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Ain Sifni Shekhan
Ain SifniLocation in IraqShow map of IraqAin SifniAin Sifni (Iraqi Kurdistan)Show map of Iraqi Kurdistan
Coordinates: 36°41′30″N 43°21′00″E / 36.69167°N 43.35000°E / 36.69167; 43.35000
Country	Iraq
Region	Kurdistan Region (de facto)
Governorate	Nineveh Governorate (de jure) Dohuk Governorate (de facto)
District	Shekhan District
Sub-district	Ain Sifni
Population
• Urban	17,766
• Rural	6,355

Ain Sifni (Kurdish: ئێسفنێ, romanized: Êsivnê, Arabic: عين سفني, Syriac: ܥܝܢ ܣܦܢ̈ܐ, romanized: ʿAïn Sappāné) also known as Shekhan (Kurdish: شێخان, romanized: Şêxan), is a town and subdistrict in Nineveh Governorate, Iraq. It is located in the Shekhan District in the Nineveh Plains.

In the town, there is a Chaldean Catholic church of Mar Yousif, and a church of Mar Gewargis of the Ancient Church of the East. There are also seven Yazidi religious monuments, including mausoleums of Sheikh ‘Alî Chamse and Sheikh Hantuch, and shrines of Sheikh Adi, Nishingaha Peroz, and Sheikh Mushelleh.

Etymology

The Kurdish name of the town is derived from the plural form of "sheikh" ("holy man" in Kurdish), and thus translates to " holy men", whereas the Arabic name is interpreted to stem from Aïn as Safīna in reference to the Yazidi tradition that the town was the location of the construction of Noah's Ark.

History

According to Yazidi tradition, Ain Sifni was the residence of Noah and location of the construction of Noah's Ark. Ain Sifni is attested as a diocese of the Church of the East in 576 AD, in which year its bishop Bar Sahde attended the synod of Catholicos Ezekiel of Seleucia-Ctesiphon. The town served as the centre of the subdistrict of Bēth Rustāqa which, as a consequence of the spread of the Syriac Orthodox Church in the district of Bēth Nūhadrā in the late sixth and early seventh centuries, was transferred to the district of Marghā in the late eighth century.

Ain Sifni likely remained mostly Christian until the thirteenth or fourteenth centuries. It is suggested that the mausoleum of Sheikh ‘Alî Chamse was constructed in the 15th century. Ain Sifni or Sheikhan was the capital of Daseni Emirate. The district of Ain Sifni was founded on 16 December 1924. Assyrians of the Baz clan of Hakkari settled at Ain Sifni after the Assyrian genocide in the First World War, and were attacked by the Iraqi army during the Simele massacre in 1933. Until the arrival of the Assyrians, Ain Sifni was populated only by Yazidis and Jews. The Chaldean Catholic church of Mar Yousif was rebuilt in 1960, replacing an older church built in 1946-1948. By 1961, 180 Chaldean Catholics inhabited the town.

The Yazidi population of Ain Sifni was forcibly relocated to Mahad in 1975 by the Iraqi government as part of its policy of Arabisation, and the town was resettled by Arabs. During the 2003 invasion of Iraq, two Iraqi military installations near Ain Sifni were struck by US airstrikes on 24 March. Two battalions of the Iraqi 108th Regiment, 8th Infantry Division, were stationed at the town at this time. The US bombing campaign against the garrison was ineffective, and an entire Iraqi battalion withdrew with no casualties. On 6 April, ODAs 051, 055, and 056 of the US 10th Special Forces Group and 300 Peshmerga soldiers of the 12th Supay (battalion) seized the town, and 33 Iraqis were killed, 54 wounded, and 230 taken prisoner, and 1 Peshmerga casualty.

