for 11.5%. The same census found 100% of the population to be Muslim.[17] Kurdish and Turkish remained the two largest first languages in the 1960 census for 80.7% and 19.2% of the population, respectively.[18] As with the previous census, Muslims constituted 100% of the population.[19] In the last census conducted in Turkey in 1965, Kurdish remained the largest first language with 86.2%, while Turkish remained the second largest first language at 12.3%.[20] 99.1% of the population was Muslim and 0.8% was Christian in 1965.[21]

In 1980, the only language spoken in rural parts was Kurdish while both Kurdish and Turkish were spoken in urban areas, due to the presence of military and civil officials from other parts of Turkey.[22]

Following the devastation of the urban centers of Mesopotamia at the hands of Timur, a military leader operating under the guise of restoring the Mongol Empire, he was known as "the Sword of Islam." His conquest of Baghdad and the general area, especially the destruction of Tikrit, affected the Syrian Orthodox Church which sheltered near Nineveh at Mar Mattai Monastery. Following the destruction of Christians in the region, the Ismailis and Sunni and Shi'a Muslims was attacked indiscriminately by Timur during the second part of the 14th century. The few survivors sought refuge among the Assyrians of Hakkari and the surrounding region. This region also produced many bishops and patriarchs as hereditary succession was used to prevent a full ecclesiastical collapse of the church. By the 16th century, the Assyrians disappeared from many cities where they previously thrived, such as in Tabriz and Nisibis. The head of the Church of the East moved from Baghdad to Maragheh by 1553.[23]

• Ahmad Khani
• Ali Hariri
• Hakkari (electoral district)
• Sheikh Ubeydullah
• Hakkari (historical region)

• Aboona, H (2008), Assyrians, Kurds, and Ottomans: intercommunal relations on the periphery of the Ottoman Empire, Cambria Press, ISBN 978-1-60497-583-3
• Alexander, V (1994) [1994], The First Civilization, Victor Alexander, ISBN 978-1-4486-7089-5
• Dündar, Fuat (2000), Türkiye nüfus sayımlarında azınlıklar (in Turkish), ISBN 9789758086771
• Gaunt, D; Beṯ-Şawoce, J (2006), Massacres, resistance, protectors: Muslim-Christian relations in Eastern Anatolia during World War I, Gorgias Press, ISBN 978-1-59333-301-0
• McDowall, D (2000), A modern history of the Kurds, I.B. Tauris, ISBN 978-1-85043-416-0.
• Nisan, M (2002) [1991], Minorities in the Middle East: a history of struggle and self-expression, McFarland, ISBN 978-0-7864-1375-1.
• Stafford, R (2006) [1935], The Tragedy of the Assyrians, Gorgias Press, ISBN 978-1-59333-413-0

• Corut, Ilker (2020). "Ethno‐political subordination and patient dissatisfaction: The Kurdish case in Hakkâri during the AKP period in Turkey, 2003–2013". Journal of the Association for the Study of Ethnicity and Nationalism. 26 (3): 553–575. doi:10.1111/nana.12545. S2CID 198681175.
• Sinclair, Thomas A. (2020), "Hakkari", Encyclopaedia of Islam, vol. Three, Brill Publishers, doi:10.1163/1573-3912_ei3_COM_30218