26 Oct, 2007
How the Turkish Jihadis overran the homeland of the Armenians and occupied it (present day Eastern Turkey) and massacred the Armenian Christians in Cold Blood right up to the 20th century!
The Muslim (Ottoman) Tyranny against the Armenians
Like the Jewish people, the Armenians were another community that has suffered genocide in horrendous proportions. While The Jews suffered at the hands of the Nazis, the Armenians suffered at the hands of the Ottomans.
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Among the various genocides carried out by the Muslims, that against the Armenian Christians is the most unreported and neglected. The Turks slaughtered millions of Armenians in Cold Blood in the ten centuries that they tyrannized Armenia from the year 1071 till 1920.
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While the Ottoman Empire was in existence from 1300 (up to 1923), the Armenians had come under the Turkish yoke three centuries before that in 1071. In that year the Seljuk Turks had defeated the Byzantines at the battle of Manzikert and overrun the Armenian provinces of the Byzantine Empire. All through this period it in spurts the Turks carried out the Armenian Genocide.
Armenia was ruled by Muslim Turks headed by the sultanate of the Osmanli/Ottoman dynasty. Following the prescriptions of the Quran, the Ottoman state, variously called Turkey or the Turkish Empire, was governed according to Islamic law which relegated non-Muslims to second class status as Dhimmis (or Zimmis) by denying them basic civil rights and requiring them to pay penal taxes. This discriminatory system was institutionalized through the so-called millat (community) system which deprived them from all forms of political participation and basic human rights.
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The Tower of skulls - An artist's impression of the signature image of the Armenian Genocide at Turkish hands.
As part of their Jihad against the Christians, the Ottomans encouraged the unlawful transfer of property, the dispossession of the rural Armenian population and compelled their emigration from their homeland. In this the Turks (as do other Muslims) took inspiration and justification from the Quran.
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The major portion of the Armenian population of the Middle East came under Ottoman rule after the conquest of Cilicia by the Seljuk Turks in 1071 that was a consequence of the Battle of Manzikert. This battle was followed by the occupation of the rest of Armenia by the successors to the Seljuk Turks ? the Ottoman Turks. This process of occupation went on up to the thirteenth century.
As part of their Jihad against the Christians, the Ottomans encouraged the unlawful transfer of property, the dispossession of the rural Armenian population and compelled their emigration from their homeland. In this the Turks (as do other Muslims) took inspiration and justification from the Quran and what Muslim theologians had to say on the methods of tyrannizing non-Muslims (Dhimmis) under Muslim tyranny.
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Under repeated massacres and unrelenting Ottoman tyranny, many Armenians were compelled to embrace Islam at the pain of death, hence the former southern provinces of Armenia that include Van, Bitlis, Erzerum, Kharpert, Sivas, Trebizond, Konya, Kayseri, Adana, Izmir, Bursa, Edirne became Muslim majority provinces, that were eventually absorbed by Turkey.
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Muslim theologians on tyrannizing Dhimmis (non-Muslim subjects) under Muslim occupation
Al-Ghazali (d. 1111), the famous theologian, philosopher, and paragon of mystical Sufism wrote the following about jihad: "one must go on jihad (i.e., warlike razzias or raids) at least once a year...one may use a catapult against them [non-Muslims] when they are in a fortress, even if among them are women and children. One may set fire to them and/or drown them...If a person of the Ahl al-Kitab [People of The Book ? Jews and Christians, typically] is enslaved, his marriage is [automatically] revoked? and his wife becomes the rightful property of a Muslim. One may cut down their trees...One must destroy their useless books. Jihadis may take as booty whatever they decide... the Jihadis may steal as much food as they need..."
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Frustrated in their designs by the European powers, the Turks tried to regain through wanton cruelty what they had lost on the battlefield and the negotiating table. The Armenians were easy meat for the Turks and they began a genocide of the civilian Armenian population.
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Under repeated massacres and unrelenting tyranny many Armenians were compelled to embrace Islam at the pain of death, hence the former southern provinces of Armenia like Van, Bitlis, Erzerum, Kharpert, Sivas, Trebizond, Konya, Kayseri, Adana, Izmir, Bursa, Edirne became Muslim majority provinces, that were eventually absorbed by Turkey.
European attempts to provide relief leads from Tyranny to Genocide
After successive defeats of the Ottomans by the Russians in the Russo-Turkish wars, succor came to the Armenians through the European Christian powers. Misrule in Armenia prompted the European Powers to obligate Ottoman Sultan Abdul-Hamid (Abdul Hamit) II to reform provincial administration according to the terms of the 1878 Treaty of Berlin. This was supposed to bring eight centuries of Muslim tyranny, to an end. But the reverse happened.
