In the early centuries after the Arab Islamic conquest of the 7th century , Assyria ( also known as Athura and Assuristan ) was dissolved by the Arabs as a geo-political entity , however native Assyrian ( known as Ashuriyun by the Arabs ) scholars and doctors played an influential role in Iraq . In the period prior to the establishment of Abbasid rule in AD 750 , pastoral Kurds moved into upper Mesopotamia from Persian Azerbaijan , taking advantage of an unstable situation . Cities in northern and northeastern ancient Assyria were raided and attacked by the Kurds of Persian Azerbaijan , " who killed , looted , and enslaved the indigenous population " , and the Kurds were moving into various regions in east of ancient Assyria . The chronicler Ibn Hawqal spoke about the state to which the region of Shahrazoor had been reduced , describing it as a ' town , which was overpowered by the Kurds , and whose environs as far as Iraq had been enjoying prosperity ' . Another contemporary source described the region of Adiabene thus : ' T he plain of Hadyab was entirely inhabited by the Nestorians but the Kurds have occupied it and depopulated it of its inhabitants ' . Later , the Seljuks invaded Mesopotamia with the support of Kurdish chieftains and tribes . They " destroyed whatever they encountered " and captured and enslaved women . Mosul , historically a Christian city , was repeatedly attacked . The historian Ibn Khaldun wrote that ' the Kurds spoiled and spread horror everywhere ' . In time , Armenia and Assyria became " Kurdistan " . From the late 13th century through to the present time , Assyrian Christians have suffered both religious and ethnic persecution , including a number of massacres . Northern Iraq remained predominantly Assyrian , Eastern Aramaic speaking and Christian until the destructions of Tamerlane at the end of the 14th century , when the ancient city of Ashur was finally abandoned by the Assyrians after a 4000-year history . Tamerlane rewarded the Kurds for their support by " settling them in the devastated regions , which until then had been inhabited by the followers of the Church of the East . " The Assyrian Church of the East has its origin in what is now South East Turkey and Assuristan ( Sassanid Assyria ) . By the end of the 13th century there were twelve Nestorian dioceses in a strip from Peking to Samarkand . When the 14th-century Muslim warlord of Turco-Mongol descent , Timur ( Tamerlane ) , conquered Persia , Mesopotamia and Syria , the civilian population was decimated . Timur had 70,000 Assyrian Christians beheaded in Tikrit , and 90,000 more in Baghdad . In the 16th century , the Ottomans reinforced their eastern frontier with what they considered loyal Sunni Kurd tribes . They settled Kurdish tribes in these regions and in 1583 Sultan Murad IV " gave huge provinces to the Kurdish tribe of Mokri " . According to Aboona , " many regions with numerous Assyrian and Armenian monuments and monasteries became completely populated by the Kurds after Chaldiran , " and Kurdish historians wrote that " the land was cleared at this time , its indigenous inhabitants driven out by force " . The Kurdish historian Ali al Qurani affirmed that Sarsink had " been an Assyrian town and that the Kurds who settled there were immigrants from Persian Azerbaijan . " Phebe Marr noted that ' in the north too , many of the Kurdish tribes of Persia migrated to Iraq ' . British traveler James Rich observed in northern Iraq the " rapid influx of Kurds from Persia ... and that their advance never ceased " . He noted that " some ten thousand families , comprising seventy thousand souls , were constantly moving across the border " . Southgate also observed the " rapid advance and settlement of the Kurds from Persia into northern Iraq " around that time . Dr. Grant gave an eyewitness account , he stated : " Beth Garrnae ( the region of Arbil-Kirkuk ) once contained a large population of Nestorian Christians , they are now reduced to a few scattered villages ... Within the last six years the Koords of Ravandoos and Amadia have successively swept over it . . " A new epoch began in the 17th century when Emir Afrasiyab of Basra allowed the Portuguese to build a church outside of the city . During World War One the Assyrians of northern Iraq , southeast Turkey , northeast Syria and northwest Iran suffered the Assyrian genocide which accounted for the deaths of up to 65 % of the entire Assyrian population . In the year of Iraq ´s formal independence , 1933 , the Iraqi military carried out large-scale massacres against the Assyrians ( Simele massacre ) which had supported the British colonial administration before
Assyrian genocide
Assyrian genocide
Christianity in Iraq