Simko Shikak

Simko Shikak (born Ismail Agha Shikak 1887 – 1930, Kurdish: سمکۆی شکاک ,Simko Şikak‎) was a Kurdish chieftain of the Shakak tribe. He was born into a prominent Kurdish feudal family based in Chihriq castle located near the Baranduz river in the Urmia region of northwestern Iran. By 1920, parts of Iranian Azerbaijan located west of Lake Urmia were under his control.[1] He led Kurdish farmers into battle and defeated the Iranian army on several occasions.[2] The Iranian government had him assassinated in 1930.[3] Simko took part in the massacre of the Assyrians of Khoy[4] and instigated the massacre of 1,000 Assyrians in Salmas.[5]

Simko Shikak

Family background

His family was one of the most prominent and politically active Kurdish families throughout Qajar reign from the late 18th to early 20th century. Sadiq Khan Shikak was one of the generals and governors in the Agha Muhammad Khan's early Qajar state and was commanding a force of 10,000 soldiers. However, he was soon fell out of favor and Qajar monarch attempted to murder him. Sadiq Khan has been accused of taking part in the assassination of Qajar king in the town of Shusha in 1797. Among other prominent members of the family are Ismail Khan The Great and his son Ali Khan, Muhammad Pasha son of Ali Khan, Cewer (Ja'afar) Agha brother of Simko. Many members of the family were murdered by the Qajar state such as Cewer (Dja'far) Agha who was killed at Tabriz by the order of governor general.[6]

Political life

There are different and conflicting views about Simko among Kurdish historians.[7] After the murder of Cewer Agha, Simko became the head of Shikak forces. In May 1914, he attended a meeting with Abdürrezzak Bedir Khan who at the time was a Kurdish politician supported by the Russians.[8] The Iranian government was trying to assassinate him like the other members of his family. In 1919, Mukarram ul-Molk, the governor of Azerbaijan devised a plot to kill Simko by sending him a present with a bomb hidden in it.[9]

Simko was also in contact with Kurdish revolutionaries such as Seyyed Taha Gilani (grandson of Sheikh Ubaidullah Nahri who had revolted against Iran in 1880s). Seyyed Taha was a Kurdish nationalist who was conducting propaganda among the Iranian Kurds for the union of Iranian Kurdistan and Turkish Kurdistan in an independent state.[10]

Simko Shikak revolt
Main article: Simko Shikak revolt

In March 1918, under the pretext of meeting for the purpose of cooperation, Simko arranged the assassination of the Assyrian Church of the East patriarch, Mar Shimun XIX Benyamin, ambushing him and his 150 guards, as Mar Shimun was entering his carriage. The patriarchal ring was stolen at this time and the body of the patriarch was only recovered hours later, according to the eye-witness account of Daniel d-Malik Ismael.[11][12][13]

By summer 1918, Simko had established his authority in the region west of Lake Urmia.[14]

At this time, government in Tehran tried to reach an agreement with Simko on the basis of limited Kurdish autonomy.[15] Simko had organized a strong Kurdish army which was much stronger than Iranian government forces. Since the central government could not control his activities, he continued to expand the area under his control and by 1922, cities of Baneh and Sardasht were under his administration.[16]

In the battle of sari Taj in 1922, Simko's forces could not resist the Iranian Army's onslaught in the region of Salmas and were finally defeated and the castle of Chari was occupied. The strength of the Iranian Army force dispatched against Simko was 10,000 soldiers.[17]

Legacy

Simko's revolts are seen by some as an attempt by a powerful tribal chief to establish his personal authority over the central government throughout the region.[18] Although elements of Kurdish nationalism were present in this movement, historians agree these were hardly articulate enough to justify a claim that recognition of Kurdish identity was a major issue in Simko's movement.[18] It lacked any kind of administrative organization and Simko was primarily interested in plunder.[18] Government forces and non-Kurds were not the only ones to suffer in the attacks, the Kurdish population was also robbed and assaulted.[18] Simko's men do not appear to have felt any sense of unity or solidarity with fellow Kurds.[18] In the words of Kurdologist and Iranologist Garnik Asatrian:[19]

In the recent period of Kurdish history, a crucial point is defining the nature of the rebellions from the end of the 19th and up to the 20th century―from Sheikh Ubaydullah’s revolt to Simko’s (Simitko) mutiny. The overall labelling of these events as manifestations of the Kurdish national-liberation struggle against Turkish or Iranian suppressors is an essential element of the Kurdish identity-makers’ ideology. (...) With the Kurdish conglomeration, as I said above, far from being a homogeneous entity―either ethnically, culturally, or linguistically (see above, fn. 5; also fn. 14 below)―the basic component of the national doctrine of the Kurdish identity-makers has always remained the idea of the unified image of one nation, endowed respectively with one language and one culture. The chimerical idea of this imagined unity has become further the fundament of Kurdish identity-making, resulting in the creation of fantastic ethnic and cultural prehistory, perversion of historical facts, falsification of linguistic data, etc. (for recent Western views on Kurdish identity, see Atabaki/Dorleijn 1990).

