THE ASSYRIAN DIASPORA
A RESEARCH PROJECT
BY EDWARD A. AND IRENE KLISZUS
1999
Assyrian International News Agency
Books Online
www.aina.org
When our grandchildren asked us about our backgrounds for a genealogy project at their schools, we realized we knew almost nothing about our parents' lives pre-America.
The following pages on Assyria and Assyrians try to answer some of those questions.
This project is dedicated to Elisha and Mary Yohannan Aurahan, David and Juan Yohannan Jacob, William and Margaret Sargis Yohannan, and
Absolem and Hannah Yohannan.
Edward and Irene Klisszus
August 1999
SOURCES/REFERENCES
Armenag's Story, by Arthur and Phebe Gregorian; Lower Falls Publishing Company, Newton, Massachusetts 02162.
Christians in Persia: Assyrians, Armenians, Roman Catholics and Protestants, by Robin E. Waterfield, New York, Barnes & Noble 1973.
History of the Persian Empire, by A. T. Olmstead The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL 1948. Lafayette College, Easton, Pa. Library
Princeton Theological Seminary, Luce Library - Archives and Special Collections, Box 111,Princeton, NJ 08542-0111
Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), Office of The General Assembly, Department of History, 425 Lombard Street, Philadelphia, PA; Correspondence dated January 3,1997
Psalms and Song of a Persian, by the Rev. Mishael S. Naby; Copyright 1964 by Mishael S. Naby: A Lyceum book, Carlton Press, New York, NY
The Assyrian Tragedy, Annemasse (Anonymous) February 1934; Livre Anonyme, 1934 Fevrier Annemasse
The Distant Magnet, European Emigration to the U.S.A. by Philip Taylor, 1971 Eyre and Spottiswoode Publishers Ltd. Great Britain
The New York Times, July 23, 1996, Inscription at a Philistine City
The Tragedy of the Assyrians, by Lt. Col. R.S.Stafford; London, George Allen & Unwin Ltd., Circa 1933-3
Mrs. William (Margaret) Yohannan; Atlanta and Savannah, Georgia, Eyewitness accounts, Correspondence 1996 and 1997
Mr. Ephraim Yohannan; Elizabeth, New Jersey and Turlock, California; Eyewitness accounts, Correspondence 1996 and 1997
Audio Tape, Jack Badal--Some time in the 1980's; New Britain, Connecticut, Supplied by relatives.
Did you know that the Assyrians were the world's super power in the seventh century BC? In the first article about Ekron, a Philistine City, was once part of a far-flung Neo-Assyrian Kingdom. The author notes the amazing military, political and economic strength of the empire. Assyrian kings ruled from Nineveh, a city situated on the Upper Tigris River in what is presently Northern Iraq. The Assyrians, circa 650 B.C., controlled Egypt, Syria, Iraq, parts of Turkey and Iran. Their influence extended west toward Carthage, Sicily and Iberia, and as far East as Afghanistan and India. In 612 B.C. Babylon conquered Nineveh, marking the end of the Assyrian empire.
BACKGROUND NOTES ON EARLY ASSYRIA
FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES
JULY 23, 1996
ARTICLE TITLED: INSCRIPTION AT PHILISTINE CITY SHOWS;
THIS IS THE RIGHT PLACE
AUTHOR; JOHN NOBLE WILFORD
Archeologists dream of turning over a temple stone and finding an inscription saying this is the place you are looking for. For a team of American and Israeli archeologists, the dream came true early this month.
Since 1983, they have been excavating the ruins of an ancient city at a site called Tel
Miqne, 20 miles southwest of Jerusalem. They had good reason to think this was the Philistine City of Ekron, mentioned in the Bible and Assyrian annals. The geography was right; where the coastal plane of ancient Philistia met the hill country of Judah. All the artifacts seemed recognizably Philistine.
On the assumption that this was Ekron, archeologists and other scholars examining the decorated pottery and evidence for advanced town planning concluded that contrary to the age-old slander, Philistine culture was no oxymoron. They could also see that this must have been one of the major industrial cities of the far-flung Neo-Assyrian empire in the seventh century B.C. That gave them important insights into how the Assyrians forged a new imperial ideology based on mercantile principles, creating what some scholars consider the first "world market."
But the archeologists could not be absolutely sure that this was indeed Ekron until Dr. Seymour Gitin, director of the Albright Institute of Archeological Research in Jerusalem, turned over a large block of stone found near the entrance to a colonnaded building at Tel Miqne. His expectations were low because nothing with writing had been found there yet.
"I had been getting tired of this," Dr. Gitin said last week in a telephone interview from the dig site. "Nothing ever showed up."
When the caked dirt was cleared away, though, he let out an unscholarly exclamation: "Oh, my God!" He saw a five-line inscription written in Phoenician script, and some of the 69 letters spelled out the name Ekron and the names of two of the city's known kings, Achish and his father Padi. The inscription recorded that Achish had built a temple here dedicated to a goddess.
"We always felt this was Ekron, but to find the inscription makes the identification 100 percent," Dr. Gitin said, "This you don't find very often in archeology."
In fact, he said, this is the first time the name of a biblical city and a list of its kings has ever been found on a site where its historical context is clear. No other such monumental inscription has been found in Israel from the biblical period. Other scholars agreed.
"It's a very exciting find," said Dr. Gary A. Rendsburg, a professor of Near East studies at Cornell University.
For one thing, the inscription could give scholars the first strong evidence of the language of the Philistines. They were descendants of the enigmatic Sea Peoples, originally from the Aegean Sea region, who arrived in large numbers on the coast of Canaan soon after 1200 B.C. Canaan was a land that included much of present-day Lebanon and Israel.
Whatever language these people first spoke, Greek or something else, in time the Philistines apparently adopted a Canaanite tongue, for the Bible portrays them as having no trouble communicating with the Israelites. Phoenician and Hebrew were dialects of the Canaanite language.
But scholars have never found any unambiguous example of the writing of the Philistines, early or later.
A preliminary analysis of the inscription, Dr. Gitin said, showed that not only was the script Phoenician, but probably the language was as well. But it may have been a variation of Phoenician used by the Philistines, with differences on the order of those between British and American English.
A closer study of the inscription is being made by Dr. Gitin and Dr. Trude Dothan, an archeologist at Hebrew University in Jerusalem who is the other leader of the Tel
Miqne-Ekron project. They are being assisted by Dr. Joseph Naveh, a Hebrew University epigrapher, who was one of the scholars who originally suggested that the
ruins might be those of Ekron. The publication of the entire inscription is planned for the fall.
Dr. Gitin said the inscription had already confirmed the close link between Ekron and the Neo-Assyrian empire, which in the late eighth century B.C. and most of the seventh century B.C. was the super power of what was then considered the known world.
Ekron was one of many vassal city-states in the empire and, as current excavations are revealing, must have been one of the largest industrial centers of any kind in the ancient Middle east in the seventh century B.C.
The name Achish in the text established the linkage for archeologists. Achish was the name of a Philistine king mentioned in the Bible in the books of 1 Samuel and 1 Kings during the time of King David and King Solomon of Israel. But he is not the Achish referred to in the inscription. Instead, the Achish in the text, archeologists have determined, corresponds to the same Ikausu, who is mentioned in Assyrian annals of the seventh century B.C. as the King of Ekron.
Ikausu, scholars noted, was 1 of 12 kings of the Mediterranean coast called upon by the Assyrian king in the first quarter of the seventh century B.C. to provide building materials and their transport for the construction of a palace at Nineveh. Ashurbanipal, the successor, ordered the vassal kings of the Philistine cities, including Ikausu of Ekron, to support his military campaigns against Egypt.
The other name in the text - Padi, the father of Achish or Ikausu - is referred to in Assyrian documents at the time the empire's army conquered Ekron, which had been under the control of neighboring Judah. The Assyrians restored Ekron's status as a city-state, though now subservient to Nineveh, and reinstated Padi as its king.
The inscription thus documents a critical period in Ekron's history--its embrace by the Neo-Assyrian empire and the expansion and apparent prosperity that followed.
The stone itself attests to the city's newfound wealth, for it celebrated the construction of a new temple on the west side of a stately palace, a building of Neo-Assyrian design and one of the largest structures of its kind to be excavated in Israel. Other digging in the past 13 years has shown that Ekron in the seventh century B.C. grew rapidly from not much more than 10 acres to a city of 85 acres, complete with an elite quarter in the center of an industrial zone containing more than 100 olive-oil processing plants.
These excavations are part of an ambitious study of the Neo-Assyrian empire, especially its influence in the provinces and vassal city-states. The project is directed by the Albright Institute in Jerusalem, affiliated with the American School of Oriental Research, and Hebrew University and also involves a consortium of 22 North American and Israeli universities and research centers.
The discovery of the inscribed stone, Dr. Gitin said, "is going to allow us to write with a great deal of assurance the history of the Neo-Assyrian empire and its revolutionary economic developments."
Through military might and political maneuvers, as well as innovative economic practices, the kings in Nineveh, the Assyrian capital on the upper Tigris River in what is now northern Iraq, controlled territory as far south as Egypt and across present-day Syria, Iraq and parts of Turkey and Iran. The empire's Phoenician traders, operating out of the ports of Tyre and Sidon, extended a Syrian influence as far west as Carthage, Sicily and Iberia. Other economic links reached east into Afghanistan and perhaps India.
In their quest for raw materials and manufactured goods, as well as new sources of silver for use as currency, the Assyrian kings created a new supranational system of political and economic
power, leading to 70 years of widespread growth of urban centers, transforming cottage industries into mass production and encouraging specialization in manufacturing. The heartland of the empire was extensively explored in the 19th century by European and American archeologists who uncovered city ruins and royal documents. At the site of Ekron and in other research, scholars are concentrating on the view of the empire from the periphery, and Dr. Gitin is convinced that this is yielding a telling picture of the empire's dynamics.
In a report on his interpretation of Ekron's imperial role, published last year by the Archeological Institute of America, Dr. Gitin wrote that the Philistine city "was apparently chosen as a focus of Assyrian economic activity because of its geographic and topographic advantages, with its proximity to sources of raw materials, land routes and Mediterranean harbors." In addition, the city had escaped serious damage in the Assyrian conquest and was a politically stable environment.
Archeologists were particularly impressed by the extent of Ekron's olive-oil industry. In detailed excavations of only 3 percent of the city's area, they uncovered 105 olive-oil installations, containing stone presses, ceramic storage vessels and other artifacts.
When two such factories were reconstructed, researchers tested their output and determined that Ekron's estimated overall annual production of olive oil could have reached 1,000 tons, or 290,000 gallons. This is the equivalent of 20 percent of Israel's current level of export olive-oil production.
