A recently published book Remembering for the Future: Armenia, Auschwitz, and Beyond, edited by Michael Berenbaum, Richard Libowitz, and Marcia Sachs Littell, is a collection of scholarly papers delivered at a conference held at the American Jewish University in Los Angeles, March 8-11, 2014.
In his paper, “The Armenian Genocide as Jihad,” Prof. Richard Rubenstein attributes the Armenian mass killings to Islamic fanaticism against Christians. This is an often misunderstood topic even by Armenians who proudly proclaim that they were the first nation to adopt Christianity as state religion in 301 A.D. There is a whole folklore based on the misconception that Armenians were martyred because of their faith and refusal to convert to Islam. Given the current anti-Islamic fervor in the United States and elsewhere, some people are misled by these false claims.
Prof. Rubenstein starts his paper on the wrong footing when he describes a gruesome scene from “Ravished Armenia,” a 1919 Hollywood silent film which showed several naked Armenian women nailed to wooden crosses. Believing that “the Turks” intended to send a particular anti-Armenian and anti-Christian message with such horrifying images, Prof. Rubenstein mistakenly claims that the movie “could not have been filmed without the involvement and consent of Turkish authorities.”
Prof. Rubenstein bases his assumptions of the religious motive behind the Armenian Genocide on the fact that “the Ottoman Empire was governed as a theocratic state at the apex of which stood the Sultan, both the supreme head of state and, for Sunni Muslims, the Caliph and, as such, the successor to the Prophet and supreme protector of Islam.”
The Professor insists on stipulating a religious causal factor for the Armenian Genocide, even after quoting from the eminent scholar Dr. Vahakn Dadrian, who contradicts him. According to Dadrian, the members of the Committee of Union and Progress or Ittihad who gained power in 1908 and masterminded the Armenian Genocide, were not “followers of the tenets of Islam…. While the Ittihad continued to run the State largely as a theocracy, its leaders were personally atheists and agnostics.” It is difficult to believe that a devout Muslim would murder a single human being, let alone millions!
Dr. Rubenstein emphasizes the central role of Islam in the Turkish mass killings of Armenians, even though he acknowledges that “[Ronald] Suny and other scholars have argued that the predominant motive for the murderous homogenization project was nationalism and there is no doubt that radical nationalism played a part.” Rubenstein dismisses the issue of Pan-Turkish nationalism, arguing that “the most important motivation for the monumental ‘ethnic cleansing’ projects was religious and specifically a consequence of the unchanging nature of certain aspects of Islam.”
To demonstrate that religion was a major determinant in the Turkish leaders’ designs, Prof. Rubenstein states: “on November 2, 1914, the Ottoman Empire declared war on the Entente powers, Britain, France, Russia, and their allies. On November 13, the Ottoman Sultan, in his capacity as Caliph, issued an appeal for jihad. The next day, Mustafa Hayri Bey, the Sheikh-ul-Islam, and as such the chief Sunni religious authority in the Ottoman world, issued a formal (and inflammatory) declaration of jihad ‘against infidels and enemies of Islam.’ Jihad pamphlets in Arabic were also distributed in mosques throughout the Muslim world that offered a detailed plan of operations for the assassination and extermination of all ‘unbelievers’ except those of German nationality, the Empire’s wartime ally. Killing squads and their leaders were ‘motivated by both the ideology of jihad and Pan-Turkism influenced by European nationalism.’ While the practical influence of the jihad on the masses was limited, ‘it later facilitated the government’s program of genocide against the Armenians.’”
Prof. Rubenstein misses the point that religious fervor, rather than being the cause of the Armenian Genocide, was exploited to inflame the passions of the fanatical Turkish mobs in order to provoke them against the Armenians.
Instead of religion, the primary motivation for the destruction of Armenians was their removal as an impediment to Turkification and an obstacle to the Turkish leaders’ grand scheme of establishing a Pan-Turanist empire reaching Central Asia. Even though they were Muslims, a large number of Kurds were also killed, simply because they were not Turks!