On the other hand, Reza Shah's military victory over Simko and Turkic tribal leaders initiated a repressive era toward non-Persian minorities.[18] In a nationalistic perspective, Simko's revolt is described as an attempt to build a Kurdish tribal alliance in support of independence.[20] According to Kamal Soleimani, Simko Shikak can be located "within the confines of Kurdish ethno-nationalism".[21]

See also

References
  1. C. Dahlman, "The Political Geography of Kurdistan", Eurasian Geography and Economics, pp. 271-299, No.4, Vol.43, 2002. p.283
  2. B. O'Leary, J. McGarry,The Future of Kurdistan in Iraq, University of Pennsylvania Press, 355 pp., ISBN 0-8122-1973-2 (see p.7)
  3. M. M. Gunter, The Kurdish Question in Perspective, World Affairs, pp. 197-205, No.4, Vol. 166, Spring 2004. (see p.203)
  4. John Joseph, "The Modern Assyrians of the Middle East: Encounters With Western Christian Missions, Archaeologists, and Colonial Power (Studies in Christian Mission) (Hardcover)", BRILL, 2000. p. 147: "Simko and his men had escaped to Khoi where they took part in the massacre of Assyrians
  5. Maria T.O’Shea (2004). Trapped Between the Map and Reality: Geography and Perceptions of Kurdistan. New York. p. 100. ISBN 0-415-94766-9.
  6. M. Th. Houtsma, E. van Donzel, E. J. Brill's First Encyclopaedia of Islam, 1913-1936, 1993, ISBN 90-04-08265-4, p. 290
  7. According to Mehrdad R. Izady (Kurdish-Belgian writer),
    The Shakak chief Ismail Agha Simko, before his execution by the Iranian monarch Reza Shah in 1930, carried out enough atrocities in his 15 year political life to place him alongside such historical villains as Attila the Hun.....He then proceeded to drink the patriarch's blood as a demonstration of his rage
    The Kurds: A Concise Handbook, Mehrdad R. Izady, Taylor & Francis, 1992, ISBN 0-8448-1727-9, ISBN 978-0-8448-1727-9, p. 57
  8. Kieser, Hans-Lukas; Anderson, Margaret Lavinia; Bayraktar, Seyhan; Schmutz, Thomas (2019-07-11). The End of the Ottomans: The Genocide of 1915 and the Politics of Turkish Nationalism. Bloomsbury Academic. p. 71. ISBN 978-1-78831-241-7.
  9. Handren, Dilan (2009-02-02). "The Rebellion of Simko Agha". Kurdmania (in German). Retrieved 2009-02-23.
  10. F. Kashani-Sabet,Frontier Fictions: Shaping the Iranian Nation, 1804-1946, 328 pp., I.B. Tauris, 1999, ISBN 1-85043-270-8 p. 153.
  11. Houtsma, M. Th.; van Donzel, E. (1993). E. J. Brill's First Encyclopaedia of Islam, 1913–1936. p. 118. ISBN 90-04-08265-4.
  12. O'Shea, Maria T. (2004). Trapped Between the Map and Reality: Geography and Perceptions of Kurdistan. New York: Routledge. p. 100. ISBN 0415947669. Simko later arranged the assassination of Mar Shamon, the Assyrian patriarch in March 1918, under the pretext of a meeting to discuss cooperation.
  13. Nisan, Mordechai (2002). Minorities in the Middle East: A History of Struggle and Self-Expression (2nd ed.). Jefferson, NC: McFarland. p. 187. ISBN 0786413751. Simko, their leader in Iran, had invited Mar Shimon for conference in Kuhnehshahr, west of Salmas, kissed him—and then treacherously murdered the Nestorian patriarch and his men
  14. W. G. Elphinston, The Kurdish Question, International Affairs, Vol.22, No.1, pp. 91-103, 1946. p. 97
  15. The Kurds in Iran Archived 2007-09-29 at the Wayback Machine, David McDowall, 1991.
  16. F. Koohi-Kamali, "Nationalism in Iranian Kurdistan" in The Kurds: A Contemporary Overview, ed. P.G. Kreyenbroek, and S. Sperl, 252 pp., Routledge, 1992, ISBN 0-415-07265-4 pp. 175, 176
  17. S. Cronin, "Riza Shah and the disintegration of Bakhtiyari power in Iran, 1921-1934", Iranian Studies, Vol. 33, No. 3-4, pp. 349-376, Summer-Fall 2000 p. 353
  18. See:
    * Entessar, Nader (2010). Kurdish Politics in the Middle East. Lanham: Lexington Books. p. 17. ISBN 9780739140390. OCLC 430736528.
    * Kreyenbroek, Philip G.; Sperl, Stefan (1992). The Kurds: A Contemporary Overview. London; New York: Routledge. pp. 138–139. ISBN 9780415072656. OCLC 24247652.
  19. Asatrian, Garnik (2009). "Prolegomena to the Study of the Kurds". Iran and the Caucasus. 13 (1): 65–66. doi:10.1163/160984909X12476379007846.
  20. Smith, B. (2009). "Land and Rebellion: Kurdish Separatism in Comparative Perspective" (PDF). Working paper.
  21. Soleimani, Kamal (June 2017). "The Kurdish image in statist historiography: the case of Simko". Middle Eastern Studies. 53 (6): 950. doi:10.1080/00263206.2017.1341409.
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