Creation Care in Kurdistan

Just before Newroz in 2024, torrential rain struck Kurdistan, and Duhok experienced devastation like in a horror movie.

The scene that most burned itself into our minds was the mobile video clip of two men in a raging river, and one man throwing them a rope (the clip can be viewed here, with a written report also on KirkukNow news website. Despite the best efforts of the rescuer, those two Arab men from Mosul were swept away by the raging torrent. One of the bodies was found; I haven’t seen a record of the other being retrieved. The younger man, Mahmoud Muhanad, was newly-wed, and his mother went on TV grieving that his child (her grandchild) in utero would never see his father. Mahmoud’s uncle Omar was a father-of-three. The image of the policeman holding out the rope to the men caught in the flashfloods became an icon. 

This Rudaw report also contains videos showing the scale of the flooding. This was March 19th, just before Newroz, in March 2024: just at the point when Kurds love to be out in the hills celebrating nature, nature was sweeping them away to the land of the dead. 3 or 4 died, and many homes were destroyed along with many vehicles. If you look at the cars in videos, you saw them floating helplessly down the road-turned-river.

In a culture in which people are expected to submit to whatever the Almighty decrees, a thorough public review of cause-and-effect is not easily done. It can seem irreverent to ask why the Sovereign Lord decreed such destruction. But the Bible – though it insists God is indeed in control of the weather – says that it is right for us to investigate things to work out what we can do to keep people safe.

 “It is the glory of God to conceal a matter;
    to search out a matter is the glory of kings.” (Proverbs 25:2)

Flash-flooding is a regular phenomenon that blights Kurdistan’s cities. In December 2025 there was more flooding and Rudaw broadcast a video clip showing a mother dog with its puppy, trying to escape the flood. Popular Instagram environmentalist & comedian IstheBruce, who makes people chuckle by pretending to know only pigeon English, provided his customary English commentary. But hopefully we can delve a little deeper in terms of analysis than that “the fenimists (sic) are all at home baking cookies while the men try to open the manholes”.

The Bible gives us a worldview (cîhanbînî in both Sorani and Kurmanji) with which we can analyze this recurring and devastating problem.

“But the land you are crossing the Jordan to take possession of is a land of mountains and valleys that drinks rain from heaven.” Deuteronomy 11:11

Here was Moses preparing the multitudes wandering in the wilderness, who’d left Egypt, how to live in Canaan. They were to live in right relationship with God – that was central to Moses’ message in Deuteronomy: “love the LORD your God” – but also in right relationship with the land. They were to think ‘the rain is a blessing’, and a large part of their work was to work out how to manage that rain that God sent from heaven.

The Bible doesn’t expound this in detail; it doesn’t join up all the dots, because it was really common sense to traditional societies who lived closer to the land. Without storing the water in cisterns they’d go thirsty. Without carefully watering the land – without irrigation – they’d go hungry.

But modern man has tended to forget this basic principle of living in God’s world. So let’s learn the lesson again: we must let the land drink rain from heaven. If we cover our land with tarmac (NB in American English it’s usually called asphalt), the rain God sends from heaven won’t seep into the ground. Let me re-write Deut 11:11 as it tragically reads in today’s urban dystopias in Kurdistan:

“But the land you are crossing the Khabur¹ to take possession of is a land of mountains and valleys that wants to drinks rain from heaven, but you won’t let it drink because you’ve covered it with asphalt, marble and concrete.”

I have lived for more than a decade in Kurdistan so I know so well the scene in which the womenfolk especially are seen earnestly pushing the water off their front yard using a floor squeegee, frantically trying to shoo the water away as if it was a menace threatening their sparkly bright ceramic yard. Off it goes into the road drain, then into the river and off to the Arabs in Southern Iraq, or straight out into the Persian Gulf. But not into the land of Kurdistan. And meanwhile the geologists are noticing the perilous lowering of the water table. The aquifers are worryingly depleted. Society as a whole is not allowing the land to drink the water God sends from heaven.

