Qualla: Shahrizor https://qualla.com/shahrizor en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:31 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/t/n/2/3/shahrizor-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Shahrizor https://qualla.com/shahrizor Shahrizor: Introduction https://qualla.com/shahrizor/ Photo credit Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin FRCP(Glasg), CC BY-SA 4.0. Its name means "kingly forest." For at least seven thousand years, people have lived on the Shahrizor Plain, a broad sweep of fertile land in what is now the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. Watered by the tributaries of the Tanjaro River, which feeds the Diyala and ultimately the Tigris, the plain sits between the modern city of Sulaymaniyah and the Hewraman highlands to the east. Empires have claimed it, armies have crossed it, and religions have sanctified it. But the soil keeps producing, and the people keep coming back.

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Image: Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin FRCP(Glasg) | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Sat, 28 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/t/n/2/3/shahrizor-wp/tn23-shahrizor-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Shahrizor: The Kingly Forest https://qualla.com/shahrizor/ Photo credit Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin FRCP(Glasg), CC BY-SA 4.0. The etymology tells you something about what this place once was. Shahrazur likely comes from two Iranian words: shah, meaning king, and a term for forest, yielding "kingly forest" or "royal forest." The archaeologist Ernst Herzfeld, noting that classical sources spelled the name...

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]]> Sat, 28 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/t/n/2/3/shahrizor-wp/tn23-shahrizor-the-kingly-forest.mp3 0:06 2 full Shahrizor: Seven Millennia of Footprints https://qualla.com/shahrizor/ Photo credit Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin FRCP(Glasg), CC BY-SA 4.0. Archaeological survey work, intensifying since 2009, has confirmed what the landscape suggests: the Shahrizor valley has been continuously occupied since the Late Neolithic and Chalcolithic periods. The Halaf culture left traces here. So did the Ubaid culture. Sites like Bakr Awa...

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]]> Sat, 28 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/t/n/2/3/shahrizor-wp/tn23-shahrizor-seven-millennia-of-footprints.mp3 0:06 3 full Shahrizor: Crossroads of Faith and Power https://qualla.com/shahrizor/ Photo credit Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin FRCP(Glasg), CC BY-SA 4.0. Arab geographers associated the plain with biblical legends of Saul and David, suggesting the presence of an ancient Jewish colony. Under the Sassanid Empire, the region served as one of five provinces in the satrapy of the Medes. In the 4th century, inhabitants who had converted...

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]]> Sat, 28 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/t/n/2/3/shahrizor-wp/tn23-shahrizor-crossroads-of-faith-and-power.mp3 0:06 4 full Shahrizor: Dynasties and the Dust They Leave https://qualla.com/shahrizor/ Photo credit Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin FRCP(Glasg), CC BY-SA 4.0. The medieval period brought wave after wave of new rulers. The Annazid, Aishanid, and Ayyubid dynasties all controlled these lands. During the Ayyubid era, Saladin himself granted the region and the city of Erbil as a fief to the emir Gokbori in 1190. Yaqut al-Hamawi, writing in ...

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]]> Sat, 28 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/t/n/2/3/shahrizor-wp/tn23-shahrizor-dynasties-and-the-dust-they-leave.mp3 0:06 5 full