The Assyrian roots of Aleppo's Kurdified districts
The two Aleppo neighborhoods that have become known as Kurdish in recent years were only 50 years ago inhabited by Assyrians and Armenians, explains local journalist Aqil Hussein in Asharq Al Awsat.
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"The two neighborhoods that have become known as Kurdish in recent years were, 50 years ago, little more than small residential clusters inhabited by a limited number of poor Christians, mainly Assyrians and Armenians.
Over time, people from the northern and eastern countryside of Aleppo, including residents of Afrin, Jandaris and Ain al-Arab (Kobani), moved there in search of better opportunities in the city, drawn by relatively affordable living costs and proximity to industrial zones.
What led many to label the neighborhoods as Kurdish was the rare and unprecedented concentration of Kurds in one area of Aleppo.
Until the 1970s, Aleppans knew Sheikh Maqsoud as Jabal al-Sayyida, named after the Virgin Mary. After a mosque bearing the name of a Kurdish Sufi sheikh, Sheikh Maqsoud, was built at the site where Kurds had begun to gather, the new name became widely used.
The neighboring Ashrafieh district emerged around the same time as an unplanned extension of the Assyrian Christian quarter."
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Asharq Al Awsat
