Historical Background

Seljuk Years

The first interaction of the Haik with Turks occurred in the 10th c. AD, during the rule of the Abbasid Caliphate, as Turkish commanders and their families in the service of the Abbasids came in contact with them. The Seljuk commander Cagri Bey, father of AlpArslan organized a reconnaissance party into Eastern Anatolia during 1015-20. At that time, the Haik were under Byzantine rule. The latter being Orthodox and the former Gregorian, things weren’t smooth between the Empire and their subjects on the Armenian Plateau. Basileios II had annexed the Armenian Plateau and 40,000 Haik had been deported to Anatolia in 1022. The next Byzantine emperor, Constantine II had killed the Haik rulers in 1046 and appointed Vahram the Armenian Governor of Marash. In 1054, the Seljuk ruler Tugrul Bey gave autonomy to the Haik. Vahram shortly brought under his jurisdiction many cities such as Tarsus, Elbistan and Adiyaman. He also conquered Edessa (Urfa) in 1077, and Antioch in 1078. He then established a Kingdom in Cilicia, apparently as vassal to Byzantium. But all this expansion did not go well with the Byzantines and soured the relationships.

For all practical purposes, the Haik, therefore, welcomed the Turkish victory, in 1071 by Alparslan, in Malazkiert, over the Byzantine Emperor Romanus IV Diogenes (1068-1071). Vahran even converted to Islam and pledged allegiance to MelikShah, son of AlpArslan. Upon Vahran’s death, the principality in Cilicia came under Seljuk rule. Contemporary Haik historians such as Matias of Edessa and Ashogik praised the tolerance and benevolence of the Seljuk rulers aplenty. After the death of the Seljuk Sultan Kilich Arslan, Mathias of Edessa wrote:

"Kilich Arslan's death has driven Christians into mourning since he was a charitable person of high character. "

The same historian also wrote:

"Melikshah's heart is full of affection and goodwill for Christians; he has treated the sons of Jesus Christ very well, and he has given the Armenian people affluence, peace, and happiness.''

How well the Seljuk Turks treated the Armenians is shown by the fact that some Armenian noble families like the Tashirk family accepted Islam of their own free will and joined the Turks in fighting Byzantium.

Moreover, the Seljuks, like the Abbasid and Umayyad chalifs before them, and the Persian Zoroastrians even before, have also pretected from total annihilation the Nestorians from Byzantine authority and from the zeal of the Greek Orthodox Church. Nestorians were Christians who had not accepted the authority of the Third Eucumenical Council at Ephesus regarding Mary's status as the Mother of God. Unfortunately, the Nestorians, like the Haik, would later in the 20th c. side with the Russians against the Ottomans in WWI and stab the ZTurks in the back. The majority of them withdrew to the mountains of Hakkari after the War and, from there, to Nothern Irak, where they live today.

Another protected community of Christians, the Syrian Aramaics, on the other hand, did not betray their benefactors and they still continue their peaceful existence in and around Turabdin, near Mardin. They are still free to practice their religion and speak their language (Aramaic, the language that Jesus spoke).

However, the special favors bestowed upon the Haik race were met with ingratitude as early as the 11th c, when they collaborated with the Crusaders in 1098 (Runciman, Steven, A History of the Crusades, 3 Volumes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1951-1954). An alternative, excellent, and scholarly, narrative of the Crusader movements is given by Amin Maalouf , in his Crusaders through Arab Eyes.

The Haik interpretation of the same events is quite different, though. Vahan M. Kurkjian, for example, tells us in his 1958 History of Armenia that:

[In the City of Ani in 1064, under Seluk attacks] "Men were slaughtered in the streets," says Aristakes of Lastivert, "women were carried away, infants crushed on the pavements; the comely faces of the young were disfigured, virgins were violated in public, young boys murdered before the eyes of the aged, whose venerable white hairs then became bloody and whose corpses rolled on the earth."

Unfortunately, it was the Monghols who destroyed Ani in 1236, not the Seljuks, who suffered as much as any other Anatolian group by the Monghol invasions and the devastation in its trail.

Upon the Seljuk defeat in 1243 by the Mongols, the Haik loyalty quickly switched over to the Mongols. This, however, could not prevent the destruction in 1375 of their southern territories by the Memluks, another Turkish state which was based in Cairo. The see of the Catholicos, at Sis in southern Anatolia (Cilicia), had to be transferred to Echmiadzin, in southern Caucus. In 1379, however, another Mongol Khan, Timur the Lame, would devastate their eastern territories as well. Timur went on to crush the armies of the proud Ottoman Sultan Bayezid I (The Thunderbolt) in 1402, near Ankara. The devastation in the wake of the Mongol herds would create a social and political vacuum in Asia Minor that would last for the next half century. Following an interregnum of 12 years, though, Sultan Murad II managed to control some of his father's possessions. His own son, Mehmed II (The Conqueror), would bring political and military Ottoman control over most of Anatolia. The Haik were among the people annexed by the Ottomans at that time. As Mehmed moved the Haik Patriarch of Bursa, Hovakim, to Constantinople in 1461, he bestowed upon him all religious and secular powers of control over his own "Millet", i.e. the Haik, as well as over the the monophysites and the Nestorians. Thus, the See at Echmiadzin was reduced to nothing in terms of influence among Ottoman Haik.

In 1579, Sultan Murad III conquered Georgia. In 1603-4, Shah Abbas of Persia transfered the Haik of Erivan and Djulfa to central Persia. In 1639, Murat IV concluded the Kasr-i Shirin peace treaty with Safavid Persi, thus relatively stabilizing the Turco-Persian border. Since that date, most later wars between the two empires were fought over Armenia, thus changing the master of the Haik back and forth between the Ottomans and the Persians many times over. At that time, Erivan, the capital of Republic of Armenia today, was under Persian control and almost entirely Muslim.