Along the way we listened to the stories of the river, and of those who live along it. Here are a few of those, taken from ‘wounded Tigris.’
In a courtyards in Sur sat a handful of old boys on benches. They were dressed like the elderly Kurdish men we’d met in the countryside, with baggy maroon trousers, neatly buttoned shirts and heavy suit jackets to block the wind. All of them fingered prayer beads in their right hand, counting out each pearl. Left hands were plunged firmly into pockets to keep the cold at bay.
After a while, three figures shuffled to the front. One had a deeply lined, handsome face, like an ageing rock star lost in Sur. He sat in the middle, pushed out his chest and pressed his fingers to his temples. Then he sang, low and guttural, holding certain notes for ten, fifteen seconds, his jaw wobbling up and down with vibrato. The voice was the instrument, pulled and pushed in all directions, resonating deeply as the singer strained at his vocal cords. Half an hour passed, and his eyes were so tightly closed that the skin ruffled at the corners. The men on either side swayed gently, breathing against the winter wind, still carefully counting out their prayers with agile fingers. This was the dengbêj, the Kurdish sung- spoken oral storytelling, literally meaning deng, the voice, and bêj, to tell.
“The Tigris is probably one of the most popular sources there is,” one of the men told me afterwards. “Both for old and new stories. Kurds here believe that there are four rivers of paradise. There is the Tigris and Euphrates, and the Zap and Aras. So these four rivers lead to Allah, and to meet with any one of them, but especially the Tigris because it’s here in our city, is to meet with God.” Later an elderly man was asked to perform one on my behalf. Bemused, this is what he chose:
Every morning I go to Diyarbakir
and sit on the banks of the Tigris River
and contemplate its beauty and the fish that call it home
and I look at the house of my beloved and think
how I can cross this river
The Zangid Bridge stands alone, the tip on the nail of a finger of Syrian land that pushes back against a Turkish border wall. The road ended abruptly, and we walked the last stretch over fresh, thick grass. Beyond, the drone of the Cizre highway blew across the international border. Just a single arch of the bridge remained, though at one time there would have been at least three. Black basalt bases of the others still stand like tree stumps. Each brick was broad, as long as my arm, and pressed in were limestone panels which shone in contrast to the basalt. Now a makeshift grid of iron girders protected them, but behind were signs of the zodiac, carefully carved and shaped in soft, grey rock.
There were eight panels, each three feet square, depicting astrological symbols in pairs. In one, an armoured horseman had once carried the severed head of Medusa in his left hand, though now the upper panel had been removed, probably looted, and only the horse’s body remained. I had seen the original in a photograph taken by Gertrude Bell just before the outbreak of the First World War. Otherwise, the reliefs were in good condition.
In antiquity there was a Roman road that came from Antioch, crossed the Euphrates and arrowed towards Mardin, eventually ending in Cizre. Perhaps this is why some that we met on the Turkish side, and other accounts online, believed this bridge to be Roman. In fact, there is no proof that it was built at that time, and it seems more likely from the Arabic sources that it is a twelfth- century construction, from a time when this area was busy with traders moving laterally across the fertile foothills. The river then would have been subject to vicious flash flooding, and all but the most robust bridges would have been washed away. Even until the end of the Ottoman era the Tigris still flowed here with vigour, and accounts of the bridge in previous centuries describe waves and whitewater as the river rushed through.
Khitam’s house had been hit by an airstrike, and the structure remained like a skeleton. The strata of her past life were blown open. She showed us what had once been her bedroom, another for her four children, and the kitchen. Then she sketched in the air where stairs were, and where she hung pots and pans and kept spices.
She had been married twice. Both husbands died in wars. The only person she could ever depend on was herself. Before the war, she was an assistant to a human rights lawyer during the day and borrowed her brothers’ car at night. ‘I’d drive it as a taxi, but only pick up women. I’d wear a dishdasha and a hat like a man, and I’d make sure I got them home safely.’
When ISIS arrived, they came by the bridges. Convoys of trucks streamed across, flags flying. Khitam didn’t know what to expect. On the first day, nothing happened. On the second, the same. ‘On the third I heard they were taking pretty woman and selling them in Syria,’ she said. ‘And it got worse after that.’
Black flags appeared above the bazaar, and food ran low. She heard stories of neighbours going missing. Her family hunkered down inside their home. Her husband, who was Kurdish, was killed, and she was left to protect the children and home. They ate grass that grew outside the doorway and, when water stopped running from the taps, they went to the river. ‘Everyone was there,’ she said, drinking from the Tigris, scooping handfuls desperately into their mouths and filling pans, always watching to see who was around. ‘The Tigris kept us alive,’ she said, though often they would get sick too from the pollution.
Sheikh Aziz’s home overlooked the Tigris a fortress surrounded by a high perimeter fence. On the roof was a light machine gun, pointing to Makhmour, and by the gate lay a dog the size of a small horse which I was glad took no notice of us. The centre of the compound was the diwan, or guest room. It was long and ornately decorated, with Quranic inscriptions above the door.