Christian Armenians had no conflict with devout Muslims and their faith. In fact, large numbers of survivors of the Armenian Genocide were sheltered by Muslims in, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, and Syria. Armenians remember well The Sharif of Mecca, Al-Husayn ibn Ali, who issued an edict in 1917 ordering Muslims to defend Armenian survivors of the Genocide, as they would defend their own families.
The Young Turks’s plan to eliminate Armenians from Ottoman Turkey was motivated by Pan-Turkish fanatical nationalism rather than Pan-Islamic fervor!
Harut Sassounian
I have researched and written a number of paper on the subject of the Genocide of Greeks, Assyrians and Armenians during the same period in Turkey, and I have come to the same conclusion, i.e. that it was Pan-Turanism or Nationalism that motivated the genocides. The Islamophobic perspective of Prof. Rubenstein is either politically motivated, or he has not done his homework. Either way, he is wrong!
Thanks for clearing this up.
When I read loads of comments or articles on the internet that’s leaning towards islamophobia agenda I thought they did the massacre due to their religious faith which made me feeling bad and questioning lots of things in my brain bc I am a muslim myself. Genocide in the name of what so ever is disgusted me more than anything and I truly condemn it.
Luckily I found your article that’s really helping me to sooth all of my hard feelings on this topic.
Peace up
Not only were the Young Turks atheists, but a lot of them were Donmeh or false Moslem (Moslem the day, Jewish the night). Anyway, if really they were attacking Christians, for religious reasons, they wouldn’t have allied with the Germans.
A lot of misinformation , but I did read the article. Being polite, I won’t say anymore
This is an excellent corrective article, Baron Harut. The penultimate paragraph says it all.
“It is difficult to believe that a devout Muslim would murder a single human being, let alone millions!”
Do you really believe this? What are Muslims –devout and not so devout– doing right now to hundreds of thousands of people, Sunnis killing Shiites and vice-versa, Sunnis [of Da`ash] killing Yazidis, Assyrians, Armenians, etc etc? Don’t you read newspapers? What is going on in Aleppo right now?
As for Pan-Turanism or pan-Turkism as the cause or motive for the Armenian genocide, I have heard this argument before from Prof Raymond Kevorkian in Paris at a lecture I attended where I differed with him. I said among other things that it is impossible to separate the religious element from the secular element [le fait religieux du fait laic]. Now as you yourself acknowledge, the masses were thoroughly imbued with Islamic loyalties and thinking. Without that, without the Islamic character of the Circassians who did much of the slaughter in the Deir ez-Zor area, then the Ittihad could not have carried out the massacres. Besides, many Assyrian Christians were killed too during the Armenian genocide.
Moreover, the Armenian genocide actually started in the 19th century under Sultan Abdul-Hamid II. He did not justify his slaughter on the grounds of pan-Turkism as far as I know. He was not one of the Young Turks, the Ittihad. And he was able to recruit Kurdish Muslim tribesmen into the Hamidiyeh cavalry to go after the Armenians. So what do you say in view of these facts? By the way, I never before heard of Kurds also being killed in the years 1914-1918 as part of the Armenian genocide. Do you have documentation for that? Maybe you do, but it is important to document such a claim.
Lastly, the mass slaughter of non-Muslims/Kuffar, especially rebellious non-Muslims, well fits Islamic dogma and historical practice. Consider the history of Islam in Egypt, India, etc. And Prof Rubenstein does acknowledge that pan-Turanism was also a factor but not the main one.
Mr. Schwartz, of course religion was used as a tool but not the main reason for the Anatolian Christian liquidation. The Hamidian massacres were a “lesson” to their Armenian minority community but the CUP concocted genocide plan was for basically theft of wealth and of course total inhalation so their owners and victims couldn’t return and reclaim their rightful lands. That’s what Henry Morganthau wrote who witnessed these deportation first hand saying the “deportations were merely a death sentence to a whole race”. And he talked of plunder being the reason.. This is all evidenced by the CUP immediately implementing the “abandoned property laws” deeming all Armenian property abandoned and therefore the property of the CUP controlled state. It was for theft. Period..
Last lets have a conversion of who EXACTLY the CUP really were? Isn’t that the real reason why you are on an Armenian comment section?