In the aftermath of the fall of President Saddam Hussein in 2003, the Arab settlers fled Ain Sifni, allowing its former population to return. In January 2005, it was reported that the Kurdistan Democratic Party blocked the delivery of ballot boxes to Ain Sifni, thereby ensuring its population was unable to vote in the Iraqi parliamentary election. The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) signed a production sharing contract with Hunt Oil Company to extract oil near Ain Sifni in September 2007, despite the town being officially outside the control of the KRG, and has since been declared illegal by the Iraqi government. The concession at Ain Sifni is estimated to have reservoirs of 900 million recoverable barrels of oil.

A priest house and community hall for local Christians was constructed by the Supreme Committee of Christian Affairs by December 2012. The town had an estimated population of 11,498 in 2013. Most of the town's population of 16,000 people fled during the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) offensive in August 2014, and under 500 men remained to defend Ain Sifni under the leadership of mayor Mamo al-Bagsri. Prior to the ISIL offensive, Ain Sifni was inhabited by 700 families, of which 80% were Yazidi, 10% were Christian, and 10% were Muslim. Humanitarian aid was delivered to Ain Sifni by the Assyrian Aid Society in November 2014. In October 2017, 560 Assyrians with 140 families inhabited Ain Sifni.

By June 2018, the population had dropped to 200 families. In November 2018, the refugee camp at Ain Sifni, which is inhabited by Yazidi refugees, was flooded by heavy rainfall. The town was the residence of the Yazidi Emir Tahseen Said until he went into exile in Germany, where he died, and was buried at Ain Sifni on 5 February 2019. Ain Sifni is largely populated by Yazidis, most of whom speak Kurmanji Kurdish.

Geography

Climate

Ain Sifni has a Mediterranean climate (Köppen climate classification: Csa).

Gallery

• Yazidi cemetery in Ain Sifni
• Yazidi shrine of Nishingaha Peroz near Ain Sifni
• Chaldean Catholics from Ain Sifni
• Chaldean Catholic Church of Saint Yousif in Ain Sifni.
• Ancient Church of the East Church of Mar Gewargis in Ain Sifni.

See also

• Assyrians in Iraq
• Yazidis in Iraq
• Yazidi settlements

References

Notes

1. Alternatively transliterated as ʿAyn Sifni, Ainsefni, Ean Sefne, or Ain Siphni
2. Alternatively transliterated as Sheikhan, or Shekhan.

