Rawanduz

Rawanduz lies among the mountains of northern Iraq, above deep valleys in the Zagros. The town became a seat of the Kurdish Soran principality, whose rulers drew strength from the difficult mountain country and its routes toward neighbouring districts. Its position placed it between the plains around Erbil and the highlands farther east.

In the early nineteenth century Mir Muhammad, known as the One-Eyed Pasha, rose to power at Rawanduz. During the 1820s and 1830s he expanded the principality at the expense of neighbouring rulers and tribes, taking advantage of conflicts that occupied Ottoman forces elsewhere. His growing power alarmed both local rivals and the Ottoman government. An Ottoman expedition eventually brought his rule to an end in the 1830s, closing a period in which Rawanduz had briefly become the centre of a much larger Kurdish domain.