Community town · Nineveh Plain
Bashiqa Başîqe
A historic Yazidi town on the Nineveh Plain, long associated with the qewals who transmit sacred hymns.
Overview
About Bashiqa
Bashiqa, with its twin Bahzani, is a mixed town on the Nineveh Plain north-east of Mosul, historically known for olive cultivation and for its Yazidi population. It is closely associated with the qewals, the hereditary religious reciters who perform and carry the sacred hymns.
The town was captured by ISIS in 2014 and its population displaced; it was retaken in 2016. Return has been partial and uneven, and reconstruction of homes and shrines has continued in the years since.
This is a community place rather than a primarily religious one. Population and return figures move and are always given with a source and a date rather than stated as fixed.
Locate & verify
Coordinates and external references
Coordinates are approximate and provided for orientation. They should be re-checked against an authoritative gazetteer before any operational use.
Source note
References for this place
This entry is an editorial synthesis of the references below, chosen for the place type. It reproduces no restricted or copyrighted text and should be expanded only after specialist review.
The Yezidis: The History of a Community, Culture and Religion
Bloomsbury, 2014. Anchor reference for Yazidi sacred sites, shrines, architecture, and material culture, including Lalish and the shrines of Sinjar and Sheikhan.
The Yezidi Oral Tradition in Iraqi Kurdistan
Routledge, 2001. Reference for place, community, and identity in the Iraqi Yazidi heartland of Sheikhan and Sinjar.
The Other Kurds: Yazidis in Colonial Iraq
I.B. Tauris, 1999. Settlement, society, and administration of Sinjar and Sheikhan in the late Ottoman and mandate periods.