Between the River Tigris at Mosul and the first Kurdish villages some 20 miles to the east there is a strip of territory, extending approximately 40 miles from north to south, inhabited by a variety of peoples professing many religions. The least known of these are three extreme Muslim sects. The first to study them was Father Anastase Marie, in an article concerning the Šabak, the Ṣārlī, and the . These , ‘ Kurds … calling themselves Allāhī’, he places in the villages of ‘Umarkān, Topraq-ziyāra, Tell Ya℈qūb, and Bašpīta. He names ‘Alī-raš, , Xazna, and Tallā;ra as Šabak villages but is clearly wrong in ascribing them to the district. They are, in fact, due east of Mosul, in the same nāḥiya of Ḥamdāanīya (= Bartallā) as Topraq-ziyāra and the other villages.