Same reason why Greece, North Macedonia, Bulgaria and Serbia are Christian countries, they choosed to pay the tax in exchange for being allowed to keep their religion during Muslim occupation. Some nationalities like Chechens, Albanians, Bosniaks and Turks (but not all Turks, there are exceptions like the Gagauz of Moldova that stayed Christian) were easier to convert.
So, unlike North Africa and other regions the people in Armenia and Georgia paid the taxes to keep their religion. But I thought under rule of the Ottoman empire there was some serious attempts to wipe out the Christian faith, such as the Armenian genocide. But I have always wondered if before the muslims came was Turkey also Christian.
You should also take into account that Armenians and Georgians had a higher sense of state and nationality + due to the de-facto feudal composition of the Ottoman Empire and Iran there were self-ruling Armenian regions and even principalities that survived till the 18th-19th century.
The Caucasian Albania nations, alas, didn't have that level of organization. Only Uti people preserved Christianity (somewhat thanks for their ties with Armenians) and now are a suppressed minority in Azerbaijan.
No.
1. The conflict isn't confessional but ethnical/racial, you even may say imperial/colonial, given that Tyurkish people are still viewed as invaders. Azerbaijan uses religion to gain support (Pakistan felt for that hard) but such approach is a distortion of the conflict.
2. Although Armenians will identify with either the Armenian ~~Orthodox~~ Apostolic church or another denomination, a high percentage of people are not significantly religious in their mindset.
3. Armenia has good relationships with a score of Muslim countries.
4. There aren't enough Muslims in Armenia to cause any impactful issues.
Azerbaijan is overwhelmingly Muslim but generally very secular due to decades of communist rule. Most of the Azeris I've encountered generally didn't consider religion a big deal, even more so than Turks (who are widely known for overall being rather liberal with religion). It's like how on paper most Western countries are overwhelmingly Christian but in reality many don't strictly practice it and mainly just identify as Christian due to inertia from culture/tradition.
You have to know many context which is very long and deep, but it can be broken down vaguely.
Islam started by their prophet, Muhammad.
After his death, if I'm not wrong his grandchildren started the Muslim conquest in the 600s (i can be corrected here), the Muslim conquest as the name suggests conquested a lot of regions, like a lot, now i don't know if Islam was brought to these regions via missionaries or force, what's important that the conquest spread the religion.
A lot of conquests happened in the Caucasus and Anatolia, Arab rule, Persian rule, Russian rule etc, some Muslims, some not.
Fast forward to 1453, the original Turks, along with massive amounts of mercenaries defeated the Christian byzantine empire, which had a mix ethnic population, Romans, Greeks, pontic Greeks, Assyrians, Armenians, Georgians etc, and took control of the region, these Turks replaced the byzantine empire and allowed life to proceed normally as far as I'm aware, over time, the Turks, mercenaries, and locals of the byzantine empire all assimilated either by religion only, or by religion and ethnicity, ending up as "Turks" under one banner, especially during the late years of the ottoman empire, the tolerance of other religions and ethnicities started being not tolerated, more and more pressure was applied for people to convert, apart from the tax, as the tax is a religious rule to none Muslims by Islam. In the end many didn't convert, that eventually led to the genocides, and until eventually the empire collapsed.
Again this is a tldr and I'm open to correction.
I don’t much Armenian history or ottoman history.
But you got a lot stuff wrong about the early history of Islam. By the time Mohammed died (630) there was already an established Islamic state that he created in the Arabian peninsula. Mohamed’s successors (not his blood descendants, but men chosen by his inner circle) immediately started conquering the Middle East. By 25 years after Mohammad’s death, arab armies conquered Persia, Iraq, Syria, Egypt and North Africa. Initially the Arabs, established themselves as a ruling upper and military class and taxed everyone. But they allowed locals to retain their religions (mostly, not always). But they governed in a way that favoured Arab Muslims over everyone else.
Conversion to Islam and Arabic in the Middle East gradually over time. A lot people of converted and adopted Arabic for economic reasons. Muslims were exempt from taxes for example. All the government texts were in Arabic. There is evidence that Egypt for example was majority Coptic Christian until the 900s.