Before this time, archeologists said, there is no evidence of olive-oil production in Ekron and very little elsewhere in the region, most of it for local consumption.
"This is a prime example of the innovative policy of industrial specialization and mass production which concentrated large-scale industrial activity in one center," Dr. Gitin said.
Other artifacts at Ekron pointed to a significant textile industry and to extensive foreign contacts, presumably through trade. Among the ruins are goblets and bottles from Assyria, ceramics from Greece and Carthage, and Israelite and Phoenician religious objects. And there are hoards of silver in small ingots and jewelry.
Another of the Neo-Assyrian innovations, it seems was the wide-spread use of silver as a currency to supplement and, in some cases, replace conventional modes of payment by goods and services. In Spain, new silver mines were opened to meet the increased currency demands.
At the Ekron site, archeologists came upon four large collections of silver, some hidden in cooking jugs buried beneath the floors and others found in a hole in a large stone -- perhaps and early form of a wall safe.
Dr. Michael Notis, a metallurgist at Lehigh University, is analyzing the silver to determine its origin.
Other scholars praise the comprehensive excavations at Ekron and have generally endorsed Dr. Gitin's assessment of the innovative dynamics of the Neo-Assyrian empire, but they cautioned against possibly exaggerating the role of Ekron in the empire, just because the research is new and in some cases surprising. Other cities, like Tyre and Sidon, were probably more important to the empire, they pointed out.
Ekron's time of prosperity was fleeting, as was the Neo-Assyrian empire's. In the late seventh century B.C., first Egypt and then Babylon broke away from the empire, Babylonian forces conquered Nineveh in 612. Ekron itself fell to the Babylonians of Nebuchadnezzar in 603, and the entire city and its grand palace with Achish's designatory stone became ruins.
Then the Philistines largely disappeared from history. The Neo-Assyrian empire, which scholars consider the first of the classical empires, was followed by the Babylonians,
Persians, Greeks and Roman.
1. THE ASSYRIAN PEOPLE
The Assyrians are better known by their three Ecclesiastical designations representing the three main religious bodies of the people. Of these three main divisions.
(A) The Nestorians have predominated in the Kkur-distant mountains, inhabiting Barvar, Tayari, Tkhooma, Baz, Jeloo, Gavar etc. with Koodchanis as their patriarchal See.
(B) The Chaldeans predominate in the province of Mosul, abounding also in the various locations in lower Mesopotamia down to the Persian gulf, with Mosul as their patriarchal See.
(C) The Jacobites prevail in the province of Dearbeker, abounding also in Syria proper, and in other localities in the former empire of Turkey, with the city of Mardin as their patriarchal See.
A careful examination of the various statistics compiled by the European experts as to the Assyrian population shows, that the resources from which they were compiled to draw were entirely erroneous and misleading. This error in all probability is largely due to the fact, that a very large number of the Assyrians lost their mother tongue and speak Turkish, Arabic and Armenian, and the Armenian speaking Assyrians became identified with the Armenian people and were counted as the Armenians. Thus during the so called Armenian massacre and exile, fully 175,000 Assyrians perished, and were listed under the Armenian atrocities.
Exclusive of the three main Assyrian divisions mentioned above, there are also;--
(D) The Assyrian Maronite element. The Maronite Assyrians became identified with their Syrian co-religionist and are erroneously named to the present day as the Syrians.
(E) The Persian Assyrian. Before the war broke out, the city and district of Urmia alone claimed 82,000 Assyrians who occupied 112 villages. The small district of Salmas claimed 10,000 Assyrians. Settled in the various cities and localities on the western boundary of Persia, immediately adjoining Turkey, there have lived about 150,000 Assyrians.
(F) The Assyrians in Russia. Driven by the mohammedan oppression, large numbers of the Assyrians had left both Persia and Turkey to settle in the various parts of south Russia. Some 30,000 to 40,000 of these sojourn now in the district of Iravan, Caucasia. A similar number is at the present time in the city of Tiflis and its environs, in Caucasia. Other Assyrians formed temporary settlements in the various towns situated on the Black Sea. During the first Russian withdrawal from Azarbaijan, about 40,000 Persian Assyrian refugees managed to escape to Russia, and have remained there since. All told there are not less than 100,000 Assyrians in Russia, and 95 percent of these are ready to return to an autonomous state, freed from former oppression, and protected by some mandatory power.
The most conservative figures will place the Assyrian population at not less than 600,000 (not including India and Egypt Assyrians). And while there three main Assyrian bodies are separated from each other by certain areas occupied by the non-Assyrian elements, they nevertheless are living in a proximity sufficiently close to form a separate state protected by some mandatory power.
(G) The Islamic Assyrians. Like unto the ruins which tell the story of a past catastrophe, the moslemized Assyrians constitute a living history of the persecutions to which the Assyrian people for centuries have been subjected. Within the areas still occupied by the Assyrians, or in the immediate vicinity of all such areas, there are Moslems which are distinctly of the Assyrian origin. Perhaps one or two examples should suffice, not only to reveal this fact, but also to show the justification of both the Assyrian claims and the Assyrian aspirations.
In a portion of the Kurdistan mountains, immediately west of the Persian boundary, there has lived a Kurdish tribe of considerable size, known by the name of "Shakkak" who themselves admit their Assyrian nationality, and to the present day they address the Nestorian patriarch in the most reverent manner, calling him by an endearing designation of "Uncle."
In the district of Sapna, immediately above the district of Barvar, in upper Mesopotamia, there are bodies of Kurds, still retaining sufficient characteristics to prove their Assyrian origin.
The Yezidies of the Shangar mountains, numbering now more than 300,000 souls, are of the Assyrian blood, and their departure from the Christian fold is of a comparatively recent date.
It is not necessary to make mention of similar bodies in other localities; but the leaders of the Assyrian people have always looked for the day of the opportunity, to reclaim their lost nationals back into the Christian faith, and also into the national fold. And indeed with this end in view the Assyrian National Associations have been organized, not only in the United States and Canada, but also elsewhere. Funds have been collected, and national treasuries have been created with sufficient resources to establish national schools, not only for the Assyrian people, but also for those of their brethren in flesh and blood who are now lost to them in the fold of Islam. And surely, history shows, that the Assyrians, when given an opportunity, are capable of the achievement.
II. The Assyrians and the War
After the entry of the Russian forces into Persia, and immediately before the declaration of war by Turkey, the Turkish government sent official emissaries to Mar Shimon, the patriarch of the Nestorian branch of the Assyrian people, and offered the late patriarch large sums of money in gold, on the condition that the patriarch and his people should remain neutral. Of the three Assyrian patriarchs, Mar Shimon alone was in a position to strike against the Turks with the Assyrian independent tribes of Tyari, Tkhooma, Baz and Jeloo. In the meantime, Mar Shimon's brother who was studying in Constantinople, was kept as a hostage by the Turkish government, and threatened with a horrible death, in case Mar Shimon refused the Turkish offer and went over to the side of the allies. This intelligence was officially communicated to the head and the leader of the Nestorians. The patriarch, however sent envoys to the Russian military authorities in Urmia, Persia, by whom he had previously been approached, and from whom he had received a promise of 25,000 guns, and informed the latter, that he had decided to declare war against Turkey.
In addition to the Turkish offer, the German consul in Mosul, sent agents to Mar Shimon, guaranteeing the absolute security of all the Assyrians in the Turkish empire on the condition of the patriarch's neutrality. Even this German offer was refused, and the hostilities commenced between the Turks and the Nestorian Assyrians.
Thus from the time of Turkey's entry into the war, the Assyrians have fought incessantly as a distinct unit in the group of the Allied nations. The victories credited to the Russian forces in Kurdistan were in reality won by the Assyrian forces in that front of battle. The Kurds, who were a perpetual menace to the Russian operations, were absolutely cleared from those valleys by the army of Mar Shimon. And had the Russians fulfilled their promise of supplying the patriarch's forces with rifles and a few cannon, the capture of Mosul by the Assyrians would have been an easy possibility.
However, surrounded on all sides by vastly superior numbers, short of guns and ammunition, face to face with total extermination because of their siding with the Allies, sacrificing thousands on the field of battle, and losing tens of thousands through actual starvation and disease, the Assyrians never faltered. Through all the vicissitudes and the turning tides of the war, and even after the collapse of Russia, the Nestorian Assyrians remained loyal to their Allies, and endured all for the sake of the freedom for all the Assyrians.
The independence which they now seek, they do not ask as a charity, they demand it by appealing to the sense of justice and equity. They have fought for it; they have purchased it with the streams of their own blood shed on the field of battle. In Kurdistan, in Turkey, in Persia, in Russia, in Poland and in France, lay the graves of the Assyrians, which stand not only as splendid monuments to their valor, but also as a tremendous price paid for the restoration of their lands, and for the independence of their people. Even the late patriarch himself laid down his life upon the altar of his people's freedom.
A nation that has lost nearly one third of its numerical strength because of the part it played in the world war, must surely be entitled to recognition and independence, especially in the presence of those political declarations which have repeatedly proclaimed the inauguration of a new era wherein the principle of self determination was to be recognized as a sacred and inherent right of mankind.
III. The Territorial Claims of the Assyrians
The original land of the Assyrians embraced an area of 250,000 square miles. Islamic power seized the land, and planted Islamic elements in the newly confiscated territory. The name, however, with whatever dialect pronounced, stands as an eternal deed, showing that the house belongs to the Assyrians. And no tribunal of justice can overlook this fact. The Assyrians, however, do not pretend to claim all this original territory. But they do claim that portion of upper Mesopotamia, where they abound in large numbers. This portion of the land embraces naturally an area which stretches from below the lower Zaba, up to, and including the province of Dearbaker, where the Assyrians vastly outnumber the Armenians; and also from Euphrates in the west, to the mountains of Armenia in the east. Added to this, the Assyrians naturally desire an access to the sea.
The Assyrians realize, that in all probability, the Kurdish elements which reside in the area claimed by them, may present a sort of problem that will command attention. Against such a possible observation we feel that we must present the following memorandum:
1. Morally there cannot be a discrimination between the Kurds and the Turks. The Kurd proved himself just as an efficient a tool for the aspirations of an imperial Germany, as did the Turk, while the former vastly exceeded the latter in ferocity and brutality against all the Christians, and particularly against the Assyrians. The crime of one is the guilt of the other.
2. To place an enemy element, which happens to be dwelling in the area claimed by the Assyrians, on the same level with a people that has suffered, and suffered gladly and so heavily in the Allied cause, would be, to place the criminal on the same level with the innocent, and it would mean lasting injustice to the Assyrians.
