The Inside Assyria Discussion Forum #5

=> The Real Badr Khan

The Real Badr Khan
Posted by pancho (Moderator) - Monday, February 23 2009, 21:34:29 (CET)
from *** - *** Non-Profit Organizations - Windows XP - Mozilla
Website:
Website title:

The Real Badr Khan

In all fariness perhaps it was a typo that caused Aboona to put Badr Khan in the 1940s. Perhaps if he’d had something better than a peer, to himself, actually review the manuscript he would have found the error.

No doubt Dr Joseph had better peers....but still, someone who gets the date wrong, even inadvertently, or through carelessness, might just as well get the rest of the facts all wrong...even deliberately.

“By 1840 (ahem...mine), when the when the American missionaries arrived on the scene, Badr Khan, in alliance with the Kurdish chiefs of the neighboring provinces, had set up an almost independent Kurdish confederacy under his own rule....He struck his own coins, had a munition (sic) factory, and his name was mentioned in Friday prayers. His rule is said to have been just and peaceful. Two American missionaries who visited him before his downfall reported that under his government the guilty found no escape and that bribery and favoritism were unknown.”

The trouble between Badr Khan and the Nestorian tribes came because they refused to honor their pledge to provide fighters to the Khan, in return for their political privileges. The MarShimun decided it was better for them to remain loyal to the Turks, and not side with Badr Khan, who was looking to set up an independent country or region. Marshimun felt that the European consuls in the Turkish capital, would be of help to them, more than throwing in their lot with Badr Khan...once again, we looked to outsiders rather than those closest to us...till then, aside from normal stress and strains, we got on well with the Kurds. Certainly better than Christian got along with Christian. Our habit of taking sides with Euros against our fellow citizens is what caused us grief...then and still today.

The missionaries continued to mix with the Nestorians and, among other indelicate things, encouraged them to complain directly for help to the British Queen...clearly an act of treason as well as folly. Bdar Khan could see what this was leading to and decided to strike first at the traitors in his midst.

When the entire tragedy was over...and before Badr Khan was arrested and died in exile...

“In an interview with the Patriarch after the storm was over, Englishman Layard found Mar Shamun more bitter against the American missionaries than against his Muslim oppressors.”

Wisdom gained too late and, apparently, non-transferable.



---------------------


The full topic:



***



Powered by RedKernel V.S. Forum 1.2.b9