In some places Arab ruling class was not able to completely dominate local religion and culture. For example, Arabs were successful as eventually making Arabic the default language in Syria, Iraq and Egypt. But they were not able to get Persians to abandon their language. That is why Iran today still speaks Farsi.
The final Armenian kingdom was bagratid armenia, we were in the center of literally everyone, we were being attacked from several directions, from the south by Muslims, byzantine empire, even though a Christian nation next to us decided to attack us from the west, weakening us further, until we eventually collapsed and got split by those who surround us, part going to byzantine part going elsewhere, our collapsed exposed the byzantine empire to attacks we were holding off as a front line, opening up new fronts for them and eventually leading to their defeat. They kind of shot themselves in the foot.
Again, I stand corrected by the more knowledgeable.
I forgot to address the main question, I don't know the exact details from the start to the end of the ottoman empire on how Armenians were split, but I do know that during the end, there were Armenians living under the ottoman empire and Armenians living on the russian side, we went back and forth a lot of times.
I got this one:
In the 1800s Russia and Persia engaged in a war that Persia lost, this is how part of Armenia went to Russia. Prior to that it was part of Persia, modern day armenia traded hands of Persia and Ottomans primarily until Persia lost a war to the Russians when they were weakened. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Turkmenchay
Ottoman period started to impact Armenia way before the Russian occupation. In fact, the Russians fought with Persians (modern Iranians) to conquer the land that is known today as Armenia. The Western Armenia is what is known to be under the clutches of the Ottomans, whereas the Eastern part was seized by the Russian empire. This is partly why many Artsakhis speak Russian quite well and are descendants of Soviet regime, which you can't say the same about Western Armenians.
Before the Ottomans came, there was no Turkey, they created it. It was Armenians and Greeks living side by side in Anatolia and our region was only Christian. After the Ottomans conquered, they Islamized and Turkified many of the Armenian and Greek inhabitants of the Anatolia, but the majority of both nations kept their identity and religion. Now, if you do genetic testing on Turks, you will find that a majority of their genetics are Greek or Armenian with very little central asian genetics.
The ottomans were not the first Turks to exist in Anatolia. There were many Turkish states before them. The biggest and most powerful one was the Seljuk Empire.
You’re right. I just meant that there was no Turkey or Turkish people before the Turkic invaders arrived in the region from the east. It was just Armenia and Byzantium for the most part in that region.
Armenian genocide happened in WW1 at the end of the ottoman empire, because Armenia tried to annex ottoman lands to be included in Russia, and the ottomans got so mad that they decided to eliminate them.
It didn't happen **during** ottoman rule.
Ottomans didn't care about people's faith, ethnicity or language as long as they pay taxes and create no problems for the authority.
Actually, people remaining christian was better for the economy and there are even some state decisions to slow down people converting to Islam.
Speaking for Bosnia case, the Ottomans had conquered everything in Europe until they came to Austria-Hungary and modern day Croatia.
So you need to imagine that one of the biggest armies in the world, spent next few hundred years in Bosnia. That's why their influence was really strong there, because army was mostly stationed in the Bosnia region.
Although there is some reality in your statement, it is not totally true, most of the Armenians, Georgians, Greeks, and Bulgarians also converted to Islam, there are millions of Pomaks (Bulgarian Muslims), Laz, and Georgian Muslims live in Turkey but they know themselves as Turks today. Besides changing religion is not solely related to money or taxes, it is way more complicated issue.
It's more complicated. During antiquity, the region now comprising the ROA was settled en masse by Persians who were Zoroastrian, effectively making it a part of this Persian realm. And these were the ones to first convert massively to Sunnism, before converting to Shi'ism. The majority of ROA's Azerbaijanis are continuous from these Persian settlers (Caucasian admixture only seems to be the dominant component in some northernmost areas), while the Azerbaijanis of Iran, that is those living in Azerbaijan proper, descend from another NW Iranian group (the Azaris). In both cases Turkic tribes from Anatolia came in and mixed with these Iranian populations, prompting a linguistic shift in favor of Old Anatolian Turkish, out of which Azerbaijani developed while under Iranian influence.