3. While it is perhaps just, that even the Kurds, as a race, are entitled to the benefits of the principle of self determination if they so desire; but to permit their claim to expand and infringe upon the exclusive right of the Assyrians, is to place a premium on plunder, murder and massacre.
4. So long as there exist religious bigotry and religious fanaticism and the word "Gavoor" (heathen) is not eliminated from the vocabulary of the Turk or of the Kurd, this Islamic element can never be trusted by the Assyrians. The wild beast is now caged by defeat and not tamed by culture. In order to free the Assyrians from the repetition of the former barbarities to which they have been subjected for centuries by the combined hatred of the Turk and the Kurd, and in order to save their position from being exposed to the previous perils, the reasonable area thus claimed by them, even though including some Kurds within its bounds, must be created into an Assyrian state, under the protectorate of some mandatory power.
5. It would be decidedly to the moral, educational and spiritual advantage of those Kurds who will thus remain in a newly created Christian state, to receive the benefits of those educational and industrial enterprises which the Assyrians themselves have undertaken to establish.
6. It will be decidedly in the interest of peace, at least in that portion of Asia as well as to the advantage of the power holding the mandatory authority in the land, and also to the moral and spiritual advantages of all the non-Christian and heterogeneous elements of the entire Mesopotamia, to grant to the Assyrians the new state they desire and embracing the area they claim.
Has the agony of the war given birth to the rights of mankind? If so, the awful sacrifices made, meet their equal compensation. Anything short of the righteous and reasonable claim of a people, no matter how weak or how small, is bound to bring another day of retribution. Heaven with sorrow witnessed the tragedy of the war; it now hearkens with yearning to the cry of the small nations, and looks with longing for the enactment of justice to the oppressed people. Therefore, immeasurably greater than the crises of the war, are those which now hang upon the treatment accorded to the weak and the deserving.
IV. The Claims of the Assyrians for Reparation
A ruthless slaughter of innocent women and children cannot be condoned. A deliberate crusade, to exterminate one whole nation, cannot be concealed under the cover of an unconditional surrender. If Turkey failed to exterminate the remainder of the Assyrians, and confiscate their property, she did so, because she failed in her war. She perhaps can never pay for all the material and other losses suffered by the Assyrians under her most oppressive rule for centuries; but for the losses inflicted upon the Assyrians during the war, both Turkey and Germany should be compelled to make reparation. Fully 200,000 Assyrians of the Kurdistan valleys and plains are absolutely deprived of everything they owned, and their homes are left in ruins. In order that they may be able to rehabilitate themselves, they should be compensated for their entire material losses. And likewise, we believe ourselves entitled to reparation for all the Assyrians who resided in the interior of Turkey.
The Assyrians in the district of Dearbeker, including Orpha, Harpoot, Mardin and Midiat have passed through a literal deluge of blood. The Assyrian population was put to the edge of the sword by the regular troops of Turkey. The villages including those in the district of Bohtan were totally destroyed. Altogether, more than 486,000 men women and children were massacred, 84 Jacobite churches and 44 monasteries were razed to the ground, and 186 Assyrian priests were killed in the most barbarous manner.
The brave Assyrian city of Midiat stood the onslaught of the Turkish troops for a period of six months. The city at last had to surrender on account of the lack of ammunition, and the Turks besides killing the Assyrian defenders, bayoneted every woman and child within the walls. The Assyrian city of Midiat is a heap of ruins now.
V. The Claims of the Persian Assyrians
The Assyrian atrocities in Azarbaijan have equaled, if not surpassed, those inflicted upon their brethren in Turkey. While the Russians were still in Urmia, the local mohammedans had caught the echo of Turkey's proclamation of the "holy war" and they were then seeking an opportunity to pour out their vengeance upon the defenseless Assyrian Christians. This opportunity presented itself, when immediately after the first withdrawal of the Russian forces from Urmia, the entire mohammedan population arose, lifting up the banner of the "jehad" and determined to exterminate the entire Christian population of Urmia, Sooldooz, Margavar and Targavar. The Assyrians of the last three named districts had already escaped into Urmia from fear of the approaching Turkish forces. The Assyrians, from all directions naturally endeavored to reach the city of Urmia, where they might seek the protection of the American and the French flags, which were flying over the buildings of the two respective missions. The Assyrians, however, who had left all their possessions behind, were intercepted by their armed mohammedan neighbours, and killed in the most brutal manner. Old men and women, who were unable to undertake the journey, were either thrown alive into the wells and covered with dirt, or else burned alive in their homes which were set on fire. Little girls, 6 and 8 years of age, were assaulted on open Bibles, and on the pulpits of the Christian churches. The leading Assyrians were grouped together, placed in rows, and then either shot by rifles, or beheaded by the sword. The murderers, in a number of instances, actually licked the blood off their swords and daggers, to appease their hatred and satisfy their thirst for the blood of the Christians. About 30,000 to 40,000 managed in a most miraculous way to reach the city, where they found the American and the French mission buildings open to receive them. Here they were obliged to remain for several months in a state of siege, and thousands of them perished from contagion and disease.
After the return of the Russian forces into Urmia, the Siberian regiments, as they beheld the atrocious deeds perpetrated upon the Assyrians, they actually shook with emotion and prepared to bombard the city and avenge the blood of the innocent people. It was again the Christians who interceded with the Russian officers and persuaded them not to return evil for evil.
After the collapse of Russia, the mohammedan population of Urmia, unmindful of the forgiving spirit shown them previously by the Assyrians, and of the desire of the latter for peace and harmony in spite of their losses, rose up once more, this time assisted by the Persian Kurds and the mohammedans of Salmas. Fortunately, some of the mountain Assyrians, under the leadership of the late Nestorian patriarch, were now in Urmia. The Nestorian patriarch at this time sent two letters, one to the governor of Urmia and the other to the governor general of Azarbaijan at Tabriz, informing them that the Assyrians had absolutely no evil designs, that they were friendly to the Persian government; and begged the governors to prevent the mohanmmedan uprisings, and also to allow the Assyrians to remain temporarily in Urmia, till God in His mercy showed them a way of escape, either to Caucasia or to Baghdad. Instead of heeding this request, the two governors mentioned had themselves planned the uprising as it became evident later, and were determined on the extermination of the Christian population. The subsequent assassination of the late Mar Shimon, was also a plot which was originally laid in the city of Tabriz. We have the most conclusive proofs to show that the responsibility for the Assyrian massacres and losses in Persia, rests absolutely upon the Azarbaijan authorities of Persia. Fully 112 Assyrian villages were burned to the ground or otherwise destroyed. The homes of all the Assyrians in Urmia were plundered, and the household effects, together with the cattle of the Assyrians can be found in the possession of Urmia mohammedans. The proofs of this responsibility have already been submitted by the leaders of the Assyrian people to the legations of the allied nations in Teheran. Fully 50,000 Persian and mountain Assyrians perished because of these fanatical uprisings, and about 4,000 Assyrian women are now kept in bondage in the homes of the moslems. And during their last exodus from Urmia, on their way to Baghdad, the Assyrians were pursued and shot down by a Majid-el-Saltana, a general in the Persian army.
For the shedding of innocent blood, and for the material losses they have suffered, the Assyrians present their claim for indemnity against the Azarbaijan government of Persia.
If we were to figure at the shocking rate of 250 Toomans which was the standard price allowed by the courts of Urmia for the killing of a Christian by a mohammedan, the Azarbaijan government should be held responsible to the extent of 12,500,000 Toomans as an indemnity for the deliberate plan to exterminate all the Assyrians, and for the actual loss of 50,000 men, women and children.
Indemnity for the Assassination of the Nestorian Patriarch
The assassination of the late patriarch Mar Shimon was a most cowardly deed perpetrated by the instigation and conspiracy of the two Persian governors to whom we have alluded. The governor General of Azarbaijan, showing apparently compliance with the request of the Assyrian patriarch as contained in his official letter, sent messengers to the latter, asking him to meet the Persian envoys in Salmas, to which place the said envoys were coming from Tabriz. Mar Shimon accompanied by 200 of his men and intensely desirous of harmony, left for Salmas. Here in the city of Deliman he met the Persian envoys, entirely ignorant of the fact that their apparent friendship was a mere mask for murder. Most cordial greetings were exchanged and the negotiating parties apparently came to a mutual understanding. At the conclusion of the interview, the patriarch prepared to depart for Urmia. The Persian envoys, however, suggested that he should also meet a Simkoo, a Kurdish brigand and chieftain of a notorious Kurdish tribe, who was also residing then in Salmas. The patriarch replied that Simkoo did not represent the Persian Authorities and he was not even a law abiding Persian subject, and therefore, he could have no dealing with him. The Persian envoys, however, appealing to the patriarch's desire for peace and tranquillity, and under the pretense of wishing to calm the disturbances in the entire district, insisted that Mar Shimon should visit the notorious Kurdish chieftain. In a spirit of meekness and humility and with a desire to please the Tabriz authorities, the patriarch consented to do so. In the meanwhile, Simkoo, with the full knowledge and deliberate planning of the Tabriz envoys, had his sharp shooters placed in advantageous points on the roofs of the houses adjoining his residence. So when the interview with the Kurdish brigand was over, and as the patriarch emerged from the house into the court yard where his men were waiting for him, he was received with a rain of bullets, and only six of his wounded attendants managed to escape to tell the story of conspiracy and murder.
Justice demands that the Azarbaijan government should pay an indemnity of one million Toomans for this cowardly betrayal of trust, and for this deliberate plan of assassination and murder.
For the material losses of the Assyrians in Urmia, Salmas, Sooldooz, Targavar and Margavar, the Assyrians demand an additional and a most reasonable indemnity of 18,000,000 Toomans, making a total of 31,500,000 Toomans, which they justly claim from the Azarbaijan government of Persia.
The Assyrians desire further to make known the following facts;--
1. The districts of Targavar and Margavar, immediately west of the district of Urmia, are almost exclusively inhabited by the Assyrians, while their very names are indicative of Assyrian origin.
2. In the district of Urmia about 112 villages are almost exclusively inhabited by the Assyrians.
3. In the small district of Salmas nearly 30 villages, are inhabited by the Assyrians and the Armenians mixed.
4. In Somoi and Bradost, immediately north of the district of Targavar, both the Assyrians and the Armenians abound, while part of the Kurdish element in the valley, even though mohammedan by religion, is of Assyrian blood and origin.
5. The remainder of the population both in Urmia and in Salmas districts, is not of Persian blood but of Turkish or Afshar origin.
