Encyclopedia of Islam

Further reading: Mohammed Arkoun, Rethinking Islam: 

Common Questions, Uncommon Answers, trans. and ed. 

Robert D. Lee (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1989); 

Mohammed Arkoun, The Unthought in Contemporary 

Islamic Thought (London: Saqi Books, 2002); Robert D. 

Lee, Overcoming Tradition and Modernity: The Search for 

Islamic Authenticity (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 

1997).

Armenians

Armenians are an ethnic-religious group of people 

whose origins date back at least to the middle 

of the second millennium 

b

.

c

.

e

. Some scholars 

believe that Armenians, whose language is Indo-

European, are descendants of populations that 

migrated from southeastern Europe to eastern 

Anatolia, or the Armenian plateau, as it is some-

times called. This region, located between the 

Mediterranean, Black, and Caspian Seas, was a 

battleground in which powerful ancient empires, 

including Medes, Assyria, Persia, Hellenistic 

Greece, Parthia, and Rome fought to expand their 

K  62  

Armenians

---

territories. An inscription on a rock attributed 

to Persia’s King Darius refers to Armina, show-

ing that Armenia was known to its neighbors as 

early as the sixth century 

b

.

c

.

e

. Native dynasties 

ruled Armenia for five centuries until the area was 

conquered by the Romans. In the fourth century 

c

.

e

., Christianity, to which many Armenians had 

already voluntarily converted, became the state 

religion of the Roman Empire and as such was 

imposed on all Armenians.

From the seventh to the 11th centuries, a

rab

,

Mongol, and Turkic peoples conquered the ter-

ritories inhabited by Armenians, a transformation 

that made many Armenians the subjects of Mus-

lim rulers. However, Christianity, together with 

the unique Armenian language, helped Armenians 

resist assimilating to the cultures of those who 

ruled them over them. With the fall of Constan-

tinople to the Ottomans in the 15th century, all 

Armenians in western Asia (the Middle East) 

became subjects of Muslim rulers, either Ottoman 

or Persian. In the early 19th century, Russia suc-

cessfully conquered much of the South Caucasus, 

including Georgia, eastern Armenia, and northern 

Azerbaijan. Many Armenians left i

ran

 and Ana-

tolia and moved to Russian controlled territories, 

believing that their status and living conditions 

would improve in the Orthodox Christian Russian 

Empire. Some Armenians living in the Ottoman 

Empire during the t

anzimat

 reforms also hoped 

that their status would improve.

However, many Armenian intellectuals believed 

that Armenians’ security and status would improve 

only with autonomy and that they would have to 

fight to obtain it. The revolutions that occurred 

in the early 20th century in Russia, Persia, and 

the Ottoman Empire inspired many Armenians 

to join in armed struggle against their imperial 

leaders. Armenian solidarity strengthened after 

the Young Turks orchestrated the extermination of 

the Armenian population in 1915. Their system-

atic campaign to expel Armenians through forced 

migration caused the deaths of an estimated 1 

million to 1.5 million Armenians. Many survivors 

emigrated, increasing the numbers of Armenians 

living in the diaspora. A number of countries they 

migrated to are in the Arab Middle East: s

yria

, 

l

ebanon

,  p

alestine

, and e

gypt

. In the chaotic 

conditions created by World War I and the Bolshe-

vik revolution in Russia, Armenians established 

an independent republic in eastern Armenia, one 

that survived only briefly until the Bolsheviks 

extended their control in the South Caucasus. For 

70 years, Armenia was a socialist republic within 

the framework of the Soviet Union under the lead-

ership of the Communist Party in the Kremlin.

In the late 1980s, Gorbachev’s glasnost inspired 

many Armenians to push for change, and Armenia 

declared independence from the Soviet Union in 

1990. In 1991, a political dispute between Arme-

nia and Azerbaijan over the region of Nagorno-

Karabagh escalated into a military conflict. This 

war lasted until 1994, when a cease-fire was in 

place, leaving Armenians in control of Karabagh. 

Armenians have successfully established the inde-

pendent Republic of Armenia. However, like other 

republics of the former Soviet Union, Armenia 

suffers from economic stagnation, corruption, and 

inadequate development of democratic institu-

tions.

See also  c

hristianity

 

and

  i

slam

;  o

ttoman

dynasty

.

Leslie Sargent