Reborn In 17th century India with Black Technology

February 1659

Safavid Empire, Kurdistan Region, Shekhan Area, Mt. Sinjar

Mount Sinjar is a mountain range that stands in the northwestern part of the Safavid Empire. The mountain range acts as a geographical boundary between the Safavid Empire and the Ottoman Empire.

Sinjar mountain range had always been one of the few buffer zones between the Persian Gulf and the Black Sea.

In such a desolate area, where even the two of the biggest rivals in the world wouldn't want to engage in conflict, there is actually a small settlement lying in the nooks and crannies of the mountain range, as if to defy all the challenges thrown by Mother Nature.

A young teenager, no more than 18 years old, ran into the mountain range from the woods with an excited expression on his face. Even though there were a lot of obstacles in his way, the kid seemed surprisingly fast. It was almost like he knew every inch of the mountain range.

The young man soon began to pant, but Unexpectedly, the speed at which he ran did not slow down. Instead, he kept a steady pace or even went a little faster.

If Vijay had seen this kid in action, he would definitely have been dumbfounded. "Would you like to join the Bharatiya Empire's athletic team?" he would ask, preparing three or four whole cards in his mind in order to lure the boy into the empire at any cost.

The boy reached the vicinity of what could only be a tribal village located in the cradle of the mountain range. When he ran into the village, almost all the people who saw him were greatly surprised. Not because they did not recognize who he was; no, instead it was because of the excitement on his face, which almost never appeared.

Everyone in the village knew that Barzan would almost never laugh and would always keep an emotionless face, but now, all of a sudden, seeing the excitement on his childish face, a lot of people's brain circuits were short-circuited. They did not understand whether they were seeing right or hallucinating.

But seeing as how neither rubbing their eyes nor pinching themselves woke them up from their dreams, they realized that they were in reality. With astonishment on their faces, they stood there speechless, mouths agape, necks turning like a motion detection camera that follows its target.

While most of the onlookers were stunned into silence and left incredulous, there were some who began to think, "Could something good have happened?" Their eyes lit up, since the only thing that cheers up Barzan, or any one of them, is to know about the bad luck of their enemies.

Realizing this, without any further hesitation, they quickly ran behind the young boy.

Barzan finally stopped in front of a stone Manor that stood out from all the other houses in the village. He excitedly walked towards the house.

"Şima Mîrza" (Peace and blessings), he greeted the guards.

The guards, who were two middle-aged men with bulky statures and strong physiques, did nothing to stop the boy since they knew his identity. Instead, they stood aside, letting him pass, all the while surprised when they saw the happy expression on Barzan's face. They had never seen such a sight before. But being guards for someone who is obviously very important means that, along with their muscles, they also have some cleverness. Hence, the guards immediately understood what Barzan's smile could mean. Both of them looked at each other with excitement on their faces, and without a moment's hesitation, "Let's go in," they yelled out. But unfortunately, it would mean that they had failed to follow their orders and abandoned their post, which they would never do no matter what happens.n/ô/vel/b//jn dot c//om

Both the guards had troubled expressions on their faces; it was as if they were starving to death and a bag of wheat was only a single centimetre away from where they could reach. It became very frustrating.

Fortunately, soon after, a few dozen or so men from the village rushed into the Manor with expressions of anticipation and eagerness.

One of the guards, Tawfan, had an idea. "Don't you think we should inspect them before letting them meet the chief? I mean, even if they are fellow villagers, it is always right to be careful nonetheless."

The other guard initially did not know what his friend was planning since they usually let any villager meet with the chief, but when he saw the winking of his eye and the sly smile at the corner of his mouth, he immediately knew what Tawfan was up to. "Well then, we should get going now, or else it would be pretty dangerous to His Excellency the Chief if anything were to happen, don't you think?" he said, while unconsciously a smile took over his face.

It was as if a spark of electricity had passed between the two guards. The next moment, both guards immediately ran into the house with a furious looks on their faces, but anyone could see that their eyes held great curiosity and anticipation.

"Chief, good news, Chief! Chief!!", Barzan screamed when he saw a young man sitting in the living room polishing his sword.

---

Ezidi Serwan, the young 26-year-old man sitting in his manor and polishing his sword, was the leader of the Yazidi people, or unfortunately the leader of what remained of them in the Safavid Empire.

Serwan's father, Ezidi Mirza, a great ruler respected and loved by his people, was the sole reason why the Yazidi people, whose culture and civilization much older than the Islamic civilization and even the Zoroastrian civilization, survived from almost being wiped out for the second time.

As for the reason for their almost extinction, unfortunately, though cliché, it is due to religious differences. The religion followed by the Yazidis, called Yazidism, which is an Indo-Iranian tradition, is highly incompatible with Islamic traditions. And unlike Hinduism, where there are many representations of God, Yazidism is a monotheistic religion that believes in one God. So, the conflict between the two monotheistic religions of Yazidism and Islam is almost impossible to avoid.

Hence, from ancient times, Yazidis, who are peaceful people and stick to themselves, could not resist the conversion offensive of the Islamic tribes from Turkey and Arabia. Soon, they were outnumbered and unfortunately persecuted by both the Turks and Arabs. Even their own ethnicity, the Kurds, had turned against them.

The oldest example of this was in the 10th century when some Kurdish tribes became Islamized. They started to join the persecution of Yazidis in the Hakkari Mountain Range. Legend said that the persecution was very brutal, massacres were commonplace, as these people were forced to convert to Islam, their women raped and sold into prostitution, and their population nearly wiped out by massacres carried out by Kurds and Turks.

All of these tragedies continued, with notable ones taking place in the 13th, 15th, and 16th centuries, and more recently in 1648, when the most beloved leader Ezidi Mirza, his relatives, the main Yazidi population, and the whole town of Erbil were brutally massacred by the Zangana family and its allies in the Safavid Empire in order to fully establish their control over the northwestern part of the Safavid Empire.

In fact, in Vijay's past life, the situation had not gotten better even in the twenty-first century, when a fresh Yazidi genocide took place in 2014, with the Islamic State brutally massacring 5,000 Yazidis, forcing over 10,000 women and girls into sexual slavery, and creating more than half a million refugees. Sadly, though everyone believes they are in modern times, in this part of the world—where it is believed to have given birth to one of the world's earliest civilizations—such barbaric activities and atrocities go unnoticed under the hypocritical eyes of all the so-called peace-loving world leaders. At the end of the day, the Yazidis neither had a large enough bargaining chip for the world to care about their plea nor did India remember that it had a backbone. Maybe only they could help themselves, or, God forbid, perish in this cruel world.

Coming back to the topic, the only remnants of the massacre in 1648 were the young children and old people from the tribe who had been placed in the Sinjar Mountain range as a way of preserving their roots, their hope, their culture, and most importantly, their civilization.

---

Ezidi Serwan was lost in thought, his father passed away eleven years ago in the massacre that almost wiped away Yazidi people from their birthplace. He was only 15 then. Before it happened, he did not have much fondness for his father since he was left alone in a desolate village in a large Manor, all by himself with other children around his age and some old people, while enduring the tortuous military training he had to go through.

Although his father would come visit him every so often in a month, it was not to visit him but to guide him in his military training, which made him feel ignored, and Inadvertently brought a lot of distance between him and his father. So, he was quite rebellious and had not been an easy child to deal with.

To Be Continued...