6. Because of the ill and bitter feeling created, first by the pre-war oppression of the Assyrians and then intensified by the fearful outrages perpetrated against them during the war, the interests of peace and harmony can perhaps be best served by an exchange of those districts for some other place which falls within the zone claimed by the Assyrians, and which could be more desirable, and of decidedly greater advantage to Persia.
The Assyrian delegates would be willing to debate their claim with the Persian delegates, or to enter into negotiation with them for a satisfactory solution of the problem.
VI. The Capabilities of the Assyrians
The prospect of a people can best seen in the light of its retrospect. Entirely indifferent to the imperial grandeur of the by-gone ages, we simply make mention of those capabilities which are essential for the promotion of civilization and which in their free operation, they contribute to the uplift of mankind at large. The successive ages of oppression, and an existence of actual bondage, accompanied with perpetual fear, to be sure, closed the passage of progress to the Assyrian people, and they inevitably ushered in a long period of deterioration and comparative illiteracy, of which we are most sensitively conscious; and yet in the midst of Islam's perpetual fire, the ratio of such illiteracy among the Assyrians, has always been kept many degrees lower than among their ruling masters. History shows that either during the regime of the Persian or of the Tartars or of the Challifs or of the Turks, the Assyrians became the eyes and the brains of the powers that ruled over them. Even at the present time the sons of Assyrian hold most responsible positions in the various departments of the governments of which they are subjects.
The memories of Orpha, and of Nisibin, and of Ctisphon, and of Babylon, have always lingered in the mind of every succeeding generation; while in this day of new opportunity, those memories have already given to the people a fresh inspiration and a united determination, to rebuild the ruined structures of their old institutions, and to resume the initiative they once had in enlightening the peoples and the races with whom they are destined to come in contact. The Assyrians are still the same people of whose heroism and achievements when Gibbon writes, he does so with a the trembling pen, and with an admiration that becomes an inspiration even to a skeptical historian Thus providentially endowed with spiritual gifts and attainments, and as the faithful custodians of the earliest Christianity, the Assyrian people are destined to play once more the old apostolic role and become a blessing even to their former enemies.
Educational Preparation. Unconscious of the events, the impending aspect of which was surely concealed from the knowledge of man, guided nevertheless by a gracious providence, the Assyrians as if in the possession of a prophetic vision, have for the last 25 or 30 years, taken advantage of the opportunities presented to them by the educational institutions of both America and Europe, and have developed talents for an Assyrian National University which has long been in contemplation. The spirit of the great Assyrian educators is still alive, and the Assyrians throughout the world are prepared to establish their own national schools, the doors of which will be thrown open to every tribe and race that may be found living in their midst.
The Industrial Possibilities. In the line of industry even though crushed by injustice and robbed by tyranny, the Assyrians have always excelled their persecuting enemies.
The greatest part of the new Russian Caucasian Railway, which runs from Tiflis to the Persian frontier, was built by the Assyrian engineers and Assyrian skill.
Wherever and whenever they have found themselves in the possession of equal rights, the Assyrians have become contractors of renown, as in Russia and in America. The foundation of a new and most prosperous city in the United States was laid by Assyrian hands, and Assyrian contractors.
Agriculture has always been a specialty of the Assyrian people. But they have specialized in the new development of scientific agriculture; and a movement is already in motion to introduce modern tools and modern methods for the awakening of the fertile soil of Assyria from its long lingering slumber.
Manufacture. Whether it be silk or cotton or wool, the Assyrian mechanics and weavers are prepared to plant and to run Assyrian factories.
The Assyrians may need foreign capital but they certainly do not need foreign skill for the development of mineral resources.
Commerce. In the line of commerce, the Assyrians made such strides as to arouse the jealousy of their enemies both in Turkey and in Persia. In the centers where the Assyrians are found, both import and export business has gradually been passing into their hands. Undoubtedly this, their success, has indirectly been responsible for a hatred that has now poured the vengeance of their persecutors upon them
Such are the capabilities of a people who ask for justice and in the name and in the interests of justice they ask to be created into a state under a mandatory power. In the choosing of such a power, the wishes of the Assyrians in America are naturally for the United States while those of the patriarch Mar Shimon are for Great Britain. The question of the mandatory power, however, we voluntarily submit to the judgment and the discretion of the supreme council.
1. The Assyrians as a historic people both in the interests of history and for the perpetuation of that history, should be created into a separate state.
2. Their achievement in the past, and their large contribution for the uplift of mankind, both in the educational endeavor and in the spreading of those pacifying influences which are the real backbone of civilization, entitle the Assyrians to a recognition of their claim.
3. A nation that has persisted through centuries of persecution in the declaration of her faith, and has sacrificed vast numbers of martyrs upon the altar of that faith, finds her greatest right to a recognition of her claim in her consciousness of moral and spiritual responsibilities, and also in the knowledge of her capability to resume the discharge of those humanitarian and self sacrificing obligations.
4. After the manner of the figure beheld by Moses, the fire of the Assyrian affliction has been terrific; but they have not been consumed. The historic nation has still a remnant left, sufficiently large to be created into a separate state.
5. As a belligerent people who have risked more and sacrificed proportionately more, fighting on the side of the Allies, they are entitled to a realization of their claim for a separate state.
6. As a belligerent people who entered into the war on the side of the Allies, in spite of the alluring inducements offered them by the Turkish government, the claims of the Assyrians for indemnities and reparation are entitled to the very first consideration. The very plight of their refugees calls for immediate attention.
7. We have the most conclusive proofs to show that the Assyrians were urged by the official representatives of Great Britain, France and Russia, to enter into the war on the side of the Allies, and were induced into a state of belligerency with the most solemn promises of being given a free state. The Assyrians, therefore, having risked the very existence of their nation, and having made such appalling sacrifices upon the altar of freedom, demand that these promises of the allied governments should now be honorably redeemed.
8. The outrages perpetrated upon the Persian Assyrians should be indemnified, and all their material losses should receive full compensation from the authorities directly responsible for the Assyrians' loss of life and property.
9. In the interest of future peace and tranquillity, some plan should be devised whereby Salmas and Urmia including Targavar and Margavar where the Assyrians abound, could be exchanged for some other place that would be perfectly satisfactory to the Persian government.
10. The Assyrians demand a state bounded roughly by Tikrit (below Zaba) in the south, and the province of Dearbeker in the north; and by a straight line running parallel with the banks of Euphrates in the west, to the mountains of Armenia in the east.
11. The Assyrians realize that at least for 25 years hence, they will be incapable of self government and therefore they desire the supervision of a mandatorial power.
(These claims are in perfect accord with the wishes of Mar Shimon and men of war and the leaders of the Assyrian nation as expressed through the cables transmitted through the Department of State in Washington to the President of the Assyrian National Association of America.)
Joel E. Werda
President: Assyrian National Associations of America
Cap. A.K. Yoosuf M.D., Representing the Assyrians of America
Simon Ganja, Lazar George, Lazar Yacoboff: Delegates representing Assyrians in Persia, Caucasca and Kurdistan
-----Imp.Ph.Rosen,32-31 rue de Richelieu, Paris
(9/30/97)
* * * * * * * * * *
NATIONAL AND RELIGIOUS MINORITIES AT NEW YORK UNIVERSITY
SCHOOL OF EDUCATION
JUNE 6, 1947
THE ASSYRIANS BY DR. DAVID B. PERLEY
It is difficult in these difficult days, to be an Assyrian. Sometimes people seem to know nothing about him, although he is a very aged gentlemen who has seen nearly ten thousand years roll over his head, and still he presses on. However, in all frankness, one must acknowledge the admission of the Editor of the NEAR EAST AND INDIA, who has crusaded against the Assyrian cause for years as the instrument of the Colonial Office, that "there is no finer human material in the whole of the Middle East than the Assyrians".
Be that as it may, no cause is so symbolic of the state of national and religious minorities in the Middle East as that of the Assyrian. That cause will show how solemn promises have been cynically broken and will illustrate why British prestige in close to its nadir at this moment by reason of the pursuit of her game of Power Politics despite the fact that she has just emerged victorious from a great political convulsion; at the same time, it may serve as a pointer or a warning to our country that has just come into the scene of the Middle East.
ORIGIN OF THE ASSYRIANS
The present Assyrians are the descendants of the ancient Assyrian Empire, the oldest heart from which emanated the fire of civilization. They are Christians, who claim an unbroken spiritual descent from the early Apostolic Church. Speaking Aramaic, in which the Gospel was originally written, they were the first, as a people to adhere to the new Faith and the first to convey it to non-Aramaic speaking peoples. Thus it was that in the early Christian centuries, they were famous missionaries who evangelized the entire East as far away as China, Burma, and India as testified to by the Nestorian Monument in China and by the Nestorian Tablet in Madras.
Prior to 1914, they lived as hardy Highland clansmen in the Mountains of Hakkiari, Kurdistan, in the north of what is now Iraq and in the southeast of Turkey but within the Turkish Empire. Here they led an autonomous existence from time immemorial as a millet or nation under the supreme rule of their Prince-Patriarch, the Mar Shimun, who was recognized as both the temporal and spiritual head of his Christian Millet by the Persian Emperors, by the Arab Khalifs, by the Mogul Khans, and by the Ottoman Sultans.
IN WORLD WAR I
When World War I broke out, the Assyrians joined the Allies after the Patriarch had been urged to declare war upon the Turks from the heart of the Turkish Empire by the Eastern Committee of the British War Cabinet by reason of the magnificent fighting qualities of the Assyrians as well as the extremely important strategical position of their homeland in the neighborhood of Turkish, Persian, and Russian frontier. Mr. J. S. Ward, stated in the London Daily Telegram of November 10, 1933:
It was we who invited them to rise against the Turks,
and promised them their independence if they would
do so.
Believing in the promises, the Assyrians poured every man into the ranks of the new armies. The British Government has generously recognized the great contribution made by the Assyrians to the Allied cause, but the plan ended in disaster for the Assyrians; for, by the end of 1915, they were totally driven out of their hills and forced to flee into Persia. And by the time they made contact with the British troops in Mesopotamia, they had lost two-thirds of their numbers. As soon as the war was ended, all the promises to the Assyrians were forgotten, and to the utter amazement of all the non-Arab population in the Middle East, a new Arab state was erected in Mesopotamia under the name of Iraq. The Assyrians were then left in refugee camps in the land and told that the problem of their settlement must await the making of peace with Turkey. That peace took four long year, and when it was finally made, the question of Hakkiari (the former home of the Assyrians) was left open and referred to the League. The League sent out a Commission to study the problem, and accepting the report of that Commission, it gave Hakkiari to Turkey, but made Turkey surrender important territory north of Mosul with the understanding that it was to be an autonomous home for the Assyrians with all their ancient rights under their Patriarch subject to a mandate to Great Britain to administer the whole for a period of 25 years dating from 1923.
