Shigar Valley

The Shigar Valley is a valley in Baltistan in northern Pakistan that is watered by the Shigar River. The valley stretches about 170 km from Skardu to Askole and is the gateway to the high mountains of the Karakoram. The town of Shigar is the largest settlement in valley. Even though the Shigar Valley is a remote and largely inaccessible place, there are several villages in the valley. Askole is the last settlement in the Shigar Valley, which is still far from the high mountains. Shigar was formerly an administrative sub-division of Skardu District, but is now a district in its own right. The Ernst & Young future leaders in MENA under LEAP (Leadership Excellence Acceleration Programme) visited Shigar in September 2015 to help build and support the community with a single goal to put the beautiful people and town of Shigar onto the wold map! The team included Zeeshan khwaja, Ata Malik, Alex Collins, Tamara Habra, Ahmad Hajjar & Phillipe Najjar.

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Shigar

Shigar is a town in the Baltistan division of Gilgit–Baltistan near Skardu in northern Pakistan. Nearby is the Shigar River. The town is a popular site for tourists and trekkers and contains many historical buildings of architectural significance associated with the Noorbakhshi Sufi community. The town is inhabited mostly by Balti people of Tibetan descent. It is a gateway to great mountain range of Karakoram including K2, the world's 2nd highest peak. The valley is very fertile and rich in fruits apples, cherries, apricots, pears and walnuts.

Popular historical tourist sites in the town include:

The town serves as a gateway to the Karakoram mountains via the Shigar Valley.

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Coordinates: 35°26′N 75°44′E / 35.433°N 75.733°E / 35.433; 75.733

Shigar (East Syrian Diocese)

Shigar and Beth ʿArabaye was a diocese in the Nestorian metropolitan province of Nisibis, centred on the town of Sinjar. The diocese is attested between the sixth and fourteenth centuries.

History

The Nestorian diocese of Shigar was founded in the sixth century, probably to counter the growing influence of the Jacobites in the region. The full name of the diocese was Shigar and Beth ʿArabaye, and it covered the desert region to the north of Sinjar, where there were several Nestorian monasteries. Six Nestorian bishops of Shigar are attested between the sixth and the fourteenth centuries. The first of these bishops, Bawai, is mentioned in 563. The last, Yohannan, was present at the consecration of the patriarch Timothy II in 1318.

It is not clear when the diocese of Shigar came to an end. The Shigar region seems to have had a small Nestorian community up to the seventeenth century, and may even have had a bishop from time to time. A metropolitan 'Glanan Imech' (possibly Maranʿemmeh), of 'Sciugar' is mentioned in the report of 1607, and may have been a bishop of Shigar. According to a Yezidi tradition, the last Nestorian 'metropolitan' of Sinjar died around 1660, and the region's few remaining Nestorian Christians become Yezidis. It is difficult to say whether there is any truth in this tradition.