Two men who’d been waiting in the wings now thrust phones at the Sheikh and he held them carelessly, quickly dispatching the callers. Today’s business would wait until we’d eaten. A troupe of teenagers wobbled in under silver platters as big as bicycle wheels. On each was a foundation of circular bread with rice, onions and tender lamb that fell from the bone. We sat on the floor, joined by a clutch of tough- looking men with standard- issue military moustaches and bulges in their belts where a handgun was kept. Some fished these out, worryingly cavalier in their doing so, and dropped them on the rug along with wallets, phones, car keys and sunglasses. All across Iraq I saw these identical little piles form at mealtimes, silent markers of machismo and status.
We ate with our fingers, pulling apart meat and pressing it into balls with the rice. When each man was done, he rose and addressed the Sheikh in the customary manner – Sufra dai’ma, Sheikh – and staggered to the washroom to clean his hands. When he returned, refreshed, usually with arms washed to the elbow and face glistening from a full scrub, he’d fall onto a sofa and wait to be served tea. Often a young boy, of whom there were many lingering by the door, would be called upon to fetch the handgun that had been forgotten on the carpet, and the boy would be delighted to handle the weapon.
‘My relationship with this place is above a job,’ Salem told me as he welcomed us to the office, lines creasing the corners of his eyes as he smiled. He was born in a village close to Shirqat, and from his house he could see the site. His father worked at Assur, where he died of a heart attack among the ruins, and since 2001 Salem had worked there, too. ‘It is like family,’ he said, speaking in lilting, classical Arabic that even had Salman on the back foot as he translated. ‘I think of this place like my grandmother. Come, and I’ll introduce you.’
We left the office under a blazing summer sun, stepping over the remains of mud- brick walls and slowly climbing as we crossed the city. A hot wind kicked up ancient soil. The site measured only a square mile, but walking it made it feel larger. Salem avoided the dirt road that cut through the centre, instead picking a path straight over the ruins. He wore a button- down shirt and grey polyester suit, but scrambled over low walls and trenches with ease. Finally, we stopped at the edge of an escarpment, mopping our brows. The Tigris tumbled by, eighty- five feet below. To our right a crumbling ziggurat rose from the lip of the cliff. ‘This area was the temple of Assur,’ Salem said, shielding his eyes from swirling dust. ‘The most important place in the whole city.’
‘Only a fraction of all this has ever been excavated,’ Salem said, looking back across the city. His estimate was that 85−90 per cent of the site remained unexplored, and he believed there was much still to learn from Assur about the ancient Middle East. ‘If more work is done here, it will change history. There were one hundred and seventeen Assyrian kings. When these kings died, they were buried here,’ he said. But to date only three royal graves have been identified. ‘Where are the rest?’ He paused. ‘They’re here, under our feet.’
In the town of Al- Alam, Nazar docked by a rough bank, and we scrambled up the steep slope to a thick eucalyptus tree. There, waiting for us, was a woman called Um Qusay, who had inadvertently become a symbol of the resistance against ISIS. Emily had made contact a few days prior, and Um Qusay arrived early to wait for us in a long black abaya sprinkled with gold detail.
In June 2014, ISIS tore through the city of Tikrit, just south of Al- Alam. In the process, they routed a large Iraqi air force training base called Camp Speicher. The recruits were mostly Shia, all rookies, unarmed. ISIS rounded them up easily and took the prisoners on buses into Tikrit where they were executed and dumped in the river. The exact number of dead from Speicher is unclear, but as many as 1,700 young lives were lost in the single bloodiest massacre that ISIS carried out. It was also the second deadliest terrorist attack in the world after 9/11.
Those recruits who escaped, some 850, fled north along the Tigris. Trapped on the west side, surrounded by danger, the river lay between them and the possibility of safety. We had heard this before, elsewhere on the river. To so many, the Tigris had been a barrier between life and death, and the kindness of strangers the only possible bridge. Um Qusay sat with us now, looking out across the wide, lethargic Tigris. ‘This river was the front line,’ she told Emily, nodding slowly and squinting into the sun. Her eyebrows, drawn on in perfect black lines, furrowed ever so slightly.
‘The soldiers shouted to us. They knew we would help. So I sent my son in his boat to bring them back. He would bring back five or more at a time, and he kept going.’ The soldiers arrived sporadically on the far bank in small, ragged groups, and when her son delivered them to safety she was the first to greet them. Later, when the jihadists caught up with the fleeing recruits, other residents from Al- Alam provided covering fire from where we now sat to give the boatmen time to make a dash across. ‘When any of them came, I would hug them. It was like I could receive my own family again.’
As we approached the centre of Baghdad, Ali pointed out two blocky buildings. One was the Ministry of Environment and Health, and the other Baghdad’s largest hospital. The water by the bank was a murky grey, and a film of scum floated on the surface. ‘This is the worst pollution in the city,’ said Ali, raising his voice. The hospital, called Medical City, was sending its wastewater directly into the river. ‘It’s blood and body parts, and chemicals from the operations. You can smell it, right?’