THE MOSUL CONTROVERSY
The Mosul Controversy presents an excellent example of the sordid game of Power Politics in the Middle East. Kemalist Turkey argued before the League that geographically Mosul was an indivisible part of Turkey. Britain alleged, on the other hand, that it belonged to Iraq and fortified its claim by the moral force of the plausible argument that there are Assyrians who as Christians need protection from the Turks, as if Oil Politics could be satisfied with a partial violation of the moral and humanistic sentiments! At any rate it helped the greatest Christian Empire to be victorious in her struggle for oil.
An exceedingly curious situation arose on May 21, 1924 at the Conference of Constantinople which dealt with the preliminaries of the contest over the Vilayet of Mosul. It was the contention of Fethi Bey of Turkey that no cession of land to the Assyrian Territory was a necessity as the Assyrians could still find in Turkey the tranquillity and prosperity which they enjoyed for centuries. To this, Sir Percy Cox replied that Fethi Bey's assertion did not square with the Assyrians' own views and that they had the most vivid memory of the treatment they had suffered in the past at the hands of the Turks, which they could neither forget nor ever forgive - as if Sir Percy was authorized to speak for the Assyrians and as if these "refugees" had an invincible army and navy.
Now all these may sound very unimportant in these tremendously important days. The fate of a little people is of small moment in view of the greater injustices which have been done to people everywhere. But curiously enough, the treatment of the Assyrians has done more to undermine people's trust in British promises and justice (and that of the entire West for that matter) than any other single incident since 1914. The Assyrians stand out, and are constantly quoted, as perfect examples of British diplomacy and commercial greed by most of the leaders and agitators in the Middle East. Who has not heard Arab, Kurd, Lebanese, Hebrew, and Druze leaders murmur in bitter sarcasm whenever British good-faith is in question, the words: "Remember the Assyrians? Remember the Assyrians is both a watchword and a reproach. The Arab world believes that Britain is concerned only with commercial greed and that all illusion of the selflessness of the West has long since departed in the face of the proof of usury and double-dealing that the West has given so often, and in no case more callously than in that of the Assyrians.
THE ASSYRIAN LEVIES
In 1920 there was insurrection in Iraq. Britain again organized the Assyrians into what is known as the Assyrian Levies to police the troublesome, turbulent Moslems. But this very task was bound to foment bitter hatred against the unfortunate Assyrians. Nevertheless, the Assyrians, firmly believing that the power of Britain would never desert them, proved loyal soldiers of Britain. In the words of Lt.-Col. Sir Arnold Wilson, the then Civil Commissioner:
They saved the British Army from utter disaster in 1920
and that:
It was the Assyrian Force that saved the swamping
of the British rule in the Arab revolt of 1920
THE TERMINATION OF THE MANDATE
After negotiating (in 1930) the Anglo-Iraq Treaty of Alliance and the Finance Agreement which placed the main oil fields and railways in the control of the British, Britain decided to terminate the Mandate without provision or qualification. The Permanent Mandates Commission was very apprehensive about the future of the racial and religious minorities in Iraq, but Britain urged the unconditional entry of Iraq in the League upon the following undertaking:
His Majesty's Government realizes the responsibility
in recommending that Iraq should be admitted to the
League should Iraq prove herself unworthy of the
confidence placed in her, the moral responsibility
must rest with His Majesty's Government--
The Statesmen (Sir Francis Humphrys and Lord Cecil) who issued this undertaking forgot the most common rule of International Law that no state can interfere with the internal affairs of another sovereign state.
That is a perfect example of the verbal claptrap which has made Britain a laughing-stock and scorn through the Moslem lands. The Assumption of Moral Responsibility sounds magnificent, but the Iraq question was--what does it mean? Nothing at all. And its evil lies in the pompous self-deception of its phrasing, as much as in the desire to deceive others. Gibbon rightly laughed at the statesmen of rotting Byzantium for their high sounding titles and phrases. They are symptoms of national decay.
That Declaration has been written in Arabic, Turkish, Kurdish, Hebrew, Druze and Armenian characters on every marked-place wall throughout the Middle East. It would scarcely be exaggerating to say that many of the British troops who fell in the Iraq rebellion of 1941, the invasion of Syria or who died on the road to Palestine would never have perished if the sorry farce of the abandonment of the Assyrians had not been clothed in such high-sounding and pompous hypocrisy of self-justification. The Arab understand force. He even appreciates slick double dealing. But he despises the weakness of snuffling hypocrisy under the mantle of piety.
Influenced by this absurd by solemn Declaration and after carefully emulating Pilate's washing of his hands, the Commission reluctantly recommended Iraq's admission in 1932, whereupon the Iraqis immediately celebrated their independence by a massacre of the Assyrian Christians. A British eyewitness exclaimed:
I saw and heard many terrible things in the War,
but what I saw in Semel was beyond human
imagination!
And on the record, Sir John Simmon shook hands with murder, when he stated in Geneva: "Apportionment of blame is a barren proceeding." Some 12,000 of the victims of that massacre were moved from Iraq to stagnate in the pestiferous valley in Syria immediately after these massacres.
WORLD WAR II
In 1941, as the Nazi-inspired Iraq Army rose in revolt a against the British Forces stationed in Habbaniah at a time when the Nazis had seized Syria it was again the Assyrian Levies that saved the situation for the British and the Allies; for, had the Iraq rebellion succeeded, the British flank would have been completely turned in the Middle East. Capt. A.M. Hamilton stated in May, 1945:
The British Empire, and indeed all the Allied nations,
owe the Assyrians a heavy debt following their
key-victory at Habbaniah in 1941, which checked
German expansion to Asia Minor and stopped a
rapidly growing danger of linkage in force with
Japan via the Persian Gulf at a time when the latter
was posed for attack. But for the Assyrians'
historic stand at Habbaniah, Rashid Ali and Nazism
would certainly have controlled Iraq; the Allies
would thus have been split at a critical phase of
affairs before they had mustered their strength and
the vital oil region would have been lost - as probably
would have been the war itself--for both India and
Russia would have been isolated and the Mediterranean
outflanked.
The late Philip Guedalla, who was commissioned by the British Air Ministry to write the story of the air war in the Middle East, declared:
They (The Assyrians) have saved Iraq and the whole
position in the Middle East. Indeed, they have saved
something more. For three weeks later the Germans
went to war with Russia, and they had saved the
road through Persia, which was now vital for the transit
of Allied aid to the USSR. If that was to be safeguarded,
Iraq must be in sure hands; and by strange conjunction
of events, Habbaniah had helped to save the Kremlin.
But what is the condition of the Assyrians today? Worse than before the massacres of 1933. Listen to Mr. Guedalla:
Few communities have shown more courage than the
Assyrians --- and their gallantry was duly rewarded
by a long alternation of massacres and migrations.
And this despite the fact that they were Allies in two World Wars.
SOLUTION
Will America unjustly enrich herself, as the British, at the expense of this "Forgotten Ally" by allowing them to find their abject and ignoble defeat in their glorious victory of 1941? This anomalous situation constitutes the greatest challenge to the Atlantic Charter and to the principles of the Declaration of Independence. The racial and religious minorities in the Middle East are starving for decent, free existence. Here there is no racial problem between the Assyrian, the Kurd, the Hebrew, the Yazidi and the Arab. Nor is there any deep-seated conception of democracy or communism. The problem is solely one of Power Politics, and unless that problem is controlled, the issue will become one of ideology - and this, to the discomfiture of democracy.
The Middle East was the home of civilization. It is now the nerve center of our problem. We dare not permit it to become a hell of power politics. Another massacre of the Assyrians took place only last December-February in the Iranian Azerbaijan during which time some twenty-four Assyrian towns were completely annihilated.
There is but one solution to this explosive political situation--the realization of the natural aspirations of all the native elements. If a federated independent community, comprising all the racial and religious minorities were to exist, like the Swiss Cantons, it would
act as a great stabilizing influence in the Middle East. With such an organization, the majority states would find it easy to collaborate, forming an eventual great Semitic Federation. They have lived together since the beginning of times; and before the advent of alien agencies, each has respected the culture and the aspirations of the other.
-------------------------------------------
Other participants In the symposium:
Dr. Habib J. Awad--Formerly member of FCC: spokesman of Lebanese Christians
D. Tarakhnat Das--Author, visiting professor of NYU
Prof. Abraham I. Katsh--School of Education, NYUDr. D.J.R. Thorbecke--Former Netherlands' Ambassador to China to and So.Africa
The following is a transcript of a tape sent by Kevin Sargis, grand-nephew of Margaret Yohannan, widow of William Yohannan, of "Uncle Jack" made sometime in the 1980's.
The interviewers are relatives of Margie and are probably Kevin, his father, who is Marge's brother Saul's son. "I" will signify the interviewers and "J" will be Jack.
I. Tell us a little about the history of Assyria to your best recollection.
J. Assyria is what is Iraq now. Between the Euphrates and Tigris Rivers, those two rivers. They were a warrior nation. At that time I think they were the first civilized people of the time in that section of the world.
I. How far back?
J. About 400 years B.C.
I. Before the Armenians?
J. Before the Armenians. Armenians came later. There was no Armenia then. What I am saying is, I said 400, could be 350 (laughter) to my recollection. Of course we know through these diggings that they have been doing, many years ago, the English, the French, they dug some from cities like Nineveh, the capital of Assyria and Ashur that is in Upper Iraq.
I. When did it not become Assyria?
J. History doesn't have the exact time when these people are recognized but from our old books that were written the Assyrians were the first people that turned to Christianity...and from one king they turned just the opposite. They were mercenaries--the kings turned to Assyrians when they wanted soldiers to punish countries--swords into plows--they threw down their arms and turned to follow Christianity. I read something, about China, when Marco Polo went there and a Chinese princess heard him talk about Christianity, she said they knew about it.
J. My mother said that after becoming Christians when they dropped their arms they became missionaries and went as far as China and Japan so Marco Polo wasn't the first to go to China.
In National Geographic it says the princess said they already knew about Christianity..there are some statues. I have a book about the provinces of China.
Professor Lemsa? said that there were so many people who had gone from Assyria to China and they figured out there should be about 2 million descendants. I sent National Geographic
a book about China when we lived in Iran (Persia).
We lived in Urumia. Actually UR means Ur of Chaldea.
I. A state or a place?
J. Ur is a place. Mia is water in Assyrian. We have a lake. Lake Urumia.
I. What does Urumia mean?
Discussion about meaning of names.