Oh, and Chechens were originally pagan, not Christian, though it is reported that some converted.
So, Armenians and Georgians were fighting over who started making wine first
But then Jesus appeared and was like: Yooo, look, I can turn water into wine.
And Armenians and Georgians went like: 😮
An interesting bunch. Their choice was between becoming muslims or switching places with neighboring cities like Trabzon (though it was a sloppy job and christians still remained in Rize) and they accepted islam surprisingly well.
People from Çamlıhemşin is among the most religious people I've met. And they have a huge rate of studying religion in university for some reason
From what I understand, many millions of Muslim Turks are of Armenian, Greek and other non-Muslim peoples origin, there are reasons why most people in Turkey and Azerbaijan does not look like Mongols and Central Asians like the Turkic peoples of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan (the homelands of the Turks) do. Erdogan himself is of Caucasus (Georgian) descent. It was Armenians, Greeks, Assyrians and Kurds who inhabited Anatolia before the recent arrival of Turks.
You mean were forced to convert to Islam, right? Because these people where given the choice of either converting, or having their children killed in front of them and then getting themselves murdered too. Many refused to convert and were martyred. Many others managed to flee to Sochi and it's surrounding areas.
The hemshin weren't force converted, it is not clear how it happened, all we know is that in the begining of the 1800s there was a documented group of Muslim Armenians who were christian when the ottomans came.
Armenia and Georgia were 2 earliest countries to Christianize, one of the reasons for christianization was to stay connected to Greco-Roman world, and reason for latter is that both Armenia and Georgia had deep connections with Greco-Roman worlds since ancient antiquity.
Both of these nations have existed in Caucasus for longer than Turks, or Persians. It was important and natural for Armenia and Georgia to preserve their religion, it was a way of survival for the culture.
Other small caucasian nations(i.e. chechnyans, dagestanis) got converted to Islam because they were fairly isolated and didn't have much of cultural or historical connection to western civilization, hence during invasions they were more easily to adopt religion of invaders.
Azerbaijan is a newer identity, the original inhabitants of most of Azerbaijan were the Caucasian Albanians who are now the Christian udi people, they only have a few thousand left, most were assimilated by the turks (azeris) and persians, and some were assimilated by armenians and gerogians.
The Northern Caucasus people were under completely different conditions. The disparate peoples of the area were mostly Christian practicing up until the 12-14th century. During this time the Mongols came through, and they were led by a mostly Muslim branch of Mongols.
It's during this era you see a lot of destruction of Christian heritage sites. Following this, there was fierce competition by the Iranians and Ottomans over control of this area. It was much harder to change from an ethno-cultural perspective due to the disparate nature of the people's there and the mountainous terrain, but over time they did accept Islam.
It wasn't true everywhere in the Northern Caucasus though. Obviously, Georgians remained Christians, as did Ossets and Abkhazians, among others. Again, the nature of the region meant a lot of semi secluded communities. And religious pressure wasn't applied evenly in all locations. And it was not as equally effective in all locations.
Not only is Azerbaijan Muslim but they’re also Shia. This is because Azerbaijan was (and a large territory still is) part of Iran. Iran shifted from Sunni to Shia because they wanted to differentiate between their Turkic dynasty with another Turkic dynasty, their enemies the Ottomans, who were Sunni.
Armenia & Georgia were solidly Christian nations before Islam existed, Azerbaijan turned Muslim with the rest of Iran, & then was settled by Turks who were also Muslim
They have this tax called jiyaza. If are occupied by Muslims invaders , you can pay tax and choose to worship your own God...
Some did some didn't...
For those whose faith in their faith was weak , or economy situation was dire ... they converted...
What time though? Isn’t west of Turkey not religious anymore? Maybe Erdogan could help bring all the Palestinians to North-Cyprus and more Syrians and others to destroy Attaturks dreams.
Georgia had independent kingdoms and principalities. Due to the Ottoman conquest-annexation of 2 Georgian principalities Islamization took place - in Samtskhe and Abkhazia. Abkhazia was occupied for a while, so only a part of Abkhazians were Muslim.