I remember looking with dismay down at a new car park they built at the University of Duhok. A huge area of black asphalt: what’s this doing? And I reflected I concluded: it’s waterproofing the land! (It also increases the heat).

Now in another article, I’m going to point out that asphalt/ tarmac is a good part of God’s creation. I don’t want to demonise it. But when we misuse and overuse something that is essentially a good and useful thing, when we waterproof the land, we reap the consequences.

In 2024, I was so shocked by that flooding in Duhok that I nervously took on the role of amateur Geography teacher and made videos in Kurdish and English explaining how in the UK we have laws against covering your drive with asphalt. It is illegal in cities to pave your own land with a material that won’t absorb water. Grass, gravel or porous paving blocks are the main alternatives. I struggled to find a Kurdish word for porous, but then discovered you can say blokên kunkun, which means blocks with kun (holes) in them: blocks with ‘hole-holes’ in. Lots of holes: kunkun. Kurdistan needs to use more blokên kunkun. They’re often used to create sidewalks, or pavements as we call them in British English. But these need to be more widely used.

There are at least three other problems, though: firstly, the scarcity of trees; secondly, the blocking of drains and streams with plastic pollution. And thirdly, the destruction or neglect of wetlands, where excess water can sit in times of heavy rain –  and sustain a whole ecosystem of insects, reptiles and birds.

The land is only effective in ‘drinking rain from heaven’ if it is well looked after (look back at Genesis 2:15: God placed the man in the garden “to work it and take care of it”). Without trees and vegetation, which sends roots through the ground and creates a porous infrastructure underground through which the water can slowly seep through, the earth becomes like hard-baked brick. Not much different from concrete. NGOs like Yak Dar are doing great work planting trees and teaching people the importance of reforestation. The Erbil Green belt also is a great initiative to plant millions of trees around the city. But one fears it’s too little too late.

As I thought about this kind of problem, certain words from the Psalms came to my mind because they are sung memorably by a Canadian singer Jamie Soles. His version of Psalm 126 reminded me of how wadis are meant to flow, not to get blocked up by our plastic trash:

“Restore our fortunes, Lord, like the streams in the Southland.”
Jamie Soles singing Psalm 126:4

God’s salvation is pictured as a stream flowing. It’s a picture of the good life. As I pondered that beautiful song, I thought: there’s our problem. The streams in our Southland, or the streams in the Negev in most translations, don’t flow, because they’re filled with plastic bags and bottles!! That verse could be meditated on further: heavy rain can transform the Negev, turning it from a barren land into a blooming landscape almost overnight, as dry channels suddenly roar with life-giving water. Kurds in Iraq, along with many of the peoples of the earth, have lost touch with the blessing of heavy rain. I love the ancient cisterns up at the citadel of Akre. Those guys back then knew how to store the rain from the flashfloods!

So, drawing these threads together: rain is a great blessing, but we must allow the streams to flow – and to store its water wisely. We mustn’t fill the waterways with our plastic waste. We must plant and maintain trees and grassland that will keep the ground permeable. Where we need to pave over the farmland, we should use porous paving as much as possible.

If we don’t, God’s blessing of rainfall will become a judgment sent from heaven on our folly and mismanagement of his creation. 

It is quite alarming to think that one of God’s great blessings – rain – is also at times in Scripture an instrument of terrifying judgment.

Through the prophet Ezekiel, God warns:

13:11 “Rain will come in torrents…”

“Therefore this is what the Sovereign Lord says: In my wrath I will unleash a violent wind, and in my anger hailstones and torrents of rain will fall with destructive fury.”(Ezekiel 13:13, NIVUK)

And Jesus echoes this warning in the Sermon on the Mount:

“The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.” (Matthew 7:27, NIVUK)

Now, I don’t mean to say that those who lost their lives in flooding were being directly punished by God for their sins. Clearly, children are not responsible for urban planning decisions! But we know that judgment often falls on those who are not directly responsible for the wrongs that caused the loss of life. Think, for example, of passers-by killed in a drunk-driving incident.

