Maslawi
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A Maslawi is a person who is from the city of Mosul, Iraq. Maslawi does not indicate ethnicity, religion or religious sector, as a Maslawi can be an Arab, Kurd, Turkoman or Assyrian, although most Kurds of Mosul prefer not to be termed Maslawis.
Maslawi as a term is also used to show the affiliation of any person, object, concept to Mosul city.
Maslawis have their own accent of the Iraqi Arabic dialect (the North Mesopotamian or Maslawi dialect). It puts more emphases on "gh" and replaces "r", in some words. This dialect is considered to be similar to Syrian Arabic, which can be explained by the short distance between Mosul and Syria.
The majority of Maslawis are Arabs and Sunni Muslims.
Before the Iraq War, the Christian community of Mosul was the largest of all Iraqi cities except Baghdad, with a small number of members of the Syriac Catholic Church, Syriac Orthodox Church, Greek Orthodox and Chaldean Catholic and a large community of the Assyrian church of the East. Most Assyrians/Chaldeans live in the villages near Mosul or other Northern areas (see list of Assyrian villages), whereas most of the Arab Christians live in the center of Mosul.
There was a Jewish community in Mosul until the 1950s, when almost all of the Jewish quarter of Mosul emigrated to either Israel or the U.S.
Maslawis in Diaspora tend to form close communities abroad.
Famous Maslawis
- Kazem al-Saher, music artist
- Hawar Mulla Mohammed, football player
- Salih Jaber, football player
- Tariq Aziz, Deputy Prime Minister 1979-2003 (from Tel Keppe)
- Jamil al-Midfai, Prime Minister
- Ghazi Yawar, President 2004-2005
References
- Harry Luke, Mosul and its minorities (2004) ISBN 159333107X
- Suleiman Saigh, History of the Iraqi city of Mosul (2008) ISBN 1593335237