Citations

1. Ali Sindi; Ramanathan Balakrishnan; Gerard Waite (July 2018). "Kurdistan Region of Iraq: Demographic Survey" (PDF). ReliefWeb. International Organization for Migration. p. 72. Retrieved 5 September 2021.
2. "سەرەکى". پارێزگەھا دھوك (in Arabic). Retrieved 11 January 2023.
3. Pirbari, Dimitri; Grigoriev, Stanislav. Holy Lalish, 2008 (Ezidian temple Lalish in Iraqi Kurdistan). p. 20.
4. ^ "'Ayn Sifnī". World Gazetteer. Archived from the original on 9 February 2013. Retrieved 11 April 2020.
5. Chabot 1902, p. 110; Fiey 1975, p. 791.
6. Carlson, Thomas A. (9 December 2016). "ʿAyn Sifni". The Syriac Gazetteer. Retrieved 11 April 2020.
7. ^ "Shekhan (Ainsefni)". Ishtar TV. 16 December 2012. Retrieved 11 April 2020.
8. ^ "Mar Yousif church – Eansefne". Ishtar TV. 10 November 2011. Retrieved 11 April 2020.
9. Smith, Jessie (23 February 1999). A Compendious Syriac Dictionary. Wipf and Stock Publishers. p. 247.
10. ^ Soguel, Dominique (12 August 2014). "A sanctuary for Iraqi Yazidis – and a plea for Obama's intervention". The Christian Science Monitor. Retrieved 11 April 2020.
11. ^ "ŞÊXAN - Li kampa Kurdên Êzidî lehî rabû û avê da bin 30 çadiran". Rudaw Media Network (in Kurdish). 23 November 2018. Retrieved 19 December 2019.
12. "Mar Gewragiz church – Ean Sefne". Ishtar TV. 29 October 2011. Retrieved 11 April 2020.
13. ^ "The Yazidi mausoleums in Ain Sifni". Mesopotamia Heritage. Retrieved 24 November 2020.
14. Kreyenbroek (1995).
15. ^ Fiey (1975), p. 791.
16. Chabot (1902), p. 368.
17. Morony (1982), pp. 14, 43.
18. Wilmshurst (2000), p. 203.
19. "Basic information about Shekhan District" (PDF). Christian Aid Programme in Iraq. Archived from the original (PDF) on 25 April 2012. Retrieved 7 October 2014.
20. Donabed (2015), p. 116.
21. Harding, Luke; Howard, Michael (25 March 2003). "Bombing raids signal start of mountain offensive". The Guardian. Retrieved 11 April 2020.
22. ^ Finlayson (2005), p. 75.
23. Finlayson (2005), p. 78.
24. "Assyrians Prevented By Kurds From Voting in North Iraq". Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization. 31 January 2005. Retrieved 24 November 2020.
25. Lando, Ben (25 August 2011). "Hunt Oil knew KRG oil deal in disputed territory". Iraq Oil Report. Retrieved 11 April 2020.
26. Helman, Christopher (13 September 2012). "Newest Iraqi Gusher Could Make Texas Oilman A Billionaire". Forbes. Retrieved 11 April 2020.
27. "Within The Activities Of AAS-Iraq In Providing Aid To The Displaced Families From Mosul & Nineveh Plain". Assyrian Aid Society. 4 November 2014. Retrieved 11 April 2020.
28. "Population Project". Shlama Foundation. Retrieved 19 August 2021.
29. "Prince of IS-ravaged Yazidis buried in Iraq". Qantara.de. 6 February 2019. Retrieved 11 April 2020.
30. "What you did not know about Iraq's Yazidi minority". Al Arabiya. 11 August 2014. Retrieved 11 April 2020.
31. Elî, Nasir (13 March 2019). "Sheikhan: Where Kurdish men go for a second wife". Rudaw Media Network. Retrieved 11 April 2020.
32. Salih, Mohammed A; Wilgenburg, Wladimir van (5 August 2014). "Iraqi Yazidis: 'If we move they will kill us'". Al Jazeera. Retrieved 11 April 2020.

Bibliography

• Chabot, Jean-Baptiste (1902). Synodicon orientale ou recueil de synodes nestoriens (PDF) (in French). Paris: Imprimerie Nationale. Retrieved 24 November 2020.
• Donabed, Sargon George (2015). Reforging a Forgotten History: Iraq and the Assyrians in the Twentieth Century. Edinburgh University Press.
• Fiey, Jean Maurice (1975). Assyrie Chrétienne (in French). Vol. 2. Imprimerie Catholique de Beyrouth. Retrieved 15 August 2021.
• Finlayson, Kenneth (2005). "This is What You Signed Up For: The Attack on Ayn Sifni" (PDF). Veritas. 1 (1): 75–78.
• Kreyenbroek, Philip (1995). Yezidism: its background, observances, and textual tradition. Lewiston, New York: Edwin Mellen Press. ISBN 0-7734-9004-3. OCLC 31377794.
• Morony, Michael (1982). "Continuity and Change in the Administrative Geography of Late Sasanian and Early Islamic al-'Irāq". Iran. 20. Taylor & Francis, Ltd.: 1–49. doi:10.2307/4299720. JSTOR 4299720.
• Wilmshurst, David (2000). The Ecclesiastical Organisation of the Church of the East, 1318–1913. Peeters Publishers.

• Populated places in Nineveh Governorate
• Yazidi populated places in Iraq
• Assyrian communities in Iraq
• Nineveh Plains
• Historic Jewish communities in Iraq
• Subdistricts of Iraq
• Populated places in Dohuk Province
• District capitals of Iraq