Jesus said of incidents like this: “those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them – do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish.” Luke 13:4-5

These environmental problems in Kurdistan are a clarion call for us to repent and turn back to the good God who created us. Floods are a foretaste of the judgment that will come when Jesus Christ returns. And we don’t know when he will come. Just like no one knew when the flood would come in Noah’s day.

“³⁷As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. ³⁸For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; ³⁹and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.” (Matthew 24:37-39, emphasis mine)

I don’t believe Christians can love their neighbours fully without sharing the bigger picture. Creation has been messed up not just by poor environmental stewardship, but by our rejecting God’s rule in our lives and mistreating other humans, who have been made in God’s image. We deserve God’s judgment.

But the Psalms also speak of the king himself sinking in a flood. I believe Jesus not only warned about judgment but entered into judgment himself, though he was completely innocent of any sins all his life:

1 Save me, O God,

    for the waters have come up to my neck.

2 I sink in the miry depths,

    where there is no foothold.

I have come into the deep waters;

    the floods engulf me. (Psalm 69)

If you’re not a follower of Jesus yet, do keep reading the Bible and I would love to explain more about how you can be safe from the judgment to come by accepting Jesus as the sacrificial lamb who died in the flood so that you could be safe.

But I accept that we need to work together with those who don’t share our convictions about Jesus’ death – co-belligerency, as it is called.

The flooding that much of the world is experiencing these days has been labelled ‘plastic-aggravated flooding’. It can’t be put down to one cause only –  but blocking the drains and wadis with plastic is one major cause. Duhok is a valley city: so if you ‘waterproof’ the land and block up its waterways with plastic, it is going to become a scene of apocalyptic flooding fairly regularly.

But I want to suggest that churches can be light in the darkness. We can be salt that keeps the meat from rotting. We, of all people, should be appalled when we see humans so confounding basic common sense about how the created world works. Farmland turned into concrete jungles. Wetlands drained of water and built on by greedy developers. Rivers with more plastic in them than fish. It should be part of our DNA to do what we can to help the land ‘drink water from heaven’. And one way this becomes part of our DNA is by us singing about God’s care of the land –  in our church worship services. Christians have historically sung the Psalms a lot, but sadly that fell by the wayside in the last few centuries. Now there is a significant revival of Psalm-singing in some quarters. I hear of ‘Psalm-shouts’ being held around the UK. Creative musicians are recording modern settings of these ancient Psalms.

These ancient spiritual songs give us a rich portrait of God’s power over, and tender care of, his creation. Try singing this version of Psalm 65 in your churches. My friend Matt Searles has set it to a tune that is familiar to many, because it’s used in hymns like I Will Tell the Wondrous Story and Come Thou Long Expected Jesus. If we celebrate in song the way God takes care of the earth (see the third stanza), we will find that same attitude of care for the land sinks into our minds and hearts.

1. Praise awaits you, God, in Zion;

Soon to you all men will come.

Though our sins prevail against us,

You atone for every one.

Blessed are those you choose and welcome,

dwelling in your courts of grace;

we are filled with every blessing,

satisfied in You always.

2. Holy God and mighty Saviour,

hope of all the farthest seas,

when we pray you hear and answer;

You make known your wondrous deeds.

By your strength you formed the mountains,

stilled the roaring of the waves.

Earth rejoices at your goodness;

dawn and evening sing your praise.

3. From your river ever-flowing,

You give life to all the land.

Autumn rains and grain at harvest;

You provide for every man.

All the year is crowned with bounty;

deserts bloom and hills bear fruit.

Hills and valleys, all creation

lift their hymn of praise to you!

Psalm 65, from the album In Returning and Rest by Matt Searles

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¹That’s the border river between Turkey and Iraq