History
Tel Isqof is not mentioned in Thomas of Marga's Book of Governors (c.840) or any of the other early monastic histories of the Church of the East, and may well have been founded as late as the Seljuq period, perhaps in the eleventh century. It is first mentioned as a Nestorian Christian village in a thirteenth-century poem by the Assyrian (Nestorian) writer Giwargis Warda. This poem describes its sack by a raiding band of Mongols in November 1235 and the destruction of its church of Mar Yaʿqob the Recluse.
Tel Isqof was subject to many attacks by the Mongol barbarians, the worst among them was the massacre of 1436 when they attacked her, killing thousands of its inhabitants and burning its crops and churches forcing the rest of the inhabitants to flee to the mountains. In 1508 Tel Isqof was attacked again by the Mongols, just as they attacked Tel Keppe, Alqosh and the Monastery of Rabban Hormizd. Tel Isqof was also attacked by the army of Nader Shah in 1743 during his march on Mosul.
The town received many Assyrian Christian refugees from Baghdad and Mosul in the wake of the sectarian violence in the 2000s. In 23 April 2007 a carbomb targeted the village resulted in more than 25 deaths.
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