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These photos starkly capture on celluloid the crimes against humanity committed by the Muslim Turks (and all other Muslims against the non-Muslims). In 19th century Turkey there were two forces that opposed one another ? the Ottoman Sultan and the Young Turks. But they had one thing in common ? both the Young Turks and the Ottoman Sultan had an equal measure of hatred towards the Armenians. Like the Sultans, the Young Turks also massacred the Armenians with equal brutality, and with no less cruelty and savagery as did the Sultans.
Photo Courtesy : Armeniapedia
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Frustrated in their designs by the European powers, the Turks tried to regain through wanton cruelty what they had lost on the battlefield and the negotiating table. As the Armenians were easy meat for the Turks they began a genocide of the civilian Armenian population.
The ensuing repression prompted Armenian revolutionary activity as the Ottomans reneged on their treaty obligations and resisted international pressure to introduce meaningful reform.
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To firmly secure and perpetuate Turkish rule in the remaining territories of the Ottoman state, the Ottoman Sultan Abdul-Hamid initiated a pogrom of ethnic cleansing through the mass slaughter of vast numbers of Armenians beginning in 1894.
These photos appear raw and disturbing. But imagine how disturbing would have been the actual atrocities that these photos mutely depict. These photos caution us the about oppression that can repeat itself if the Muslims get the upper hand ever again.
Photo Courtesy : Armeniapedia
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Hamidian autocracy also fostered the clandestine Young Turk movement dedicated to the cause of overthrowing the despotic sultan. But nevertheless even the Young Turks though opponents of the Ottoman Sultan, had an equal measure of hatred towards the Armenian. Like the Sultans, the Young Turks massacred the Armenians with equal brutality, and with no less cruelty and savagery as did the Sultans.
Ethnic Cleansing of Armenians by the Ottomans
The decline of Ottoman Turkish power and the steady territorial losses in the face of Balkan revolts and Russian military advances isolated the Armenian Christians in a precarious situation. To firmly secure and perpetuate Turkish rule in the remaining territories of the Ottoman state, the Ottoman Sultan Abdul-Hamid initiated a program of ethnic cleansing through the mass slaughter of vast numbers of Armenians beginning in 1894.
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Turkish officers pose with beheaded Armenians. These photos are heart-wrenching and the webmasters of this site were in a dilemma whether to include them. But we decided to do so to educate our generation about the raw savagery of the Muslims. The Muslim mentality is not a thing of the past. They still behead their victims, as they did to Daniel Pearl. Muslims today are as savage as they were all through the 1400 years of their existence. So we need to realize the mentality of the enemy we are facing in the War on Terror and fight the Muslims to their extinction if we are not to face such atrocities in the future.
Photo Courtesy : Armeniapedia
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In spite of international condemnation, and despite changes in government, these obnoxious policies started by Sultan Abdul-Hamid were applied with regularity over the course of the next thirty years. In a series of genocidal massacres repeated in 1895-1896, 1909, 1915-1918, and 1920-1922, the Armenian population of Turkey was mercilessly annihilated.
These massacres of the Armenians, also called Hamidian massacres of 1894-1896 affected all of historic Armenia and Constantinople. The 1909 or Adana massacre devastated Cilicia. The combined deportations and massacres during World War I acquired the dimensions of a total genocide and was implemented by the Young Turks who had removed Abdul-Hamid from the throne in 1909. So irrespective of who the rulers of the Ottomans was, the genocide of the non-Muslim Armenians continued relentlessly.
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These images are too graphic, and although grainy, they vividly capture the extent of Muslim brutality towards their non-Muslim subjects. The Armenians were the worst sufferers in recent times. And in the case of Armenia, photography was around to capture for posterity the crimes committed by the Muslims against humanity. The atrocities against the earlier victims of the Jihad were as brutal and blood-chilling, but we do not have them on celluloid, only the memory of the sufferings have been passed down to us through the descendants of those victims who survived this inhumane Muslim brutality.
Photo Courtesy : Armeniapedia
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The atrocities between 1920-1922 were committed by the Nationalist Turks who seized power in the Anatolian hinterland in the final years of the Ottoman Empire and created the Turkish Republic.
Turkey's defeat in WW1 led to the exposure of the atrocities on Armenians
Most of these massacres were carried out with impunity and the majority of these Turkish criminal offenders escaped prosecution. Only in the aftermath of Turkey's defeat in World War I, through a series of military tribunals and parliamentarian investigations convened between 1919 and 1921 in Constantinople, the covert planning, secret organization, and brutal implementation of policies designed to destroy the Armenian population of the Ottoman Empire were uncovered.