Hello you are ill informed about history of India. Muslims emperors in India did not persecute one particular community. If there are rulers who destroyed temples, there are those who built them. It is not wise just to write a random statement inspired from right wing Hindu historians.
Well done by Mr. Sassounian, in thoroughly debunking “Professor” Rubenstein’s foolish attempt to establish that Islamic fanaticism was the driving force behind the Armenian Genocide. If Islam played the central role in all of this, and the members of the Committee of Union and Progress were really seeking to rid the Ottoman Empire of its non-Muslim population, then what would Rubenstein’s explanation be in regard to the reason why the Ottoman Turks did not murder any of the Jewish inhabitants within the Ottoman Empire? Furthermore, it’s well-known by now that the members of the Committee of Union and Progress, who gained power in 1908, and masterminded the Armenian Genocide, happened to not be followers of Islam, although they cunningly exploited it to fire up the Turks and Kurds into going after, and slaughtering every single Armenian that could be found.
As for the main reason behind the Armenian Genocide, it revolves around the Ottoman Turk leaders’ aim of emptying out the six Western Armenian provinces of their entire Armenian population, and then seizing their lands along with all their properties and wealth. However, the question in all of this, is why did the Ottoman Turks attempt to wipe out their entire Armenian population in 1915, as opposed to hundreds of years earlier? The answer is the February, 1914 Armenian Reform agreement, which was put into motion by the European powers, among which, happened to be the Ottoman Turks’ most hated enemy, Russia. The most significant aspect of this reform agreement was the requirement that the Europeans be appointed as the general inspectors of the Ottoman Empire’s Armenian provinces in order to administer these reforms. In this particular moment of 1914, the Ottoman Empire’s Armenians were hopeful because this appeared to be a fulfillment of the promise of the Treaty of Berlin’s article 61, which launched the Armenian Question as an international issue, back in 1878. As a result, the Ottoman Turk leaders were determined, at any cost, to prevent the Armenians of Western Armenia from obtaining any kind of reforms, nor obtaining the slightest bit of autonomy. They became deeply paranoid, and developed the extremely false belief that the Armenian population constituted a threat to the already crumbling Ottoman Empire’s existence. This would be the driving force behind the Ottoman Turk leaders’ decision to commit genocide against the Armenian population, which by doing so, would also eliminate the Armenian Question.
It would not surprise me that the next claim Harut Samsonian will make will be his assertion that it was Zionism that created Israel but not the Judaism and that a devoted Jew, much like a devoted Muslim, would not kill.
The Armenian holocaust was caused by a variety of contributing factors. Firstly, the way in which the great powers played political football with Ottoman Christians and used them as leverage against the empire, secondly after Abdul Hamid II has suspended the constitution many Christians and Jews sought to exploit the great powers as a way of pressuring the regime to adopt reforms that would protect their communities. All of this was coupled with the progressive influx of Muslim refugees from the Balkans and Caucuses, who themselves were victims of genocide and mass expulsion, and hence harboured deeply apprehensive attitudes towards Christians. The spread of nationalism, as a political and philosophical concept imported from Europe, leading to the gradual development of homogenous national identities, (Armenian, Turk etc.) among a new middle class that could organise politically was one significant factor. Lastly, the tanzimat reforms had steadily supplanted the traditional Sharia court system, in which the judiciary was entirely independent of the state, creating a whole new legal system that was politically controlled by the government. While Christians had a somewhat subordinate status, the Muslim judiciary had always ensured that their privileges as protected communities were respected by the state. This monopoly over lawmaking and the courts allowed the CUP leaders to effectively promote and permit violence against Armenian Christians and ensure they had no legal consequence. A Muslim engaged in a clan feud with an Armenian could now simply kill him and take his property without any repercussions. In other words, the state exacerbated communal conflict by promoting it and allowing it to go unpunished. But by far the most confusing thing is what on earth motivated the three Pashas to initiate a genocide? Talat Pasha, the main architect of the Armenian holocaust had himself taken refuge in the home of an Armenian during the 1909 counterrevolution. Armenian nationalist parties were allies of the Young Turks and had helped the CUP and the three Pashas rise to power, they even had fought the Russians in Ottoman uniforms. Exactly why the CUP decided to kill off some of their best political allies and most loyal subjects is somewhat of a mystery, they were always fanatical Pan-Turkists but that still doesn’t seem to explain it.