There used to be a treatment station, said Ali. ‘But it hasn’t worked since 2003. What we’re smelling is the waste of these processes in the hospital. It goes directly to the river. And people drink this.’ We pulled the boats to the bank to look for the pipes. An isthmus of land had been built in front to hide them, and we had to climb up and over. There, grey, foaming water poured out of a grated opening six feet high. A few scrubby plants hung on at the side, black and drooping. The toxic pool whirled, and smaller pipes below drained it on into the river. Some were hidden under the surface of the Tigris and perhaps all were meant to be, but at these lower summer water levels there was no disguising them.
‘This area is highly secure,’ Ali told us as we stood by the poisoned pond. ‘It’s because they don’t want anyone to see what’s happening.’ Water- quality testing was banned, Ali said, though Humat Dijla had carried out an investigation in 2018. Their results were unsurprising. People were getting sick. They were being poisoned by the water, and the report suggested a huge spike in cancer cases in the neighbourhoods around this area. ‘The joke is that it’s happening directly in front of the Ministry of Environment and Health,’ Ali said, shaking his head. If it could happen here, so unashamedly, what hope did the rest of the country have?
Every Sunday in Amara there is a baptism in the Tigris. Those who are renewed in the waters are the Sabean- Mandaeans: the smallest ethno- religious group in Iraq. The population of the Mandaeans is tied to their sacred life source, the twin rivers, and have historically lived on the Tigris in Maysan and the Euphrates in Dhi Qar, though there are pockets strung out along the river as far south as Basra.
On the east bank at dawn, around thirty Mandaeans gathered by the water. The priest, whom the Mandaeans called sheikh, was Bashir, and his long beard was hidden by the scarf around his chin. In his left hand he held open a small, string- bound book which he read inwardly. His assistant, also with a beard that reached his chest, lit a small fire around which they both stood.
‘Our religion comes from Adam,’ Bashir continued. They believed God gave a message to the angel Gabriel which he delivered to Adam, and his teachings from the Garden of Eden were passed to his son and eventually down to today’s Mandaeans. Abraham was condemned for being willing to kill his own son, and their prophet is John the Baptist, revered much more highly than Jesus. ‘For us, baptism is cleansing, and it should happen regularly,’ said Bashir.
He turned his body to the dancing flames and recited something under his breath. The assistant indicated they were ready to begin. First, they used a brush to sweep the steps by the water so no one slipped which, although not part of the sacred practice, seemed sensible. The women were to be baptised first and lined up, eight adults and two children, then followed Bashir tentatively into the water. One by one he held and then gently dunked them into the Tigris. There was no drama to it, just simple immersion with a few whispered words. As they lifted their heads out, most took a mouthful of water, and I couldn’t help but think of everything we’d seen going into this river.
When we arrived, Abu Sajad had just upturned a large tarrada. These boats were the Rolls- Royces of the south, thirty feet long with a sweeping, tapered stem at the front and pronged with decorative nails along the ribs. No one had built them since the 1980s, but the Iraqi-German artist Rashad Salim had commissioned this one, inspired by the tarrada given to Thesiger by a marsh sheikh. For four hundred years, Huwair had been a boatbuilding hub. Until the early 1900s there were still Mandaeans working here. The last of the great boatbuilders in Huwair died only a few days before we arrived. He had made the final functional boat that anyone remembered, which was used to take children to school three and a half decades ago.
Abu Sajad and his team were coating the hull of the tarrada with bitumen, and took it in turns to carry pancake- sized piles of molten tar from a bubbling cauldron, then spread it along the smooth wood with rolling pins. It was only him and Abu Kathem, who was overseeing the bitumen application, he said, that knew how to do this any more. I asked about the process for the tarrada and was pleased when Abu Kathem obliged by outlining in detail. There were ten stages, he said, beginning with laying out a blueprint on the ground with string. Then they began with the ribs, followed by the base and the sides. Each stage had a name, unique to the craft, and I thought that here, too, was another dictionary that needed to be compiled. On the tarrada the bow and stern were ornate and complex, and required additional steps to make them secure and streamlined. The last step was applying the tar, in two layers, and each of these processes also had a name.
By the river, Ameer had one last surprise for us. Lined up along the bank, dressed in white dishdashas with red and white scarves, was a band ready to play for a small gathered crowd. The musicians were black Iraqis, part of a population of an estimated one and a half to two million, whose ancestors came from the east coast of Africa as early as the eighth century. At that time Iraq was the centre of the East African slave trade. The majority of black Iraqis live in Basra, and Ameer wanted us to hear some of their music.
We sat cross- legged on a woven rug and the band sat to, their backs to the Tigris. Soon, the audience was clapping along. ‘This is real Basrawi music,’ said Salman. His parents were originally from Qurna, and he thought of himself as a southerner. The style was known as Khashaba and had begun in the city in the middle of the last century. Some bands now used ouds and violins but the most authentic version, like this band, relied only on drums and vocals.
Eventually the music, like so much from Basra, flowed out through the Shatt Al Arab and spread to neighbouring countries, and was still popular throughout the Gulf countries. It was dark now, the lights of the city reflecting off the Tigris like ghost ships, and the band drew in closer to the rest of us. The songs were slower now, lower, with lyrics of djinn and giants, and above us a few drops of rain from a freak storm began to fall.