The evidence was presented in court-martials and guilty verdicts were handed down by the thousands, confirming the mass scale state-sponsored policy of extermination of the Armenians.
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The net effect of the Ottoman era is summed up in the violent transformation of historic Armenia into Turkey. Thus what was once the homeland of Armenians from antiquity ruled by Armenian kings and chieftains from the sixth century B.C.E. till 1071, was finally purged of almost the entire Armenian population and was merged into Turkey. What is today Armenia is only one fourth of the north eastern part of historic Armenia. Till today, Armenians consider the Eastern provinces of today's Turkey to be Armenian's lost provinces. Provinces that have to be someday re-claimed by Armenians and reintegrated into Armenia..
Photo Courtesy : Armeniapedia
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The post-war Turkish government, however, balked at carrying out the sentences and the tribunals were closed under pressure from the Turkish Nationalists. Ironically, in spite of the secularization under Mustapha Kemal Pasha, the Turkish policy as regards the Armenians remained unchanged as it was under the Ottoman Turks.
In 1915 Armenians lived in all the major cities of the Ottoman Empire, Van, Bitlis, Erzerum, Kharpert, Sivas, Trebizond, Konya, Kayseri, Adana, Izmir, Bursa, Edirne, and many others. But after systematic genocides, by 1923 the Armenian population of Turkey had been reduced only to those living in Constantinople. Armenians had participated in all aspects of Ottoman life and had made major contributions to Turkish commerce, industry, architecture, and even music. Yet, in the final analysis, the centuries of Turkish rule resulted in the utter ruin of historic Armenia, the expulsion of the Armenians from Asiatic Turkey and the permanent exile of surviving Armenians only in mountainous regions of the Kavkaz (Caucasus).
The net effect of the Ottoman era is summed up in the violent transformation of historic Armenia into Turkey. Thus what was once the homeland of Armenians from antiquity ruled by Armenian kings and chieftains from the sixth century B.C.E. till 1071, was finally purged of almost the entire Armenian population and was merged into Turkey. What is today Armenia is only one fourth of the north eastern part of historic Armenia.
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1915-1916, skulls, in various stages of decomposition, of Armenian deportees, some of whom may have been burned to death. Location: Ottoman empire, region Syria.
We are sorry to have to reproduce these gruesome images. We need to remind our shocked viewers, that these images only depict the shocking tale of Muslim Turkish brutality against the Armenian Christians. A brutality which all non-Muslims have suffered ? be they Christian, Buddhist, Jewish, Zoroastrian, Hindu, Copt, Maronite, Bahai, Druze or any other.
Photo Courtesy : Armenian-genocide
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Till today, Armenians rightfully consider the Eastern provinces of today's Turkey to be Armenian's lost provinces. Provinces that have to be someday re-claimed by Armenians and reintegrated into Armenia.
The Armenian experience under the Muslim Turks is one of the savagely bloodiest chapters in the bloodied history of Islam
Armenian suffering is as yet unrecorded in a large way and as yet unknown and unreported in the global media. But it survives in the hearts of many Armenians, who bide their time for justice which they will hopefully get after the War against Terror launched after 9/11, works its way through in the next two decades.
Abducted Armenian women play the role of concubines of the Turkish Pasha's Harem
In the course of the ten centuries of Turkish tyranny, the Armenians like all non-Muslims under Muslim tyranny had to suffer from repeated waves of abductions of their womenfolk, the most beautiful among them who were made into concubines of the Turkish sultan and Turkish Beys and their camp followers. It is for this reason that the best of Armenia's beautiful women were forced to co-habit with the Turks till their descendants completely forgot, who they originally were.
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1915-1916, murdered Armenian male adult lying in a ditch as children watch the corpse. Location: Ottoman empire, region Syria.
Photo Courtesy : Armenian-genocide
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The only legacy the Armenian converts to Islam preserved were the aquiline Caucasoid features of the Armenians that are today common among many Turkish womenfolk (and menfolk who descend from these abducted Armenian women). This is one feature which is common to the womenfolk of all lands overrun by the Muslim Jihadis. And this explains one following important fact overlooked by historians.
Why are many Muslim ladies of higher class extraordinarily beautiful?
A frivolous question, some would say. But if one looks at history, then we could see that with every Muslim invasion, the most beautiful ladies (and the most handsome boys) were taken as captives to be kept in harems. It is the genetic descendants of these captives who over the centuries have led to the phenomenon of many of the Muslim ladies of the higher class being beautiful.