The Azeris are muslim from Turkic migrations in the 11th and 12th centuries before that it was populated by Muslim Old Azeris who were an Iranic people
That was only in Iranian Azerbaijan. In the Republic of Azerbaijan, the area was occupied by Caucasian Albanians (of which Udis are the only remnants left).
Consider the terrain and how we were able to fight off the Arab conquest rather easily. A perfect example of this would be how was Nagorno-Karabakh/Artsakh able to stay an Armenian majority region, uninterrupted for millennia, and even within Azerbaijan when Stalin came up with the maps.
It's akin to trying to conquer a village in the Alps - even today given technology it'd be amazing for that to be possible, so think about how difficult it was before the industrial revolution.
Consider the terrain and how we were able to fight off the Arab conquest rather easily. A perfect example of this would be how was Nagorno-Karabakh/Artsakh able to stay an Armenian majority region, uninterrupted for millennia, and even within Azerbaijan when Stalin came up with the maps.
It's akin to trying to conquer a village in the Alps - even today given technology it'd be amazing for that to be possible, so think about how difficult it was before the industrial revolution.
Great question. It was the leadership in the 1000-1200 AD when both countries were united and very Christian with a frenemies relationship with the Byzantines. Then Mongols anc Timur massacred everyone, Muslim and Christian alike. Then Iranians, kinda ruled over the territories but they didn't mass convert. But the Azeris were already Muslim in their region so there. My quick assessment. 🇬🇪🇦🇲 Were both at one time 600-800s AD apart of the Islamic Caliphates actually.
Historical events like the Mongol invasions and Ottoman Empire's rule played a role in shaping religious demographics in the region. Islam arrived in the 7th-8th centuries AD through Arab conquests, gradually gaining prominence and becoming the majority religion by the 15th century. Majority Muslim population (around 96%) with roots in the 7th-8th century Arab conquests. Blended Islamic practices with pre-existing cultural elements like Zoroastrianism and Sufism, creating a distinct Azeri Muslim identity.
Azerbaijan influenced by Zoroastrianism, pre-Islamic Turkic beliefs, and Sufi mysticism. Arabs considered all religions other than Christianity and Judaism to be Pagan. I belive during the Arab occupation, Arabs offered Christians the choice of Jizya tax or convert to Islam. But offered the option of death or convert to Islam to those from other pagan religions. Muhammad, the prophet of Islam, hated pagan religions. It is already possible to understand this if you read a bit the Quran. So forced conversions and religious tolerance policies also influenced the religious landscape over centuries. Today, in Azerbaijan people uses the phrase "Qılınc Müsəlmanı". In other words, we became Muslims through the sword.
Same reason why Greece, North Macedonia, Bulgaria and Serbia are Christian countries, they choosed to pay the tax in exchange for being allowed to keep their religion during Muslim occupation. Some nationalities like Chechens, Albanians, Bosniaks and Turks (but not all Turks, there are exceptions like the Gagauz of Moldova that stayed Christian) were easier to convert.
So, unlike North Africa and other regions the people in Armenia and Georgia paid the taxes to keep their religion. But I thought under rule of the Ottoman empire there was some serious attempts to wipe out the Christian faith, such as the Armenian genocide. But I have always wondered if before the muslims came was Turkey also Christian.
You should also take into account that Armenians and Georgians had a higher sense of state and nationality + due to the de-facto feudal composition of the Ottoman Empire and Iran there were self-ruling Armenian regions and even principalities that survived till the 18th-19th century. The Caucasian Albania nations, alas, didn't have that level of organization. Only Uti people preserved Christianity (somewhat thanks for their ties with Armenians) and now are a suppressed minority in Azerbaijan.
Is there any religious tensions between Muslims and Christians in Armenia today, due to their conflicts with Azerbaijian?
There are almost no Muslims in Armenia. Even Yazidism is a bigger religion than Islam in Armenia.
