Mehabad
مەھاباد
Mahabad · Cradle of the 1946 Republic. Chief town of Mukriyan — cradle of the Kurdish republic.
- Region
- Rojhilat
- English name
- Mahabad
- Kurdish name
- Mehabad
- Sorani name
- مەھاباد
- Population
- 168,393 (2016, city)
- Elevation
- 1,320 m
- Founded/origin
- Founded as Sablax (Savojbolagh) in the Safavid era, chief town of the Mukriyan Kurds; renamed Mehabad in the 1930s.
Mukriyan's begs ruled here under the Persian crown for centuries, and the town's Friday mosque — the red-domed Mizgewtî Sûr — dates from that Safavid world. Mehabad's hour came on 22 January 1946, when Qazî Mihemed proclaimed the Republic of Kurdistan in Çwarçira Square: eleven months of Kurdish schools, a Kurdish press, the Ey Reqîb anthem and the peshmerga's first parade, protected briefly by the post-war Soviet presence. When the republic fell, Qazî Mihemed refused to flee and was hanged in the same square in March 1947 — the memory made Mehabad a name every Kurd knows.
The city keeps the republic's flame — its printing tradition, Soranî literary circles and the graves of the republic's leaders draw visitors from all four parts. It was the home ground of poets Hêmin and Hejar, whose portraits hang in its bookshops, and its bazaars serve the orchard villages of the Mukriyan plain.
Cold semi-arid highland: snowy winters, mild dry summers, and the lake basin of Urmia opening to the north.
Places in Mehabad
- Mizgewtî Sûr — The Safavid-era Friday mosque of old Sablax, its squat red dome and brick court the oldest standing witness of the town.
- Bendava Mehabadê — The dam lake in the hills just above the city — Mehabad's summer shore, feeding the orchards of the Mukriyan plain below.