So yes, nationalism, combined with a variety of geopolitical factors and the construction of a modern nation state was what led to the genocide. The sad irony being that the narrative and memory of the Armenian genocide is today used as a lynchpin in nation building myth-history as well as a racist battering ram against Europe’s own Muslim minorities and something that can be wheeled out every now and then to batter Turkey. Let us not forget that Armenian nationalists, in fact all nationalists, are no worse than the Pan-Turkists that were responsible for the the Ottoman genocide. Just take a look at how they have fashioned an Armenian nation conventiently cleansed of Muslims, depicting Armenians as a timeless and exceptional nation of pure Christians that for centuries has held out against a savage and barbaric Islamic threat, the way they have gotten in bed with Western Islamophobes and what happened in Nagorno-Karabagh.
Had the Pan-Islamic Hamidian regime never been toppled there likley never would have been an Armenian genocide, nor would it have happened if the CUP hadn’t dragged the Empire into the war, nor would it have continued without German complicity. The processes of nation building and the construction of the modern state was a horrific process that wiped out much of the cultural, religious and social diversity that characterised continental Europe and it’s this dark side of modernity that carved up the inhabitants of the Ottoman Empire. Sadly, the rest of the world seems to be heading in Europe’s direction. Being a Muslim from the Indian subcontinent witnessing the rise of Hindu nationalism tearing up communal relations, I hope to God it does not.
One of the great flaws of ‘jihad theory’ explanation of the genocide is that it fails to explain why Armenian Christians were such an affluent and well respected community with the Ottoman Empire and the broader Islamicate world. Surely, if Muslims are just savages out to get poor Christians, there wouldn’t have been a sizable Armenian and Assyrian Christian community for the CUP to wipe out. We’re forgetting that well into the 19th century Armenians had high positions in the Empire, the Balayan family of architects for example, the treasury was staffed with Armenians, one even served as Grand Vizier in 1852 and married the Sultan’s daughter. Even the Hamidian regime regarded Armenians as among the most loyal of Ottoman subjects. Hell, even Shah Ismail, who forced most of his subjects into believing he and the Safavid family were Gods incarnate or else die, did not brutalize Armenians. Mughal Emperor, and self proclaimed Caliph, Akbar even encouraged them to migrate to Agra. A bunch of Fatamid Viziers were Armenians. The Young Turks would never have come to power without the help of Armenian political organizations and most early Armenian nationalists in no way advocated ethnic separatism, especially after the 1908 revolution.
I think one problem here is that it relies on a very nationalistic and homogenous idea of who an Armenian is. We forget that many Ottoman Armenians were Muslim and some had been for centuries and they continue to thrive to this day in Turkey and Georgia despite Kemalist efforts to assimilate them. It’s important to remember that Armenian had a very different meaning in the mid 19th century then it does today. Nations after all are a product of the modern world, and so are genocides.
It’s obvious that jihad theory is islamophobic and nationalistic rhetoric, not to mention total bullshit. Why would the Ottomans extend so many protections to Armenians to the extent that Armenian traders were out gunning their Muslim competitors? Selim the Grim had flirted with the idea of forcibly converting the Empire’s Christians centuries before the genocide, so you can’t argue that some fanancial obligation prevented him from doing so.
The Jews in Germany were also an assimilated and respected community up until Hitler came into power.
Your comment about it not making sense that they would be killed for religious reasons can also be applied for ethnicity.
The Armenians being affluent was because they, along with the Greeks and Jews, were the backbone of the Ottoman economy. In the same way that Jews were the most disproportionately represented among scientists in Germany prior to WW2.
This does not mean that Muslims could not feel resentment and turn on them.
Why were Armenians forced to pay the jizya?
Call it Turks, call it Moors. It’s still the same. Islamic cultural replacement. Today it is proudly called “silent conquest” as cultural replacement and da’wah begins in Europe and US.
