Nasturiler

The Nasturi (Nesturi) were a Christian community who lived in the Kurdish geography, especially in the Hakkari Mountains and around Mosul; Ottoman geographical sources record that the Chaldeans and most of the Nesturi were native to the Hakkari mountains, which extend to and around the center of Mosul, to Lake Rumiye in Acemistan (Volume 4, p. 102). In the sources of Kurdish history, the Nasturi as a neighboring community that lived within the Kurds for centuries occupies a large place in both geographical works and Ottoman archival documents (Volume 4, p. 102; Volume 3, p. 102). Late Ottoman geographical writings indicate that the Nasturi and Keldani communities were descendants of the ancient Chaldeans and Suriyaans and did not belong to the Kurdish lineage (Volume 4, p. 112). In the Shemdinan article of the Population and Settlement Records Kamusü'l-Alam, the population of this cave is given as 3,000 Nesturi, 2,000 Israelis and 15,000 Kurds and Turks (Volume 4, p. 133). In the records of the population of the region of Al-Cezire, it is written that nine-tenths of the tribe were Muslims, the rest being Jews, Celts, and Nesturians (Volume 4, p. 166). In the population classifications in the provincial salnames, non-Muslims are recorded separately as Romani, Armenians, Jews, Syrians, and Nesturians. Among the maps in the Ottoman archive, there is a map showing the number of Kurds, Armenian and Nasturians in the districts of Van and Bitlis (volume 3, p. 114). In the Ottoman archive, the administrative demands of the Nasturi are also documented: within the Sadaret document, an Arabic letter addressed to the nation of the Nasturi patriarch in 1846 to annex one of the Muslim or Erzurum provinces as an administrative one (Volume 3, p. 60). The Star Paper contains correspondence on land disputes between the Kurds and the Nesturians in Mosul (Volume 3, p. 94). ## The arming of the Nasturi is among the topics documented in World War I and subsequent World War II catalogues (Volume 3, p. 107). Documents from the Mutareke period include attempts by the British to settle Van Nasturis in the Imadye region, who had formed an alliance between the Seyit Taha and the Nasturids, and reports that Seyit Tah lost his reputation among the tribes by forming an alliance with the Nasturi (Volume 3, p. 119). At the same time, there are also reports that the Nasturi forces had the task of guarding Christian villages (Volume 3, p. 126).