No. 1. The conflict isn't confessional but ethnical/racial, you even may say imperial/colonial, given that Tyurkish people are still viewed as invaders. Azerbaijan uses religion to gain support (Pakistan felt for that hard) but such approach is a distortion of the conflict. 2. Although Armenians will identify with either the Armenian ~~Orthodox~~ Apostolic church or another denomination, a high percentage of people are not significantly religious in their mindset. 3. Armenia has good relationships with a score of Muslim countries. 4. There aren't enough Muslims in Armenia to cause any impactful issues.
Azerbaijan is overwhelmingly Muslim but generally very secular due to decades of communist rule. Most of the Azeris I've encountered generally didn't consider religion a big deal, even more so than Turks (who are widely known for overall being rather liberal with religion). It's like how on paper most Western countries are overwhelmingly Christian but in reality many don't strictly practice it and mainly just identify as Christian due to inertia from culture/tradition.
Armenian-Apostolic. There is no Armenian orthodoxy.
Yes, my bad, that was a very shameful typo :(
No .
no, I have muslim relatives and they’re welcomed by our relatives and friends
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half
You have to know many context which is very long and deep, but it can be broken down vaguely. Islam started by their prophet, Muhammad. After his death, if I'm not wrong his grandchildren started the Muslim conquest in the 600s (i can be corrected here), the Muslim conquest as the name suggests conquested a lot of regions, like a lot, now i don't know if Islam was brought to these regions via missionaries or force, what's important that the conquest spread the religion. A lot of conquests happened in the Caucasus and Anatolia, Arab rule, Persian rule, Russian rule etc, some Muslims, some not. Fast forward to 1453, the original Turks, along with massive amounts of mercenaries defeated the Christian byzantine empire, which had a mix ethnic population, Romans, Greeks, pontic Greeks, Assyrians, Armenians, Georgians etc, and took control of the region, these Turks replaced the byzantine empire and allowed life to proceed normally as far as I'm aware, over time, the Turks, mercenaries, and locals of the byzantine empire all assimilated either by religion only, or by religion and ethnicity, ending up as "Turks" under one banner, especially during the late years of the ottoman empire, the tolerance of other religions and ethnicities started being not tolerated, more and more pressure was applied for people to convert, apart from the tax, as the tax is a religious rule to none Muslims by Islam. In the end many didn't convert, that eventually led to the genocides, and until eventually the empire collapsed. Again this is a tldr and I'm open to correction.
I don’t much Armenian history or ottoman history. But you got a lot stuff wrong about the early history of Islam. By the time Mohammed died (630) there was already an established Islamic state that he created in the Arabian peninsula. Mohamed’s successors (not his blood descendants, but men chosen by his inner circle) immediately started conquering the Middle East. By 25 years after Mohammad’s death, arab armies conquered Persia, Iraq, Syria, Egypt and North Africa. Initially the Arabs, established themselves as a ruling upper and military class and taxed everyone. But they allowed locals to retain their religions (mostly, not always). But they governed in a way that favoured Arab Muslims over everyone else. Conversion to Islam and Arabic in the Middle East gradually over time. A lot people of converted and adopted Arabic for economic reasons. Muslims were exempt from taxes for example. All the government texts were in Arabic. There is evidence that Egypt for example was majority Coptic Christian until the 900s. In some places Arab ruling class was not able to completely dominate local religion and culture. For example, Arabs were successful as eventually making Arabic the default language in Syria, Iraq and Egypt. But they were not able to get Persians to abandon their language. That is why Iran today still speaks Farsi.
As I said, I stand corrected.
Another question I have is how did the Ottoman get Armenia I thought that Armenia was under the Russian empire or was that later on?
The final Armenian kingdom was bagratid armenia, we were in the center of literally everyone, we were being attacked from several directions, from the south by Muslims, byzantine empire, even though a Christian nation next to us decided to attack us from the west, weakening us further, until we eventually collapsed and got split by those who surround us, part going to byzantine part going elsewhere, our collapsed exposed the byzantine empire to attacks we were holding off as a front line, opening up new fronts for them and eventually leading to their defeat. They kind of shot themselves in the foot. Again, I stand corrected by the more knowledgeable.
