Amadiya

Amadiya stands on a steep-sided mesa above the valleys of the Great Zab. Its position made the town a mountain stronghold as well as a centre of learning and trade. The Great Mosque dates to the twelfth century, while the ruins of the Qubahan school recall the teaching of Islamic sciences under the Kurdish rulers of Bahdinan. Jewish families also lived in the town; a historical account describes their trade in gall-nuts in the twelfth century.

Amadiya was the seat of the Bahdinan emirate from the late fourteenth century. In the sixteenth century Sultan Hussein Wali founded the Qubahan school. Two centuries later, the Dominican missionary Maurizio Garzoni lived in the town and compiled an Italian–Kurdish dictionary and grammar, an early written study of the Kurdish language.