Christianity in IraqThe Christians of Iraq are considered to be one of the oldest continuous Christian communities in the world. The vast majority of Iraqi Christians are indigenous Eastern Aramaic-speaking ethnic Assyrians who are descent from ancient Assyria, and follow the Syriac Christian tradition. Some are also known by the name of their religious denomination as well as their ethnic identity, such as Chaldo-Assyrians, Chaldean Catholics or Syriacs (see Terms for Syriac Christians).
Assyrian nationalismAssyrian nationalism is a movement of the Assyrian people that advocates for independence or autonomy within the regions they inhabit in northern Iraq, northeastern Syria, northwestern Iran, and southeastern Turkey. The Assyrian people claim descent from those who established the Mesopotamian Assyrian civilization and empire which was centered in Ashur, modern day Iraq, which at its height, covered the Levant and Egypt, as well as portions of Anatolia, Arabia and modern-day Iran and Armenia.
Assyrians in SyriaAssyrians in Syria (ܐܬܘܪܝܐ ܕܣܘܪܝܐ, الآشوريون في سوريا) are an ethnic and linguistic minority that are indigenous to Upper Mesopotamia, the north-eastern half of Syria. Syrian-Assyrians are people of Assyrian descent living in Syria, and those in the Assyrian diaspora who are of Syrian-Assyrian heritage. They live primarily in Al-Hasakah Governorate, with a significant presence in Hasakah city and the cities of Qamishli, Malikiyah, Ras al-Ayn, and Qahtaniyah, as well as in Tell Tamer and nearby villages.
Assyrian–Chaldean–Syriac diasporaThe Assyrian diaspora (Syriac: ܓܠܘܬܐ, Galuta, "exile") refers to ethnic Assyrians living in communities outside their ancestral homeland. The Eastern Aramaic-speaking Assyrians claim descent from the ancient Assyrians and are one of the few ancient Semitic ethnicities in the Near East who resisted Arabization, Turkification, Persianization and Islamization during and after the Muslim conquest of Iraq, Iran, Syria and Turkey.
Assyrian homelandThe Assyrian homeland, Assyria (Āṯōr or Bêth Nahrin) refers to the homeland of the Assyrian people within which Assyrian civilisation developed, located in their indigenous Upper Mesopotamia. The territory that forms the Assyrian homeland is, similarly to the rest of Mesopotamia, currently divided between present-day Iraq, Turkey, Iran and Syria. In Iran, the Urmia Plain forms a thin margin of the ancestral Assyrian homeland in the north-west, and the only section of the Assyrian homeland beyond the Mesopotamian region.
Suret languageSuret (ܣܘܪܝܬ) ([ˈsu:rɪth] or [ˈsu:rɪθ]), also known as Assyrian or Chaldean, refers to the varieties of Northeastern Neo-Aramaic (NENA) spoken by Christians, largely ethnic Assyrians. The various NENA dialects descend from Old Aramaic, the lingua franca in the later phase of the Assyrian Empire, which slowly displaced the East Semitic Akkadian language beginning around the 10th century BC. They have been further heavily influenced by Classical Syriac, the Middle Aramaic dialect of Edessa, after its adoption as an official liturgical language of the Syriac churches, but Suret is not a direct descendant of Classical Syriac.
Assyrians in IraqIraqi Assyrians (ܣܘܪ̈ܝܐ, آشوريو العراق) are an ethnic and linguistic minority group, indigenous to Upper Mesopotamia. Assyrians in Iraq are those Assyrians still residing in the country of Iraq, and those in the Assyrian diaspora who are of Iraqi-Assyrian heritage. They share a common history and ethnic identity, rooted in shared linguistic, cultural and religious traditions, with Assyrians in Iran, Assyrians in Turkey and Assyrians in Syria, as well as with the Assyrian diaspora.
Book of JudithThe Book of Judith is a deuterocanonical book included in the Septuagint and the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Christian Old Testament of the Bible but excluded from the Hebrew canon and assigned by Protestants to the apocrypha. It tells of a Jewish widow, Judith, who uses her beauty and charm to trick and kill an Assyrian general who has besieged her city, Bethulia. With this act, she saves nearby Jerusalem from total destruction. The name Judith (), meaning "praised" or "Jewess", is the feminine form of Judah.
Kurdistan RegionKurdistan Region (هەرێمی کوردستان, Herêma Kurdistan; إقليم كردستان), abbr. KRI, is an autonomous region in Iraq comprising the four Kurdish-majority governorates of Erbil, Sulaymaniyah, Duhok, and Halabja, and bordering Iran, Syria, and Turkey. The Kurdistan Region encompasses most of Iraqi Kurdistan but excludes the disputed territories of Northern Iraq, contested between the Kurdistan Regional Government and the central Iraqi government in Baghdad since 1992 when autonomy was realized.
NimrudNimrud (nɪmˈruːd; ܢܢܡܪܕ النمرود) is an ancient Assyrian city (original Assyrian name Kalhu, biblical name Calah) located in Iraq, south of the city of Mosul, and south of the village of Selamiyah (السلامية), in the Nineveh Plains in Upper Mesopotamia. It was a major Assyrian city between approximately 1350 BC and 610 BC. The city is located in a strategic position north of the point that the river Tigris meets its tributary the Great Zab. The city covered an area of .