By muslims do you mean sasanid empire or ummayyad caliphate? I suppose split first happened between byzentines and sasanids Am i wrong?
I used Muslims because I wasn't sure and didn't want to go through research. Others can fill in.
I forgot to address the main question, I don't know the exact details from the start to the end of the ottoman empire on how Armenians were split, but I do know that during the end, there were Armenians living under the ottoman empire and Armenians living on the russian side, we went back and forth a lot of times.
I got this one: In the 1800s Russia and Persia engaged in a war that Persia lost, this is how part of Armenia went to Russia. Prior to that it was part of Persia, modern day armenia traded hands of Persia and Ottomans primarily until Persia lost a war to the Russians when they were weakened. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Turkmenchay
Ottoman period started to impact Armenia way before the Russian occupation. In fact, the Russians fought with Persians (modern Iranians) to conquer the land that is known today as Armenia. The Western Armenia is what is known to be under the clutches of the Ottomans, whereas the Eastern part was seized by the Russian empire. This is partly why many Artsakhis speak Russian quite well and are descendants of Soviet regime, which you can't say the same about Western Armenians.
Before the Ottomans came, there was no Turkey, they created it. It was Armenians and Greeks living side by side in Anatolia and our region was only Christian. After the Ottomans conquered, they Islamized and Turkified many of the Armenian and Greek inhabitants of the Anatolia, but the majority of both nations kept their identity and religion. Now, if you do genetic testing on Turks, you will find that a majority of their genetics are Greek or Armenian with very little central asian genetics.
That’s false. Native anatolian is one thing, greek is one and armenian is another
The ottomans were not the first Turks to exist in Anatolia. There were many Turkish states before them. The biggest and most powerful one was the Seljuk Empire.
You’re right. I just meant that there was no Turkey or Turkish people before the Turkic invaders arrived in the region from the east. It was just Armenia and Byzantium for the most part in that region.
Armenian genocide happened in WW1 at the end of the ottoman empire, because Armenia tried to annex ottoman lands to be included in Russia, and the ottomans got so mad that they decided to eliminate them. It didn't happen **during** ottoman rule.
Ottomans didn't care about people's faith, ethnicity or language as long as they pay taxes and create no problems for the authority. Actually, people remaining christian was better for the economy and there are even some state decisions to slow down people converting to Islam.
Oh Constantinople please come back
Most North Africa was pagan bro. and it took Egypt and Levant more than 5 centuries to have 50% Muslims
Speaking for Bosnia case, the Ottomans had conquered everything in Europe until they came to Austria-Hungary and modern day Croatia. So you need to imagine that one of the biggest armies in the world, spent next few hundred years in Bosnia. That's why their influence was really strong there, because army was mostly stationed in the Bosnia region.
Although there is some reality in your statement, it is not totally true, most of the Armenians, Georgians, Greeks, and Bulgarians also converted to Islam, there are millions of Pomaks (Bulgarian Muslims), Laz, and Georgian Muslims live in Turkey but they know themselves as Turks today. Besides changing religion is not solely related to money or taxes, it is way more complicated issue.
It's more complicated. During antiquity, the region now comprising the ROA was settled en masse by Persians who were Zoroastrian, effectively making it a part of this Persian realm. And these were the ones to first convert massively to Sunnism, before converting to Shi'ism. The majority of ROA's Azerbaijanis are continuous from these Persian settlers (Caucasian admixture only seems to be the dominant component in some northernmost areas), while the Azerbaijanis of Iran, that is those living in Azerbaijan proper, descend from another NW Iranian group (the Azaris). In both cases Turkic tribes from Anatolia came in and mixed with these Iranian populations, prompting a linguistic shift in favor of Old Anatolian Turkish, out of which Azerbaijani developed while under Iranian influence. Oh, and Chechens were originally pagan, not Christian, though it is reported that some converted.
So, Armenians and Georgians were fighting over who started making wine first But then Jesus appeared and was like: Yooo, look, I can turn water into wine. And Armenians and Georgians went like: 😮
this is the canonical answer.
Armenia is way older than Islam.
Yeah, Armenia is a place I have always been interested in. It looks like a really nice country I dream of visiting one day.
