Dohuk
"In Dohuk's mountains I kept finding things — a monastery, a shrine, a waterfall — that I had no reason to expect and no reason to leave."
Dohuk surprised me in the particular way that cities surprise you when you arrive with no strong expectations and find something more layered than you had imagined. I had come primarily as a base for the Yazidi shrines and the mountain monasteries of the Dohuk governorate, which exist in a density that is hard to explain unless you understand that this corner of the world has been a refuge for minority communities since roughly the beginning of recorded time. What I found when I got there was also a city worth staying in.
The drive in from the Turkish border at Zakho is one of the better mountain approaches I know. The road follows the Khabur river through a narrow gorge where the cliffs rise almost vertically and the water below is a particular shade of green that I associate with snowmelt and mineral rock. Zakho itself has the Delal Bridge — a Seljuk-era stone arch that has been crossing this river for nine centuries and is still used by pedestrians who treat it with the casual familiarity of people who do not think about what nine centuries means. By the time the road opens up into the Dohuk plain, ringed by bare limestone ridges that turn pink at sunset, you have already had more scenery than most drives provide.
The Lalish shrine complex, about forty-five minutes south of Dohuk, is the holiest site in the Yazidi religion and one of the most quietly extraordinary places in all of Iraq. The Yazidis — a syncretic religious minority with roots in ancient Mesopotamian, Zoroastrian, and early Islamic traditions — have been subject to genocidal persecution throughout their history, and most recently and catastrophically by ISIS in 2014. Lalish itself was not captured, and it continues to function as the spiritual heart of the Yazidi community globally. The shrine complex consists of several conical-spired temples in a secluded valley, the conical towers tapering to points that catch the mountain light in a specific way. You enter barefoot — non-Yazidis are permitted on certain days — and the interior chambers hold oil lamps and silk-wrapped pillars and an atmosphere of accumulated devotion that does not require shared belief to register.
The Dohuk governorate’s mountains are also home to a string of Assyrian Christian monasteries — Mar Mattai, Mor Gabriel’s influence extends this far, and smaller foundations tucked into valleys that are not on any map I was given. I found one by accident, following a dirt track that my driver thought might lead to a viewpoint, and ended up at a working monastery where a monk of indeterminate age served us tea without visible surprise and showed us a library of Syriac manuscripts with the equanimity of a man who had received unexpected visitors before and had decided it was part of the job.
The Dohuk dam reservoir, just outside the city, is where the urban population comes on summer evenings — families setting up barbecues on the concrete banks, teenagers in paddle boats, the mountains reflected in the still water with a regularity that makes for a scene that is either idyllic or slightly eerie depending on your relationship with stillness. I went in the morning when there was nobody there except a fisherman at the far end and the light was doing something specific to the limestone ridges reflected in the water, and I sat there for longer than I had planned, which is perhaps the best measure of a place.
When to go: March through May for wildflowers in the mountain valleys and the best light in Lalish. September and October for clear skies and cooler temperatures. Dohuk’s elevation makes it significantly more comfortable in summer than the plains — July and August are hot but manageable, particularly in the surrounding hills.