J. Ours was Urumia because if you look at the map where our country was in Iraq, if you come through the Turkish mountains through Urumia. It is much shorter. When we went from Urumia in 1918 to Baghdad, we couldn't go through the Turkish mountains because the Kurds were not hospitable. They said that Urumia used to be a summer palace for the Assyrian kings. That's why the name: Ur meaning place and Mea, meaning water is Lake Urumia.
I. What does that look like?
J. Salt water
I. How about the area around it?
J. There are towns around it. The water was very salty.
I. What was the vegetation where you lived?
J. It was agriculture.
I. How about your house? Was it air conditioned (laughter) What was the climate like?
J. The climate we had was good climate. Summers were summer and winters were winter.
I. What about snow?
J. Yes, we had snow. Each season was perfect. Compared to Connecticut-- not this extreme. Winter was winter, spring was beautiful.
I. You were all farmers?
J. We were all farmers. That's why in the winters then our people would migrate to Russia to earn cold cash. They had a word for it. The majority of people were farmers.
I. When they went to Russia what kind of work did they do?
J. They learned to paint and some were very fancy painters.
I. Did you learn your trade over there?
J. I was too small.
I. What was your house like?
J. Our house had walls all around the house. Every house had walls around it. It was two stories.
I. How high?
J. Some were part of the house and then you have a door, gate to get into the yard. No fence--a wall was a part of the house. We had a yard.
I. Did you all sleep in one bedroom or didn't you have bedrooms?
J. We each had a bedroom. We had bedrooms upstairs and down below was the barn where the animals were kept. We had a big room we called the citra (?) the winter room and in that room was a tanura (open fireplace). The fireplace was about four feet deep in the center of the room. It was open and as wide as this table, and all around it was from this pottery--clay--you made a fire in there and used it to cook and on top was an opening for the smoke. Then we had a shish with an angle on it and put kettles and pots and pans on the fire and cooked. This fireplace was for cooking and heating in the winter. In the winters we all would have our feet dangling, when the fire cooled down a little, and we put a small table on top and we would have blankets and in the evening we would eat nuts, grapes, raisins.
Laughter.
J. We used wood and buffalo chips - animal chips to light up the fire.
I. There was no heat in the bedrooms?
J. In the bedrooms we had, like a habichi--stoves.
I. Did you have beds?
J. No we had beddings...you'd have a mattress and pillows and they would wrap those up in the day and put them away and they would be back rests. We used to sit on the floor on the Persian rugs.
I. Upstairs was used only to sleep during the night?
J. Yeah.
I. Who kept the fire going?
J. The women.
I. Was there more than one family in the house?
J. Yes, my father, mother, us and my grandmother.
Discussion on grandmothers. Name Leah is mentioned. Leah was Marge's mother.
I. How many children in your family? Were you the only child?
J. No, I had two other brothers and they died when we were running away.
I. Before you ran away, what did your grandmother cook?
J. We cooked the same things we cook here: ru-za (rice), Khou-ish (stew), dolma (stuffed grape leave or cabbage); cha-da (flat bread), mesta (yogurt), jajik (cottage cheese and cream cheese with dill and coriander).
I. Where did you get all this?
J. We had a cow. Great grandfather was a butcher. That's where we got our meat. We had a bekta (garden), we had fruit trees. Away from the house.
I. What did your father do for a living and were you well off like middle class?
J. My mother's family were very well off. Actually they owned the village. They were educated. Their name was Badal also.
I. A Badal married a Badal?
J. My father was a happy-go-lucky kind of guy. Before he was married he lived with his mother and in the morning she would milk the cow and make butter and he would tell her about some need and take butter and milk to others he knew were in need. He was the most-liked man over there. He could never marry my mother because he wasn't in her class. When you wanted to marry someone you sent a matchmaker to talk for you. He sent his uncle to ask for her hand in marriage. His uncle said "if you don't approve of my nephew, I have a son." When my father heard that, he wasn't happy and since my father had been to America several times, he decided to ask her himself, which was not proper. But he did and she accepted. He used to tell us afterward every village had a town square where young people would gather. My mother would come with her pail to a brook and fill the pail with water and dump in the well several times just so she could go by him and see him in the square.
Laughter.
I. Did your father work? What did he do?
J. In the old country, father was a painter. His grandfather was a butcher. Every Saturday the butcher would sell his meat in the town square. My father used to help him and they had vineyards.
I. Your mother really did have the money?
J. Yes, she was a teacher--a seminarian.
I. Why would they want to come here?
J. He came here first - 1905 or maybe 1903.
I. How old were you?
Somebody: he wasn't born yet.
J. First he went to Russia as a painter with Joe Averdis' father.
I. No kidding?
J. He was a real artist. My father was an apprentice in Russia.
I. Why did everybody go to Russia?
J. Because we were close to Russia and we needed cold cash.
I. Was that the place to go?
J. That was the nearest place you could go.
I. How far were you from Russia?
J. They would walk about three days until they got to Araxes--the river between Russia and Persia. From there to Tiflis (Tbilisi)--they used to go and somebody had already got to Tiflis so they used to go back and forth.
I. Was it 100 miles. Three days walk?
J. They would walk for three days and you would take your chadda and drink.
I. Tea?
J. No tea, just spring water.
I. How did you get around - walk?
J. No, they had horses.
I. Camels?
J. No, water buffalo--your grandfather, Moshe, used to use one.
I. I still want to know how they came to this country.
J. Why did everyone else come to this country. For a better life.
I. But your mother's family was well off.
J. But my father was not and he wanted to come. He came before and he worked in Landers Dairy in New Britain.
I. Why would he come here?
J. . I told you before, because other people were here.
I. My father landed first in New York, he came to New Britain.
J. You had to land in New York and they knew people here. The first time he came he was happy-go-lucky. He came here and made enough money to go back and everyone who came back from America brought money, but my father, on his way back stopped at a city and he said he had only one gold piece and said to bring wine, and so he came home drunk as a lord and the only thing he had was an old pair of shoes and rubbers for the shoes. His father said everyone brought money from America, but his son brought back shoes inside shoes.
He was teased so much and he came back and became a baker here. Besides the dairy job, he had a horse and buggy and a lot of our people lived together. Maybe 8 to 10 men living in one place and they used a lot of bread and he brought baskets of bread and was asked who is going to eat all this.
(Discussion on somebody's marriage.)
I. You were how old when you came to this country?
J. I was 16.
I. And your father?
J. The second time he came to this country he had a brother that I'm named after. His name was Moshe. Robbi Moshe was a teacher. So he was bringing him back here and at that time you could get on a boat and come here and they would examine you and if you didn't pass the exam, they would send you back. My father read that Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia, as a U.S. Senator, he thought, had that rule changed so that you could be examined where you took the boat. Some of our people went to Vladivostok in Siberia and came here.
Some of our people also went to Japan because of the quotas because their quotas weren't full there. So he and his brother went to Ellis Island. He said something got in his brother's eye and it was red and watery. Your eyes had to be good so they sent him back and they went to Liverpool, England, and he left Moshe with Presbyterian missionaries to look after him until his eye got better and to send him back to America. My father came here and he never found him again. He went back to Liverpool, he never found him or the missionaries.
I. Was he a younger brother?
J. Yeah. Then my father came back in 1911. He went back and forth and I was born in 1912. The war started in 1916 and he returned and brought back eight thousand dollars. You know 17 Main Street in New Britain--an Irish lady--he lived in that house and the owner had a daughter she wanted my father to marry. She owned almost all of Main street, which was a cow path. He said no, he promised his mother he wouldn't get married in America and went back to marry my mother.
I. How did he get eight thousand dollars?
J. He was a hard worker. Then when he came back, the war started and he bought wheat with his money because the Russians were coming to Iran . But when the war started, they looted the warehouse and he lost everything.
I. Which war?
J. In 1918--that's when the war came to Persia.
I. When did you meet my father? (this was Saul, Margie's brother)
J. I met him in 1918, you were 6 or 7 years old.
I. My father must have been 12 or 13.
I. The Turks were part of this war or just Assyrians and Armenians?
J. There were more Armenians and more of them got killed. In our village the Turks killed 100 people and took the young men and shot them.
I. 100 out of how many?
J. Maybe a couple of thousand.
I. They were killing the males and taking the young females?
J. Before that, we ran away. You know, we had that thing in the winter house and a smaller one - fire pit - for snacks. So when everyone was running away, you could hear the guns. I was 6 years old--my grandmother, and my father was home and he wasn't feeling well, - she was making bread in that fire pit and who came by but Uncle Ephraim's brother Eshoo--the oldest one--he was a husky lad. He said, "Auntie, what are you doing?: She said, "I'm making bread and he took the shinda (dough?) and threw it into the fire and he said "get up, the looters are coming." So he went and we had a pair of oxen and he tied them to the wagon and loaded sacks of flour and the gellion (water pot) because there were three kids - we had two other brothers and they died when we were running away - and my father was not feeling too well and if it wasn't for him (Eshoo) they would have come and massacred us because we were the last to leave the village.
I. Where did you go?
J. We were just running away - for two months. I remember running away.
I. Was Saul with you at that time/
J. I don't remember. I just remember running away.
Discussion on who ran away. Jack talks about Arnold was in this country in the U.S. Arnold's grandmother and his father and Auntie Margie and Auntie Shalam were fleeing the same, as you know, and your mother and your family. I don't know, we were the last ones that probably left.
(Discussion on guns.)
I. Where did they get the weapons?
J. They had guns there. They made guns.
Further discussion on sons and daughters; marriages between cousins; interviewers talking at same time.
J. Cousins married cousins because we were an agricultural country. Everyone owned something. The main reason they didn't allow a girl to marry outside the family was because if we married from another village, the girl had to take her share and they would break up the land and they forced them to marry cousins to keep the land together.
The second reason was that we lived in a Moslem country and Moslem and Christians do not mix and Moslem law is if a girl marries a Christian boy, he had to turn to be a Moslem.
Tape ends with interviewers and Jack laughing and talking.
Transcribed January 13, 1997
Irene Kliszus.
By The Rev.Mishael S. Naby
"I became a prisoner of the Turks in my native town.
I had not been cruel to Moslem neighbors as others had.
My Moslem friends testified that I had helped them as I could.
The first words of a Turkish captain to me were, My son, do not fear.
It happens that guilty and not guilty both are in prison.
I saw prisoners dead in heaps from starvation and sickness.
My Lord helped me and showed me how to escape.
He gave me courage to walk two hundred miles for refuge.
I cannot forget my experience in my native town of Urumia
It was here I met the saintly Rabi Pera Amrikhus
Who taught me more about the power and wisdom of the Cross
His spirit of self-sacrifice to glorify Christ strengthened me.