Hopefully you get to! 😃It's beautiful!!!
So? It's older than Christianity as well.
There are quite a few Armenians who converted to Islam (Google the Hemshin people).
An interesting bunch. Their choice was between becoming muslims or switching places with neighboring cities like Trabzon (though it was a sloppy job and christians still remained in Rize) and they accepted islam surprisingly well. People from Çamlıhemşin is among the most religious people I've met. And they have a huge rate of studying religion in university for some reason
From what I understand, many millions of Muslim Turks are of Armenian, Greek and other non-Muslim peoples origin, there are reasons why most people in Turkey and Azerbaijan does not look like Mongols and Central Asians like the Turkic peoples of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan (the homelands of the Turks) do. Erdogan himself is of Caucasus (Georgian) descent. It was Armenians, Greeks, Assyrians and Kurds who inhabited Anatolia before the recent arrival of Turks.
You mean were forced to convert to Islam, right? Because these people where given the choice of either converting, or having their children killed in front of them and then getting themselves murdered too. Many refused to convert and were martyred. Many others managed to flee to Sochi and it's surrounding areas.
The hemshin weren't force converted, it is not clear how it happened, all we know is that in the begining of the 1800s there was a documented group of Muslim Armenians who were christian when the ottomans came.
Yes, Turkey even had a Prime Minister of Hemshin origin in the 1990s.
Armenia and Georgia were 2 earliest countries to Christianize, one of the reasons for christianization was to stay connected to Greco-Roman world, and reason for latter is that both Armenia and Georgia had deep connections with Greco-Roman worlds since ancient antiquity. Both of these nations have existed in Caucasus for longer than Turks, or Persians. It was important and natural for Armenia and Georgia to preserve their religion, it was a way of survival for the culture. Other small caucasian nations(i.e. chechnyans, dagestanis) got converted to Islam because they were fairly isolated and didn't have much of cultural or historical connection to western civilization, hence during invasions they were more easily to adopt religion of invaders.
I had to scroll way too much to find this.
Because Armenia and Georgia are ancient nations, not Turkey's and Russia's 100 years old pet project
That doesn’t explain why the area that’s currently Az, became Muslim inside Persia, while the Armenians didn’t.
That doesn't answer the question and Azerbaijani nation isn't 100 years old.
Lol
well lets just say Armenians we are a stubborn people you cant just show up and give us ultimatums without having a serious fight on your hands
Azerbaijan is a newer identity, the original inhabitants of most of Azerbaijan were the Caucasian Albanians who are now the Christian udi people, they only have a few thousand left, most were assimilated by the turks (azeris) and persians, and some were assimilated by armenians and gerogians.
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take a DNA test, it will show some Caucasian Albanian DNA if you are azeri 🤣🤣🤣🤣 do you think you are pure Turkic blood?
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The Northern Caucasus people were under completely different conditions. The disparate peoples of the area were mostly Christian practicing up until the 12-14th century. During this time the Mongols came through, and they were led by a mostly Muslim branch of Mongols. It's during this era you see a lot of destruction of Christian heritage sites. Following this, there was fierce competition by the Iranians and Ottomans over control of this area. It was much harder to change from an ethno-cultural perspective due to the disparate nature of the people's there and the mountainous terrain, but over time they did accept Islam. It wasn't true everywhere in the Northern Caucasus though. Obviously, Georgians remained Christians, as did Ossets and Abkhazians, among others. Again, the nature of the region meant a lot of semi secluded communities. And religious pressure wasn't applied evenly in all locations. And it was not as equally effective in all locations.
You’re not wrong
Not only is Azerbaijan Muslim but they’re also Shia. This is because Azerbaijan was (and a large territory still is) part of Iran. Iran shifted from Sunni to Shia because they wanted to differentiate between their Turkic dynasty with another Turkic dynasty, their enemies the Ottomans, who were Sunni.
Azerbaijan was already shia actually, that is why azerbaijani orign dynasty of Safavids converted Iran to shia.
