'IRAQ AND THE PERSIAN GULF' [‎253r] (510/862)

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DISTRIBUTION OF POPULATION 381
Turkomans (p. 330). The Kurds and Arabs of northern Iraq are
thus solidly Sunni except for a few thousands of peculiar sects.
The Shebeks, Savlis, andKakais comprise these unorthodox Moslems
(fig. 72). The Shebeks are in Mosul plain in villages between Mosul
Fig. 72 . Religious and racial groups of Mosul and Erbil provinces. The broken
line east of the Tigris shows the western and southern limits of tribal Kurds
and Jabal Bashiqa, 15 miles to the north-east. The Sarlis inhabit six
villages along the Great Zab between Quwair and the confluence of
the Khazir. The Kakais have eighteen villages in the Kirkuk plain
west of Tauq, another community in Sulaimaniya province east of
Halabja, and fifteen villages on the Iraqi-Persian frontier between
Khanaqin and Qasr-i-Shirin.
Yezidis and Sabians. The Yezidis, who are estimated at 33,800
persons, live in two separate localities (fig. 72). The first, containing
20,000, is the Jabal Sinjar ridge, where Balad Sinjar is their chief
village, and their neighbours are Arab beduin and the semi-settled
Turkoman population of Jabal Ishkaft and Tel Afar; the second
Yezidi area, containing 13,000 persons, is the Mosul plain from Jabal
Maqlub north-west to the foothills around Dohuk, continuing thence
between the Jabal Bakhair and the Tigris. Their villages are sur
rounded by villages of Christian and Kurdish peasants. It is not clear
whether there are still some Yezidi villages on the right bank of the
Tigris below Pesh Khabur, but there are a few hundred Yezidis
g 82 DISTRIBUTION OF POPULATION
The Sabians are townsfolk and limited to no one locality. Their
main groups are in Baghdad, Nasiriya, Suq ash Shuyukh, Shatra on
the Gharraf, Amara, Qurna, Qala Salih, and over the Persian border
at Mohammerah (Khorramshahr). Also a few families live at Mosul
and Falluja and in a few villages of Kut and Diwaniya provinces.
A recent estimate gives the number in Iraq as 6,000; their provincial
distribution is shown in the table (p. 38°)-
Jews. Out of this community, estimated at 88,000, a greater part
(65%, 58,000 persons) is confined to the three cities of Mosul,
Baghdad, and Basra, 48 per cent, being in Baghdad; Jewish merchants
and pedlars are found scattered in isolation or in small groups through
out the villages of the whole country; small towns, such as Hit and
Ramadi on the Upper Euphrates, often contain communities of one
or two hundred Jews. The four provinces of northern Iraq contain
15,000, and those of southern Iraq some 11,000 Jews in this category;
of these the number of agricultural Jews in the Kurdish mountain
zone of the Great Zab does not exceed 6,500, and may be only half
this figure.
Christians. The distribution of the Christian population of over
135,000 persons is peculiar, 62 per cent, being in Mosul province and
21 per cent, in Baghdad city (fig. 72). In the Mosul province the bulk
of the Christian peasantry, 45,000 persons, live in the Mosul plain
and A 1 Qosh foothills (intermingled with Yezidis) and in the Dohuk
and Amadia districts. In the remoter mountain regions of the basins
of the two Zabs there are small groups of Christian peasants—and
also isolated families of craftsmen—in separate hamlets or sharing
Kurdish villages and small towns, such as Shaqlawa; but the total
number in the districts of Koi, Aqra, Rania, Ruwandiz, and Zibar
does not exceed 3,000. There are also some Christian peasants in the
Erbil plain west of Erbil.
The Chaldeans live principally in a number of large villages, such
as Tel Qaif and A 1 Qosh due north of Mosul. The Jacobites and
Syrian Catholics are mostly found around the Jabal Maqlub and in
the plain south-east of Mosul, where Qaraqosh is a large village;
there are also Chaldeans in this area, and in the Kurdish Barwar-i-Bala
region (Amadia) and Zakho plain. Nestorians are discussed below.
In southern Iraq there is no parallel to this intermingling of Chris
tians and Moslems in the countryside, the Shia Arabs being more
intolerant than the Sunni Kurds. But there is a comparatively large
urban population of Christians both in northern and southern Iraq,
the Armenians in particular being an entirely urban element. In