page_title: Islam in Armenia
section_title: Under Iranian Empires
hierarchical_section_title: Islam in Armenia / History / Under Iranian Empires
caption_attribution_description: Mosquée bleue d'Erevan This is a photo of a monument in Armenia identified by the ID 1.6/150
context_page_description: Islam began to make inroads into the Armenian Plateau during the seventh century. Arab, and later Kurdish, tribes began to settle in Armenia following the first Arab invasions and played a considerable role in the political and social history of Armenia. With the Seljuk invasions of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, the Turkic element eventually superseded that of the Arab and Kurdish. With the establishment of the Iranian Safavid Dynasty, Afsharid Dynasty, Zand Dynasty and Qajar Dynasty, Armenia became an integral part of the Shia world, while still maintaining a relatively independent Christian identity. The pressures brought upon the imposition of foreign rule by a succession of Muslim states forced many lead Armenians in Anatolia and what is today Armenia to convert to Islam and assimilate into the Muslim community. Many Armenians were also forced to convert to Islam, on the penalty of death, during the years of the Armenian Genocide.
context_section_description: The Iranian Safavids (who had changed from being Sunni to Shia Muslims by then), established definite control over Armenia and far beyond since the time of Shah Ismail I in the early 16th century. Even though they often competed with the Ottomans over the territory, what is today Armenia always stayed an integral part of Persian territory, during the following centuries until they had to cede it to Russia following the Russo-Persian War (1826-1828). Many Armenians joined the Safavid functions, in the civil administration and the military (the so-called ghulams) since the time of Shah Abbas the Great. Especially amongst these elite soldier units, the ghulams (literally meaning slaves), many of them were converted Armenians, alongside the masses of Circassians and Georgians. Before joining these functions, whether in the civil administration or military, they always had to convert to Islam, like in the Ottoman Empire, but the ones who stayed Christian (but couldn't get to the highest functions) did not have to pay extra taxes unlike the Ottoman Empire.
  As a part of Abbas his scorched earth policy during his wars against the Ottomans, and also to boost his empire's economy, he alone deported some 300,000 Armenians from the Armenian highland including the territory of modern-day Armenia, to the heartland of Iran. To fill in the gap created in these regions, he settled masses of Muslim Turcomans and Kurds in the regions to defend the borders against the Ottoman Turks, making the area of Armenia a Muslim dominated one. His successors continued to do more of these deportations and replacements with Turcomans and Kurds.
  The Safavid suzerains also created the Erivan Khanate over the region, making it similar to a system as was made during the Achaemenid times were satraps would rule the area in place of the king letting the entire Armenian highland stay Muslim ruled, until the early 19th century.
  By the time the Iranians had to cede their centuries long suzerainty over Armenia, the majority of the population in what is now Armenia were Muslims. (Persians, Azerbaijani's, Kurds and North Caucasians)
  Due to the early Shi'ite zeal of the Safavids to convert all populations of Iran to Shia Islam, Many Armenians were heavily pressured to convert throughout Eastern Armenia. The Catholic diocese of Nakhichevan reported that in the mid 1600s 130 Armenian families of the villages of Saltaq, Kirne had converted to Islam to avoid losing their belongings. The diocese pleaded with the Pope and the king of Spain to intercede with the Shah of Iran to lessen the persecution of Armenians. in the 1700s Catholic missionaries warned that if the forced conversions didn't stop, the entire Christian Armenian population would disappear from conversions and turkification, writing that there were only a handful Armenians left in the village of guznut in Ordubad province, these accounts indicate that large numbers of eastern Armenians became Muslim not just in Nakhchivan but in all provinces following the demographic disaster of the deportations of Shah Abbas and large settlement of Muslims in Armenia.
  There were Islamized Armenian villages in what is today Azerbaijan in Shamakhi, Sheki, Vartashen(oguz) and in Gardman which converted during the Safavid period. Nowadays those villages are assimilated into Azeri culture and have lost Armenian cultural identity. The Islamized villages of Sheki were Kish, Zayzit, Parkes, Kungut (Bash and Ghshlagh), Turk-Orban.
caption: The Blue Mosque, Yerevan.
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