I learned from Presbyterian missionaries how to spend my life
Saints like Cochran and Shedd sacrificed their lives for Christ
We Assyrians without missionaries could not have such education
They raised saints such as Sa' id Khan and Rabi Pera, the real saints.
I was glad to hear about the Russian Revolution of 1917
I assumed the cause of it was to help the poor and needy
I was sorry when I learned the poor had no real freedom:
More sorry when I knew the revolutionists hate God and His church.
The Rev. Naby was an Assyrian Persian, born in Rizaieh, Iran. After graduating from the Presbyterian Mission College in his native country, he was taken prisoner by the Turkish Army. After his release, he became a teacher, and in 1934,a pastor.
He was the pastor of the Assyrian-Persian Presbyterian Mission Church in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Mr. Naby also administered relief aid in Hamadan under the British. Mary Aurahan said he served with integrity and honesty in all his dealings and never defrauded nor became rich as a result of his service to the refugees.
Mary Yohannan Aurahan, her sister Juan and brother William, were born in Gulpashan, on the Urumia Plain of Persia.They were the descendants of the ancient Assyrian empire. Their grandfather, Joseph Yohannan, was the pastor (Kasha) of the Gulpashan Presbyterian Church.astor (Kasha) of the Gulpashan Presbyterian Church. Their great-grandfather was a bishop in the Nestorian Church. He was the also the translator for
Justin Perkins and rode out to meet the first wave of Protestant missionaries from America circa 1835.
The closest urban citywas Tabriz. In 1834 Tabriz was the most important city in Persia and the location of all foreign embassies. It was still a walled city and the walls with their eight gates were still in a reasonably good state of repair. It was an important commercial centre for the exchange of goods between Persia and Europe, and it had a population of about 80,000.
The religion of most Assyrians in the 19th century was Nestorian Christian and they lived nestled among those of the Mohammadan faith. In 1830 Presbyterian missionaries from America began an active mission work in Persia; changing in many ways the religion and lifestyle of the Assyrians. In 1833, the Presbyterians formed the West Persian mission. They built schools and hospitals. The first couple to reach the mission field were the Rev. Justin and Mrs. Perkins who reached Tabriz in 1834. Justin was 29 when he reached Tabriz.
Perkins, with the help of Mar Yohannan, reduced the spoken Syhriac language to a systematic form, which could be printed. The colloquial languagae was a different dialect and not just a debased form of Church Syriac and it had numerous Persian and Turkish words in it. By using it for their prayers and hymns, Perkins and the other missionaries gave it a standing which has enabled it to become the medium of modern Syriac writing.
* * * * * * * * * *
The following information was taken from the files of the Presbyterian Church (USA) Department of History, 425 Lombard Street, Philadelphia, PA 19147--Telephone 215-627-1852
The Presbyterian Church U.S.A.'s Board of Foreign Missions assumed responsibility for the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions' mission station at Urumia, Persia in 1871. The Persia Mission was then divided in 1883, at which time Urumia and Tabriz were organized as the West Persia Mission.
The Board of Foreign Missions--Iran (Persia) Mission Secretaries' Files, 1881-1968 contain personal and station reports, as well as correspondence of the West Persia Mission during 1914-15 which may be helpful.
* * * * * * *
Iran (Persia)
American Protestant missionary efforts in Persia began in 1829 when Eli Smith and Timothy Dwight were sent by the ABCFM (American Board Commissioners Foreign Missions) to explore the regions of north-western Persia. Upon their recommendation, the ABCFM established a mission to the Nestorian Christians at Urumia in 1834 and appointed Justin Perkins as its first missionary. In 1871, the ABCFM's Mission to Persia was transferred to the PCUSA, thus formally commencing Presbyterian work in Persia.
Within a decade the PCUSA's Persia Mission had expanded to include new stations at Teheran (1872), Urumia (1873), Tabriz (1873) and Hamadan (1880).
Due to the vast differences between stations, the Persia Mission was divided in 1883 with Urumia and Tabriz organized as the West Persia Mission while Hamadan and Teheran constituted the East Persia Mission. The latter was later to include the new stations of Resht and Kazvin (1906), Kermanshah (1910) and Meshed (1911). The East and West Persian Missions were later reunited in 1931 and were known as the Persia and after 1935, the Iran Mission.
The PCUSA's work in Persia was evangelical, educational and medical in nature. Numerous local congregations were organized and eventually served by native ministers of the Central Evangelical Church of Iran, organized in 1934. Medical work began as early as 1835 and progressed during the latter half of the nineteenth century. Formal hospitals were built in Kermanshah (1882), Teheran (1890) and Tabriz (1913) with similar institutions established in Meshed, Hamadan and Resht.
Numerous schools were established, many of which developed into multinational institutions such as the Alborz Foundation (Armaghan Institute), Iran Bethel (Damavand) College, the Community School of Teheran and the Mehz Jordan Schools.
The Iran Mission was formally dissolved in 1960. Since then, the UPCUSA has worked with the Evangelical Church of Iran, providing both personnel and financial support requisite to maintain certain medical and educational institutions.
2/97
On Wednesday, February 19, 1997, Edward and Irene Kliszus and Laura Keyser went to Philadelphia to the Department of History of the Presbyterian Church USA, 425 Lombard Street - known as the Presbyterian Historical Society. The purpose was to review missionary reports from Urumia, Persia from the 1800's to 1919-1920.
The Presbyterian Church's Board of Foreign Missions assumed responsibility for the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions' station at Urumia in 1871. The Persia Mission was then divided in 1883, at which time Urumia and Tabriz were organized as the West Persia Mission.
The name most associated with this mission is the Rev. J. H. Shedd . The following pages are copied directly from his original letter to the mission board, reporting on the work in Urumia and Persia dated sometime in 1871.
His son was the Rev. Dr. William A. Shedd who succeeded his father in the mission field in Urumia and is the Dr. Shedd whom most of the survivors of the Turkish Massacre knew.
THE MISSION TO PERSIA
The enterprise is not a small nor feeble one. There is a mission at work, with all the appliances and parts, to perform all the functions of an aggressive Christianity in the heart of Asia. There is the press, issuing half a million of pages yearly; the training schools for young men and young women; a band of over 50 native pastors and evangelists, many of them earnest and able preachers and laborers in work and doctrine; an aggregate of over 80 congregations organized into ecclesiastical bodies, and in process of training to carry forward the work among the masses around them.
The results already reached are great, not so much in themselves as in their bearing upon the future. It is under the responsibility and aim of reaching the whole people, that our helpers have been reared and our congregations gathered. And we are just beginning to realize this ultimate aim. The field already explored and reached more or less directly, by the influence of our outstations, tours, colporteurs and books, is twice as large as New England, covering nearly the boundaries of Ancient Media and Assyria. And the region which we are called upon directly and at once to evangelize is larger still, with a population of four or five millions at the least.
It covers the very oldest centre of the human race, touching Mount Ararat and the Caspian on the north, bounded on the west and south by the Tigris as it sweeps by the site of Nineveh and Babylon, embracing the capitals or their ruins of nearly a dozen ancient and modern empires, with the tombs of Cyrus and Darius, of Daniel and Esther, and abounding in the most wonderful antiquities, and rock inscriptions of the East. On this original hearth-stone of mankind, the sons of Shem, Ham and Japheth--the Semitic, Turanian and Arian races are co-mingled and fully represented in the peoples and languages of our day. For the full prosecution of our missionary work, six different languages are demanded; Syriac, Armenian, Turkish, Persian, Koordish and the dialect spoken by the Jews. In races and religions our field covers, two Christian sects, the remnants of the Jewish captivity, all the divisions and secret sects of Moslems, and some relics of the Ancient Pagan and Magian religions. Let us glance at each.
1. The Syriac-speaking population embraces all that is left of the Ancient Nestorian Church, after the massacres of Tamerlane, and the centuries of Mohammedan oppressions since. The Nestorian portion are about 100,000 in number, with 40,000 or 50,000 more who have united with the Church of Rome, and call themselves Chaldeans.
Among the purely Nestorian portion, our work has met with its success up to the present time. There remains a great work still to be done, in fact, more than two hundred villages to be evangelized, chiefly among the mountaineers, and the Chaldeans on the plains of the Tigris. The large body of Chaldeans are, at present, very much disaffected toward the Pope, and the past two years hundreds of copies of the Scriptures have been sold among them, and at this time, two or three of our best pioneer preachers are abundant in labors in Ancient Assyria.
The work needs to be pushed on with increased energy from our station at Oroomiah, as every year there are broader openings, and larger demands for the Gospel. There is great encouragement to labor for the Nestorians also as a missionary people. Nestorian evangelists are now among the Armenians and Persians, in Tabreez, Hamadan and Isfahan, and among the Malakans of Russia, and there is good reason to hope that some now alive will traverse, as their fathers did, but with a purer faith, the 2,000 or 3,000 miles, lying between us and the mission stations in India and China.
2. The Armenians. In our mission field there are two distinct centers of this enterprising race. One of these is Tabreez, the commercial metropolis of Persia. There are about 25,000 Armenians in this city and scattered over the province of which it is the capital. In the city, and in half a dozen villages, the Gospel already has gained a hold, and is striking its roots deeper and deeper. Still more broadly light is diffused. Preparatory work is done, and the great want today is for two American missionaries to take up and develop the work begun.
The other center is about 400 miles further east. The Armenians there are the remnants of a captivity as ruthless as any recorded in history. In the year 1605, under Shah Abbas the Great, the Armenians about Mount Ararat were forcibly driven from their homes, and after incredible sufferings, they were settled in the province of Irak.
These colonies have had a history of tragic interest, and they now appeal to the Christians of America, who are doing so much for their brethren in Turkey, to carry to them also, the Gospel in its purity. They occupy the large cities of Teheran, Isfahan and Hamadan, and about 70 villages in the intervening regions, and they are as accessible, and as needy, as the Nestorians were thirty years ago. Nothing should prevent us from extending our assistance to them at once, by planting a missionary station at Hamadan.
With proper effort, and the promised blessing of God upon that effort, a few years of labor would be crowned with many souls saved, and Churches gathered. A company of brethren in Hamadan form already a hopeful nucleus, if but properly taught and trained, for a reformation in Central Persia. Two of their young men are now under instruction, in Oroomiah, for the work. Thus the Master is leading the way, and the appeal from that body of nominal Christians, arising from their past history and present condition, is peculiarly affecting. It is the stronger if we consider their position, in the heart of Persia. They are the seed grain of the Kingdom, for the millions of Mohammedans around them.