Why do the upper crust of Muslims behave like thorough gentlemen with thoroughbred finesse?
Again another frivolous question, some would say. But the fact is that many of the Muslims are very rude and quarrelsome. This is the general image of the Muslims among the non-Muslims . So to live down this image, the upper crust of the Muslims who interact with non-Muslims, deliberately cultivate a genial image of themselves. This is similar to the psyche of the celluloid villains and bad guys, who create and off-screen image as thorough gentlemen.
How do many Muslim musicians create soulful music
Music is banned in Muslim societies. Hence this talent and urge is bottled up. And whenever this urge gets a small chink to express itself, it forces itself with a spurt. A Muslim musician whenever he gets a chance to express his latent talent, does the best and brings out his/her suppressed urge in the most articulate and poignant manner.
So the Muslim Qaqwaals and Shayars (singers, bards and poets) are at their best whenever they get a chance to express their sonorous urges. In those Muslim societies where music is banned, as in Saudi Arabia, this talent never sees the light of the day. But in countries like Egypt, Syria, Tunisia where the ban on music is not strictly enforced, we have the best Muslim singers and belly dancers.
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Armenians hanged in the street in Constantinople before the deportation of the Armenians to the desert had begun. Frightened Armenian prisoners are looking on awaiting their turn, while the Ottoman Turkish soldiers look on as if it were a performance.
Photo Courtesy : Armenian-genocide
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Why did we not try to divide the Moderate Communists from the Extremist Communists to win the Cold War?
Till recently Armenia was under the Soviet Communist dictatorship of the USSR. When we were engaged in an eyeball to eyeball confrontation before the USSR blinked and fell apart, we had a clear cut view that the enemy of the free world was the Evil Empire of Communism.
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Some Turks are embarrassed today and say that the Armenians are lying about the Armenian genocide. Fine let us give the Turks their point. The Armenians are liars. But then why are disparate people like the Egyptian Copts, Russians, Hindus, Berbers, Nubians, Zoroastrians, Croats, Buddhists (remember Bamiyan), Serbs, Indonesian Christians, Austrians, Nigerian Christians, Southern Sudanese (along with the people of Darfur) and many others also saying what the Armenians are saying? Are all these communities liars, while the Muslims are a paragon of honesty and virtue! Looking at the headlines of our daily newspapers and the footage on CNN, Foxnews, ABC, NBC, BBC and even Al Jazeera, does not make us think that the Armenians are lying about their genocide at the hands of the Ottoman Turks.
History will deliver its verdict soon for the crimes that the Muslims have committed against humanity for 14 centuries. Our wait has been long, but it will soon be over.
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In those days of the Cold War, we never tried to whitewash communism nor did we try to split the ranks of the communists (or delude ourselves) by saying there were moderate communists and extremist communists. We looked upon any one professing to be a communist, to be an enemy. The fact that we had a clear view of who the enemy was, had contempt for his outlook, and a fierce determination to destroy communism, is why we succeeded in defeating communism and making it a thing of the past. The same clarity is lacking when we look upon the enemy of today - the Muslims. It is futile for us to distinguish between the moderates and extremists among the Muslims. All of them follow the Quran ? which calls for death or forcible conversion of the non-Muslims (Kafirs). So where is a rationale in considering some Muslims to be moderates.
Moderate Muslims and Extremist Muslims
Some Muslims may appear to be moderate by the language they use, and their etiquette, but that is deception on their part. In fact such Muslims are more dangerous than those who openly declare their murderous intentions towards us. So we need to give up our delusion that there could be a moderate Muslim. We have to have a clear view that a Muslim is an enemy. He can become a friend only if he renounces Islam. If not, he remains a mortal enemy, and so is a legitimate target of destruction.
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Other contributors to this site include professors and members of the faculty from the Universities of Stanford and Michigan (Ann Arbor), Kansas State University, Ohio State University, and the London School of Economics. We strongly suggest that this site be recommended as additional reading for students of Islamic History.
History of Jihad is against all forms of fanaticism – religious and non-religious. But the emotional appeal of non-religious fanaticism like Nazism, Fascism or Communism is not as pervasive as that of the religious fanaticism. When fanaticism and religion are mixed, we have a very potent and dangerous brew that can sustain itself for centuries unlike non-religious fanaticisms like Nazism and Communism which die out when the ringleaders are defeated.
While all forms of religious fanaticism are negative, Islam is the most vicious and the most pressing danger we face today. This site is dedication to expose the danger of Islam. We support other people taking similar efforts against other religion posing smaller threats.
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