Thursday, May 06, 2010

Sacrificed Like Sheep

Armenian Genocide #1

Concerning my previous post about the halal-slaughtered shop owner in Denmark: the date of the referenced Armenian massacre was 1895, and not 1915. Twenty years before the Armenian Genocide of the Great War, an Ottoman massacre of Armenians took place in Urfa.

Andy Bostom has kindly pointed us to the reference in his book, The Legacy of Jihad (page 674), citing Lord Kinross in The Ottoman Centuries: The Rise and Fall of the Turkish Empire (New York: Morrow Quill Paperbacks, 1979, pp. 559-560):

Armenian Genocide #2Cruelest and most ruinous of all were the massacres at Urfa, where the Armenian Christians numbered a third of the total population. Here in December 1895, after a two-months siege of their quarter, the leading Armenians assembled in their cathedral, where they drew up a statement requesting Turkish official protection. Promising this, the Turkish officer in charge surrounded the cathedral with troops. Then a large body of them, with a mob in their wake, rushed through the Armenian quarter, where they plundered all houses and slaughtered all adult males above a certain age. When a large group of young Armenians were brought before a sheikh, he had them thrown down on their backs and held by their hands and feet. Then, in the words of an observer, he recited verses of the Koran and ‘cut their throats after the Mecca rite of sacrificing sheep.’ [emphasis added].

[Post ends here]

4 comments:

S said...

After the Mecca rite of sacrificing sheep....


http://blog.peta.org/archives/2009/12/halal.php


This is practiced in front of children in the streets and in homes in every muslim neighborhood. Still.

Papa Whiskey said...

At least one Armenian enclave successfully resisted the Islamic onslaught in 1895: the town of Zeitoun. The Zeitounlis were much like American frontiersmen, in that everyone had a weapon and knew how to use it. The story is told here.

Baron Bodissey said...

A reader sends this comment:

The article by Andrew Bostom reminds me of a book I once read that first drew my attention to the Armenian genocide prior to 1915, specifically to the 1895 massacres.

There was a book written called, "The Beautiful Life of Frances E. Willard" by Anna Adams Gordon after her death in 1898. A suffragette and leader of the temperance movement, she learned of the Armenian crisis from a journey to France in 1896 where she encountered many of the refugees.

She devoted chapter (12) to their plight, titled, "Answering Armenia's Cry".

"Turks were the agressors, Armenians the sufferers, in this strange war, and this bore something of the character of a race conflict."
"Turkey went wild with greed and pride and domination in the name of religion."The madness of the Turkish government had method in it. It was a good time to end Christian Armenia."

Rocha said...

That was the works of Great Britain and France. In regard to the "eastern question" their meedling with Russia defense of the region christians in the crimean war, Russo-Turkish War (1877-78, Greco-Turkish War 1897, even the 1913 war was in danger of jeopardy because of the "powers" if it was by austrian will there would be no christian in thrace and macedonia today.