But yet, the Armenian communities of Islamic countries such as Syria, Iran, Iraq, and Jordan never had to pay any kind of “jizya.” Furthermore, the governments of those four Islamic countries never attempted to force Islam upon their Armenian communities. As a matter of fact, Armenians happen to be the most respected culture in both Iran and Syria.
Hey folks, I’ve come across a recent interview, featuring Ara Manoogian, in which he discusses his recently published book about the Armenian Genocide. This particular book, filled with documents, is a major breakthrough in regard to the causes behind the Armenian Genocide. Make sure to check out the interview:
[link removed by Armenian Weekly moderating team—note: we do not allow external links in comments to our page]
In this interview, Ara Manoogian talks about how the oil underneath the lands of Western Armenia (they contained 1/6th of the world’s oil around 1915) played a big role in the Armenian Genocide. He talks about how the United States and European powers who wanted that oil, were already in bed with Talaat Pasha. He talks about how America supplied Turkey with 200 thousand rifles and 400 million bullets in December of 1915. He talks about how that traitor of Henry Morgenthau (United States Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire) urged businessmen to invest in Turkey, back in early 1916. He talks about how that traitor of Henry Morgenthau attempted to arrange with the Ottoman Turks for a population swap where the Armenians would be removed from their Western Armenian lands and relocated to Germany in exchange for the Jews replacing them in Western Armenia. He talks about how Germany was the backbone of the Armenian Genocide, and was involved in the killings of Armenians in Cilicia.
The bottom line is that the ultimate cause behind the Armenian Genocide was to never allow the Armenian population of Western Armenia to have the slightest bit of autonomy, and therefore, to completely empty out the six Western Armenian provinces of their entire Armenian population.
The ultimate cause of the genocide was Pan – Turanism and to a lesser extent, Islamic extremism.
I don’t know why you make up the idea that the Western powers were behind it, that is a lie and you know it.
If the western powers did not want an independent Armenia, then why would they want a strong Muslim Turkey that would threaten Europe like it did during the Ottoman era?
I don’t know where you come up with this nonsense, but please don’t twist history because you are afraid of offending Turks. Their feelings are second to the recognition of Armenian suffering.
Although the conclusion that Pan-Turanism was responsible for the Armenian Genocide and not Islamism is true, it does not absolve Islamic extremists of blame either. In Turkey today, you will find that many Turks combine both religion and ethnicity into their identity, so dismissing the religious fanaticism is wrong.
K,
Well, by ignoring the fact that at least one of the causes of the Armenian Genocide was to never allow the Armenian population of Western Armenia to have the slightest bit of autonomy, and therefore, to completely empty out the six Western Armenian provinces of their entire Armenian population, totally shows that you are indeed afraid of offending the Turkish nation.
Islamic extremism, whether to a large extent or small extent, could not possibly have been a reason behind the Armenian Genocide for two reasons: first of all, no genocide was ever committed against the former Ottoman Empire’s Jewish population. And second of all, the members of the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), along with their leader, Talaat Pasha, were never followers of the Islamic religion; they didn’t belong to any particular religion.
In terms of your “Western Powers”, it is you who is making up a lie by saying that I had made up a lie about the “Western Powers” being behind the Armenian Genocide. In my comment from May 23, 2018, where exactly do I say that “the Western Powers were behind the Armenian Genocide”? Contrary to your invented lie, I was pointing out what Ara Manoogian had discussed in that particular interview, regarding his book. Even though I haven’t gotten his book yet, I can honestly say that Ara Manoogian doesn’t make up lies in what he writes; on the contrary, he does diligent, meticulous research on each of the topics that he writes about.
And yes, the “Western Powers” certainly wanted a strong Turkey. This explains the reason why they completely turned their backs on Armenia after the conclusion of World War One; and instead, they helped the Turks create a new country, by the name of “Turkey”.
Of courese Islamic extremism played a role alongside political role.And this Islamic fanaticism played not only a little role but also a major role like the politcal role.
not for armenian genocide but for others genocide by turks.
the problem is here.When you talk to muslim about their wrong deed which was motivated by religious fanaticism,they will give you several logics to shut you down,and then they will identify you as an islamofobic.
and we have got a muslim woman expressing this type of mentality avobe.