WE POST WORLDWIDE
Please enquire for postage to your country
Ctesiphon Books
To
MESOPOTAMIA
and
KURDISTAN
in
DISGUISE
WITH HISTORICAL NOTICES
OF THE
KURDISH TRIBES AND THE
CHALDEANS
OF KURDISTAN
By:
E.
B. SOANE
Second Edition with a
Memoir of the Author by:
Sir Arnold T. Wilson
LONDON: Second Edition 1926
Second
Edition with more
Photographs
Publisher/Year: LONDON, John Murray, 2nd edition 1926 [first edition, 1912]. Binding: Original Cloth Hardcover, 22x15cm. Pages: 421 Illustrations: 10 photo illustrations. Folding Map.
жжж Please see book CONDITION at end жжж
ELY BANNISTER SOANE was born on August 16th, 1881, in Kensington. Before he left school, in 1898, he had determined to visit the East, but opportunity did not come till 1902, when, after three and a half years in the employ of Messrs H.S. King and Company, East India bankers, was sent to Persia in 1902. After a short time in Tehran he was sent to Yazad, in 1903. He soon developed a strong love for Persia - "If I talk about Yazad", he writes, "I could go on for hours and hours, so fond am I of the place and the people". In 1909 he appeared at Mohammerah, working for the Anglo-Persian Oil Company, where he was sent a few months later to Chia Surkh near Khanakin [Iraq], with the object of developing the small oil-field refinery. Here he had his contact with the Kurds. Fattah Beg had been paid monthly subsidy by the Company to "protect" the oil-field, a friendship between them lasted many years till the death of Fattah Beg.
On the break of the great war Soan was in Baghdad and with some twenty other Europeans, was imprisoned and subsequently deported to Mersina - When he was released, he returned to Iraq and appointed Editor of Basrah Times - Under doctor's order he sailed home, but died at sea in his way on February 24th, 1923.
≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈
SCARCE 1926 SECOND EDITION
THIS EDITION CONSIDERED THE BETTER EDITION
WITH MORE PHOTOGRAPHS & AUTHOR'S BIOGRAPHY
BY A. T. WILSON
FASCINATING ACCOUNT of TRAVEL
to IRAQ
KURDS & KURDISTAN
From Preface ....
THE following chapters are a plain narrative of a journey across Mesopotamia and in Southern Kurdistan, made up from a journal kept throughout the voyage from Constantinople to Baghdad through those countries.
I think I may fairly claim that I have given here a description of a great deal so far undescribed, also a view of places, already known, from another standpoint.
Several of the situations have made it necessary to mention the fact of a knowledge of Persian, extensive enough to enable the writer to pass among Persian as one of themselves. Lest this appear a needless and offensive boast, I would say that the incidents demand its mention, and it is explained in the course of the narrative.
In the historical portions of the book, in so far as more modern history is concerned, I have been enabled to give some entirely new matter, for that on Kurdish history was supplied me in letters received from Shah Ali of Aoraman, Shaikh Reza of Kirkuk, Tahir Beg Jaf, Majid Beg Jaf, Muhammad Ali Beg Jaf, while a great part was communicated during conversations at Halabja and Sulaimania. This information, then, I think is unique. As to the chapter on Chaldean history, I am deeply indebted to M. Badria, Rais-il-Millat of Mosuil, also to his brother Habib Badria, who, having access to old histories in Mosuil, were generous enough to allow me the benefit of their information.From Introduction ....
TOWARDS the end of 1920, H.M.'s Government found it necessary to reconsider their position and responsibilities in Mesopotamia, and it was decided, as the only alternative to evacuation and the abandonment of the Mandate which we had accepted from the League of Nations, to set up a national government in the mandated territory in place of the existing administration by British officers ; and after a few months of provisional government by a council of Ministers (including a Kurd) a constitutional monarchy was adjudged to be the most suitable form of permanent Government for the new State, and, among the several candidates who were suggested, Faisal, son of Sharif Hussain, then King of the Hijaz, offered himself and was accepted as King. With the change of central government it soon became evident that the existing régime in the Sulaimani Division, i.e., the rule of a British Political Officer, and in this case peculiarly personal to Soane—for he could not have been replaced—must give way to something more compatible with the status of the new State. The problem gradually became the more pressing, as our attitude towards the Kurdish question in general had imbued King Faisal's Government with the obstinate conviction that, while on the one hand we were ostensibly encouraging the creation of an autonomous State with its capital at Baghdad, on the other we were manoeuvring for a position in which we should be able to use the Kurds against the Arabs in the event of the aspirations in the direction of independence becoming too pronounced for our convenience.
Accordingly Soane's courageous régime had to disappear, and in the general reduction of British personnel which necessarily followed the break up of the British administration in Iraq, he was one of those whose services were dispensed with. Though the policy since pursued by the Iraq Government in regard to Southern Kurdistan, under British advice, has been one of amalgamation with and not absorption into Iraq, the Kurdish problem remains. It is gratifying however to note that the League of Nations' Commission of Enquiry on the Turco-Iraq Frontier question, in their report of September 1925, amply endorsed Soane's sympathetic policy in regard to Kurdish affairs by making it a condition of the continuance of the mandated territories within their existing limits, that the Kurdish language should be taught in Kurdish districts and be the medium of instruction.Sir Arnold T. Wilson
formerly Civil Commissioner
in Mesopotamia
Contents ...
Prefatory Note
Dedication
E. B. Soane - A Memoir by Sir Arnold T. Wilson
Bibliography of Published Works
In Stamboul
From Constantinople to Hierapolis
From the Euphrates to the Tigris, Edessa (Urfa), and Amid (Diarbekr)
Down the Tigris to Mosul
Mosul, the Cities of the Assyrian, the Yazidis
The Zab Rivers, Ancient Assyria and Adiabene, Arbela, Kirkuk
Chaldeans
By the Hamavands to Sulaimania
Sulaimania
Shahr-i-Zur
Shahr-i-Zur and Halabja
Life in Sulaimania
Life in Sulaimania (continued)
To Kirkuk
To Bagdad
Of Kurds and their Country
Appendix - Kurdish Tribes
Bibliography
Index
Illustrations ...
The Author
Bab-ul-top and Auchon Market, Mosul
On the Persian Frontier, South Kurdistan
Aoraman
A View of Sulaimania showing Motor Road built by the Author
Adela Khanum (Khan Bahadur)
Mrs. Soane, Adela Khanum, Major E.B. Soane, Captain Lees, Ahmed Beg - Taken at Halabja, October 1919
The Kurdish Frontier Mountains
Encampment of Jaf Kurds in Shahr-i-Zur
A Jaf Chief, South Kurdistan
Condition ...
Corners bumped and rubbed, sun-faded spine, foxing on title page, otherwise book internally in good condition. Very scarce title on Iraq's Kurdistan.
|