This Armenian field in Persia, in its wants and relations to the future, challenges the attention of the best of our students and young pastors. It offers a peculiar sphere of usefulness, where souls are perishing for lack of vision. "Lift up your eyes and look on the fields, for they are ripe already to the harvest."
3. The Persian Mohammedans. These form the great mass of the population. They are Sheahs, which means sectaries, as they dissent from the Sunnee or traditional faith, professed by the Turks, Arabs, Koords, etc.
They differ from the Sunnees in rejecting the first three Caliphs, Abu Beker, Omar and Osman, and in regarding Ali as the only legitimate successor of Mohammed. Ali, the cousin of the prophet and the husband of Fatimah his daughter, is the hero of their faith, and no bound is set to the veneration and fanaticism of which Ali is the object. He possesses super human excellence and miraculous power, and the constant testimony is to render him divine honors.
Ali is the hero-god of Persia, and his wife, Fatimah, is exalted as no other female in Mohammedan lands, and his sons and descendants, the twelve imaums are the personages, about whom cluster their traditions in the past, and their hope for the future. The Persians in ages past have changed their religion oftener than any other people in the past.
By natural disposition, they are far more tolerant than the Turks, and while legally, death is the penalty for apostasy from Islam, practically, a very wide liberty is given to religious discussion and belief. It is a great thing to find a people who are ready to hear the missionary, and to argue the matter with him. This the Persians are willing to do, and still more, there is evidence to those who are looking for the coming of the Kingdom of our Lord in that land, that God is working.
In fact, we stand amazed at the change in the temper of the Moslem population, in the past few years. They seem to invite the native preachers and the missionaries to religious conversation, and in every effort we have made, the opportunity has exceeded expectation.
With the past year, scores of men have come privately and repeatedly, to the religious teachers. In fact, beneath the outward conformity, there is a seething fermentation, and secret sects and societies are unsettling in the faith of multitudes. The Gospel, to a considerable extent is read. Henry Martyn's translation is doing its work in the palaces of princes, and in the shops of artisans, and an earnest English missionary in the spirit of Henry Martyn, is boldly proclaiming Christ, in the east of Persia.
Some are believing; a few are asking for baptism, many we may hope are in the attitude of seeking the Lord, if happily they might feel after him, and find him. We do not mean, that any large numbers are positive inquirers. The death penalty stares every one in the face but we do believe that God is working on the hearts of men. The opportunity for preaching Christ is wonderfully enlarged, and it should be embraced. Even though the faith of some be sealed in blood, it will but hasten the triumph of the Gospel.
In the west of Persia the Mussulman population to the number of at 2,000,000 speak a dialect of the Turkish, and for them a separate version of the Bible is much needed. Our missions have made a beginning in supplying this great want. But to complete the work, the time of one missionary should be fully given to it for years to come.
4. The Heretical Moslem Sects. Here is the next opening and demand for Christian effort. The two prominent sects are the Babees and Ali Illahees. The former of these are the adherents of a new religion of fiery zeal and fanaticism, in fact, one of the most remarkable religious developments of the East.
This sect, though apparently suppressed by the sword is not dead, nor is its history ended. Its martyrs have been numerous, and if put to the test, thousands today stand ready to endure torture and death. The great advantage to the Christian cause from the Babees, is to weaken the dominant faith, and shake the general confidence in the old religion. Thus among the Babees themselves, and among the multitudes, who are in a state of doubt through their influence, there is an immense field, open for the seed of Christianity.
The Ali Illahees, are a population numbering hundreds of thousands, who are no more Mohammedans, than were their Pagan fathers. They outwardly bow the neck to the Mohammedan yoke, but really they keep the superstitions and secret rites of their ancestors. They are sunk in utter ignorance, and the masses confess that they are without light or knowledge. They and the Babees, both are prescribed sects, both admit in a sense the divinity of Christ, and hence they are tolerant and open to the plainest proclamation of the truth.
5. The Koords are an aboriginal race, in their mountain homes, between Turkey and Persia, and numbering at least 1,000,000. They are Moslems of the Sunnee or orthodox faith. Our native helpers and Christians mingle among them, and have diffused considerable light.
One Koordish Mullah professes himself a sincere believer, and in a few cases whole villages have asked for instruction. Deacon Tamo, a Nestorian brother, well versed in ancient Syriac, Hebrew and English, and having perfect command of the idiomatic Koordish, is engaged in translating the Bible into their tongue.
Among the Koords, is the strange sect of the Yesidees, some 20,000 or 30,000 strong. Their faith consists in extreme reverence for Satan. They have no books, no readers, and their religion is falling into decay. No direct effort has been made for their evangelization. How soon we do not know, but surely, the time is coming when they, and all the Koords are to have the Gospel preached unto them, and when their patriarchal system of clans and tribes will be a powerful aid in bringing them to Christ.
6. The Jews. We must not forget the lost sheep of the house of Israel, for we are commissioned" to the Jew first, and also to the Gentiles." Scattered over our field, from the Tigris to the Caspian, in more than one hundred towns and villages, to the number of 50,000 or 60,000 souls, are remnants of both the Assyrian and Babylonian captivities, dwelling by the same "rivers," and in the same "cities of the Medes," where they were originally placed as captives.
These Jews are as favorably situated for Christian effort, as any Jews in the world, and they are as needy. Upon them the curse has come to the uttermost, and they are most deeply oppressed, debased, and sadly sunken, especially their females, in a pitiable and corrupt state of ignorance and sin.
And for these Jews, the time of blessing and salvation is drawing near. The missionary is regarded by them as a friend, and is sometimes invited to teach in their synagogues. They are accessible, and many of them listen with attention, to the claims of Jesus of Nazareth. In a few cases, that same Jesus has been accepted, as the Messiah, and at the present time there is, in Oroomiah, a band of inquirers. We should pray and labor in faith, believing that a remnant according to the election of grace, shall be saved.
Such are the principal features of our field and work in Persia. No thoughtful reader can avoid the conclusion that the providence's and commands of our Lord, alike call upon us to go forward. It is the deep conviction of every missionary, and earnest native laborer in the field, that the time has come, to strike boldly out, and open new centers, and enter on more active and aggressive efforts.
The results already accomplished are preparatory, and the means now employed are such as only need increasing and repeating, to carry the Gospel over the immense expanse of Central Asia that lies before us.
The obstacles are many, but none are so mighty, that they may not be overcome by God's truth and Spirit. Our name has been changed from "Mission to the Nestorians" to "Mission to Persia," in view of the broad fields of Persia, now ripe to the harvest. And just at this juncture, the re-united Presbyterian Church receives the work, and is to meet the new demands on its devotion and liberality.
Not from failure but from success comes up the urgent call for a re-enforcement. In our field today with its multiplied forms of labor among Armenians, Mussulmans, Nestorians and Jews, with its demands of the press, its training schools, its translations, the care of the churches, the peculiar responsibilities of superintending numerous helpers, the calls for touring, visitation of out-stations, requiring journeys in one direction, of twelve days, to the west and in the other direction, of fourteen days to the southeast - to meet all the duties and demands, there is but one mission station, that at Oroomiah, and but three clerical missionaries, and one missionary physician.
The missionaries on the ground are Rev. J. G. Cochran, who has labored since 1848 (his wife and family are in this country) Rev. G. W. Coan and wife, all in the work since 1849; Rev. B.Labaree and wife, since 1860; Dr. T. L. Van Norden and wife, since 1866; and Miss N. J. Dean since 1868. By the last mail the news came that Messrs. Coan and Labaree were both ill, over-burdened by care of labor, and they and Mr. Cochran also may soon be compelled to leave the field. So there is real danger that the mission collapse while all Persia is open before us.
Says the annual report, prepared by one of these brethren last May: "We are almost discouraged, as we view the necessities of the field, and our inability to meet them. Have no hesitation in saying that Tabreez and Hamadan should be occupied at once, by full corps of missionaries. No amount of force at this station can meet the growing work of those important outposts. Of both these places the facts presented speak for themselves.
"Here in Oroomiah, our present force is utterly inadequate for the growing demands upon our time and strength. Mr. Shedd was absent from the station last year, in tours with and without his family, three-fourths of the year, and now he is leaving for a visit to America.
"On his return, another must probably leave. We ask how is it possible for us with our reduced force, to meet the wants of our field, or the expectation excited by the new name "Mission to Persia"" Scores of thousands of immortal souls are waiting to be taught by us, the way of life. God is unmistakably answering the prayers of His people in behalf of this dark kingdom, and now His providence call the Churches, to take up the work He has prepared for them. Will the friends of Christ at home come forward, and furnish us the men and means to plant the standard of the cross among those waiting peoples, or will they bid them still to sit in darkness and death?"
February 1997
The Rev. J. H. Shedd
Missionary to Persia
The Presbyterian Church
Urumia, Persia
1871
In the last number of this magazine we gave some account of the present condition and wants to the "Mission to Persia." In this number we would record a little of what the Lord has wrought among the Nestorians. The difficulty is that the record of faith, toil and success is too long a one to be compressed into a sketch like this.
1. Who are the Nestorians, and where do they live? Their home is the border land between the two great empires of Turkey and Persia, and the two great Mohammedan sects the Sunnees and the Sheahs. It is a mountain region, consisting of seven or eight lofty ridges running parallel, full of torrents and deep ravines, of rocky summits, abrupt and almost inaccessible, containing but few passes, and those seem narrow and easily defensible. Secure, moreover, owing to the rigor of the climate, from hostile invasion for more than half the year, it has defied all attempts to effect its permanent subjugation, whether made by Assyrians, Persians, Greeks, Parthians, or Turks.
Nature seems to have constructed it as a nursery of hardy and vigorous men, and a stumbling-block to conquerors, a thorn in the side of every powerful empire which rises in this part of the great eastern continent. The vastness of such a region are the last resort of the persecuted, and here is found the persecuted remnant of the most ancient and most eastern of the Christian sects.
The largest portion of near 80,000 souls dwell in the center of Koordistan, in the midst of a million of Koords. An eastern branch of near 30,000 has extended over the Persian frontier and into the sunny plains about the Oroomiah lake, and a western branch of near 40,000 is found on the slopes of the mountains and valley bordering the Tigris. These 150,000 souls are doubtless the descendants of the ancient Semitic inhabitants of Assyria and Chaldea.
Their ancestors received the Gospel from the apostles or the disciples of the first century, and in the language which Christ Himself used in his tours through Galilee, and in which in his dying agony he cried in a loud voice, "Eloi! Eloi! Lama Sabachthani!! My God! My God! Why hast Thou forsaken me!" The present language is properly called the Syro-Chaldean, and the people call them