Last Friday, April 24, we remembered how exactly 100 years ago the last historic Muslim caliphate, the Ottoman Empire, tried to cleanse its empire of Christian minorities — Armenians, Assyrians, and Greeks — even as we stand by watching as the new caliphate, the Islamic State, resumes the genocide.
And in both cases, the atrocities were and are being committed in the name of Islam.
In November, 1914, during WWI, the Ottoman caliphate issued a fatwa, or Islamic decree, proclaiming it a “sacred duty” for all Muslims to “massacre” infidels — specifically naming the “Christian men” of the Triple Entente, “the enemies of Islam” — with promises of great rewards in the afterlife.
The same Koran verses that the Islamic State and other jihadi outfits regularly quote permeated the Ottoman fatwa, including: “Slay the idolaters wherever you find them — seize them, besiege them, and be ready to ambush them” (9:5) and “O you who have believed! do not take the Jews and the Christians for friends; they are but friends of each other; and whoever among you takes them for a friend, then surely he is one of them” (5:51) — and several other verses that form the Islamic doctrine of Loyalty and Enmity.
Many Muslims still invoke this doctrine; it commands Muslims to befriend and aid fellow Muslims, while having enmity for all non-Muslims (one Islamic cleric even teaches that Muslim husbands must hate their non-Muslim wives, while enjoying them sexually).
As happens to this very day, the Muslims of the Ottoman caliphate, not able to reach or defeat the stronger infidel — the “Christian men” of Britain, France, and Russia — satiated their bloodlust on their Christian subjects. And they justified the genocide by projecting the Islamic doctrine of Loyalty and Enmity onto Christians — saying that, because Armenians, Assyrians, and Greeks were Christian, they were naturally aiding the other “Christian men” of the West.
As happens to this day under the new caliphate — the Islamic State — the Ottoman caliphate crucified, beheaded, tortured, mutilated, raped, enslaved, and otherwise massacred countless “infidel” Christians. The official number of Armenians killed in the genocide is 1.5 million; hundreds of thousands of Greeks and Assyrians each were also systematically slaughtered (see this document for statistics).
(Although people often speak of the “Armenian Genocide,” often forgotten is that Assyrians and Greeks were also targeted for cleansing by the Ottoman caliphate. The only thing that distinguished Armenian, Assyrian, and Greek subjects of the caliphate from Turkish subjects was that the three former were Christian. As one Armenian studies professor asks, “If it [the Armenian Genocide] was a feud between Turks and Armenians, what explains the genocide carried out by Turkey against the Christian Assyrians at the same time?”)
Henry Morgenthau, the U.S. ambassador to the Ottoman Empire and personal witness of the atrocities, attested that “I am confident that the whole history of the human race contains no such horrible episode as this.” He added that what the Turks were doing was “a carefully planned scheme to thoroughly extinguish the Armenian race.” In 1918, Morgenthau wrote in Red Cross Magazine:
Will the outrageous terrorizing, the cruel torturing, the driving of women into the harems, the debauchery of innocent girls, the sale of many of them at eighty cents each [today the Islamic State sells enslaved Christians and Yazidis for as little as $43], the murdering of hundreds of thousands and the deportation to, and starvation in, the deserts of other hundreds of thousands, the destruction of hundreds of villages and cities, will the willful execution of this whole devilish scheme to annihilate the Armenian, Greek and Syrian [or Assyrian] Christians of Turkey – will all this go unpunished?
Because this genocide of Christians is usually articulated through a singularly secular paradigm — one that recognizes only those factors deemed intelligible from a modern Western point of view, one that never uses the words “Christian” and “Muslim” but rather “Armenian” and “Turk” — few are able to connect these events from a century ago to today… Keep reading
somehistory says
Were there *experts* at that time of the muslims slaughtering Christians in the turkish caliphate saying it “has nothing to do with islam”?
Or was it accepted fact that the unholy book said to do so and muslims were following orders from their fake prophet?
If it was accepted fact that muslims were following their book in the slaughter, then perhaps that is one reason muslims don’t want to acknowledge that it happened as it happened, but wish to rewrite history.
The devil, satan, and his beast are fulfilling prophecy written about what they would do. But other prophecies were written of them being sent to the lake of fire. These too will be fulfilled soon.
Islamophobic says
This genocide should be re-named to make it more desctive of what happened. I would like to see it referred to as The Turkish-Muslim genocide of Christian Armenians.
Laura says
“desctive?”
Emilia Dimitrova says
You`ve forgotten Bulgarians. In 1913, more than 150,000 Bulgarians were slaughtered by Turks in the White Sea Tracia.
Jack Diamond says
Raymond reminds us there is nothing new under the black Islamic sun.
The Armenian genocide, it is worth mentioning, may have become forgotten in the official amnesia that took hold in the post-war alliance with Ataturk (with Turkish threats and hysteria at any hint of remembrance) but at the time it was THE international human rights cause in America.
No, not that it was understood as a continuation of centuries of Muslim persecution of Christian minorities or part of the history of jihad and dhimmitude, those were not in the headlines of that day (nor are they much in the headlines of today). The NY Times called the Armenian slaughters ‘race extermination’ But those slaughters were front and center in America beginning with Hamid II’s massacres in the 1890s. Americans were shocked and appalled. John D. Rockefeller helped head a National Armenian Relief Committee. The U.S. Congress condemned the Sultan with its first international human rights resolution. By 1915 the Times was all over the genocide calling it a systematic, deliberate, authorized extermination. Ex-President Teddy Roosevelt eviscerated Wilson for not going to war with the Turks over it.
Jerry says
In a world that professes to believe in an almighty God, caring and compassionate and free of human vices and vanities, though rarely acts upon such belief, it occurs to me that some of the most righteous people on earth are those decent and ethical atheists who prefer to do right and good out of the goodness of their hearts rather than through the fear of human or God’s retribution.
somehistory says
Atheists don’t understand the heart of a Christian who believes in an Almighty Creator God. Not out of *fear of retribution* but our of a desire to please a Loving Heavenly Father. Just as a small child might wish to be like his father whom he loves…doing everything he sees his father doing, just like he sees his father doing it and his reward is how he feels in his heart. And then, he gets a big smile and maybe even a “well done” from his father and the whole world lights up for the child.
This is what it feels like for someone who truly believes in a Loving God. Christians, too, do what is right out of the *goodness* felt in the heart, but knowing that it is pleasing to our Father in Heaven makes it even more worthwhile.
It is not fear of God, but a love for Him and His Son.
Kepha says
Here’s an interesting link:
http://www.christianitytoday.com/gleanings/2015/april/turkish-christians-reconcile-armenian-genocide-anniversary.html