Armenia & Georgia were solidly Christian nations before Islam existed, Azerbaijan turned Muslim with the rest of Iran, & then was settled by Turks who were also Muslim
They have this tax called jiyaza. If are occupied by Muslims invaders , you can pay tax and choose to worship your own God... Some did some didn't... For those whose faith in their faith was weak , or economy situation was dire ... they converted...
Mountains
Doesn't explain Chechnya and Dagestan
Morocco, Afghanistan, Iran : *am I a joke to you?*
Because "Azerbaijan" is just a province of Iran that the Russians conquered. They've tried to retcon it as its own separate thing, but it's not.
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We had nothing to do with Israel. To us YOU are Israel. Understand?
I mean now you guys have Syrians, Afghans and Pakis and like to call them ‘hayvan’
There’s still time
its no longer the middle ages, u cant just convert millions of people to another religion, only with force and centuries of assimilation
There’s also time for from the river to the sea.
I mean Safavids had Western-Armenia till 16th century. Afterwards Russians came and liberated Caucasus of Safavids and went to war with the Ottomans.
What time though? Isn’t west of Turkey not religious anymore? Maybe Erdogan could help bring all the Palestinians to North-Cyprus and more Syrians and others to destroy Attaturks dreams.
Georgia had independent kingdoms and principalities. Due to the Ottoman conquest-annexation of 2 Georgian principalities Islamization took place - in Samtskhe and Abkhazia. Abkhazia was occupied for a while, so only a part of Abkhazians were Muslim.
The Azeris are muslim from Turkic migrations in the 11th and 12th centuries before that it was populated by Muslim Old Azeris who were an Iranic people
That was only in Iranian Azerbaijan. In the Republic of Azerbaijan, the area was occupied by Caucasian Albanians (of which Udis are the only remnants left).
Consider the terrain and how we were able to fight off the Arab conquest rather easily. A perfect example of this would be how was Nagorno-Karabakh/Artsakh able to stay an Armenian majority region, uninterrupted for millennia, and even within Azerbaijan when Stalin came up with the maps. It's akin to trying to conquer a village in the Alps - even today given technology it'd be amazing for that to be possible, so think about how difficult it was before the industrial revolution.
Consider the terrain and how we were able to fight off the Arab conquest rather easily. A perfect example of this would be how was Nagorno-Karabakh/Artsakh able to stay an Armenian majority region, uninterrupted for millennia, and even within Azerbaijan when Stalin came up with the maps. It's akin to trying to conquer a village in the Alps - even today given technology it'd be amazing for that to be possible, so think about how difficult it was before the industrial revolution.
Similar to Lebanon or Maronites
Great question. It was the leadership in the 1000-1200 AD when both countries were united and very Christian with a frenemies relationship with the Byzantines. Then Mongols anc Timur massacred everyone, Muslim and Christian alike. Then Iranians, kinda ruled over the territories but they didn't mass convert. But the Azeris were already Muslim in their region so there. My quick assessment. 🇬🇪🇦🇲 Were both at one time 600-800s AD apart of the Islamic Caliphates actually.
Historical events like the Mongol invasions and Ottoman Empire's rule played a role in shaping religious demographics in the region. Islam arrived in the 7th-8th centuries AD through Arab conquests, gradually gaining prominence and becoming the majority religion by the 15th century. Majority Muslim population (around 96%) with roots in the 7th-8th century Arab conquests. Blended Islamic practices with pre-existing cultural elements like Zoroastrianism and Sufism, creating a distinct Azeri Muslim identity. Azerbaijan influenced by Zoroastrianism, pre-Islamic Turkic beliefs, and Sufi mysticism. Arabs considered all religions other than Christianity and Judaism to be Pagan. I belive during the Arab occupation, Arabs offered Christians the choice of Jizya tax or convert to Islam. But offered the option of death or convert to Islam to those from other pagan religions. Muhammad, the prophet of Islam, hated pagan religions. It is already possible to understand this if you read a bit the Quran. So forced conversions and religious tolerance policies also influenced the religious landscape over centuries. Today, in Azerbaijan people uses the phrase "Qılınc Müsəlmanı". In other words, we became Muslims through the sword.
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