Assyrians in Iran

Assyrians producing butter in Persia

The Assyrian presence in Iran goes back 4,000 years to ancient times, and Assyria was involved in the history of Ancient Iran even before the arrival of the modern Iranian peoples to the region circa 1000 BC. During the Old Assyrian Empire (c.2025-1750 BC) and Middle Assyrian Empire (1365-1020 BC) the Assyrians ruled over parts of Pre-Iranic northern and western Iran. The Neo-Assyrian Empire (911-605 BC) saw Assyria conquer the Iranic Persians, Medes and Parthians into their empire, together with the ancient pre-Iranic Elamites, Kassites, Manneans and Gutians, and also the Iranic Cimmerians of Asia Minor and Scythians of the Caucasus.[9] The home of the Assyrians in Iran has traditionally been along the western shore of Lake Urmia from the Salmas area to the Urmia plain.[10]

After the fall of Assyria between 612 and 599 BC, after decades of civil war, followed by an attack by an alliance of former subject peoples; the Medes, Persians, Babylonians, Chaldeans, Scythians and Cimmerians, its people became an integral part of the Achaemenid Empire (as did Assyria itself), holding important military, civic and economic positions, and the Achaemenid Persians, having spent centuries under Assyrian domination, were greatly influenced by Assyrian Art and Architecture, modelled their empire upon Assyrian lines, and saw themselves as the successors of the great Assyrian kings. Assyrians are still attested as being extant in the north west of the region during the Parthian Empire (160 BC-223 AD) and Sassanid Empire (224-650 AD), and throughout the Middle Ages, where the Bukhtishu family of physicians were held in great regard by the Persian kings.

There were about 200,000 Assyrians in Iran at the time of the 1976 census.[10] Many emigrated after the revolution in 1979, but at least 50,000 were estimated to be still in Iran in 1987.

In 1900, Assyrians numbered over 76,000 in northwestern Iran, constituting over a quarter of the Azerbaijan province's population and were the largest non-Muslim majority in Urmia. Of the 300 villages around Urmia, 60 were exclusively Assyrians and 60 were mixed villages with Assyrian, Armenian, and Azeri communities. Nevertheless, there were over 115 documented Assyrian villages to the west of Lake Urmia prior to 1918.[9]

During the Assyrian Genocide, which took place in World War I, the Ottoman Army together with allied Kurdish and Arab militias along the Iranian-Turkish and Iranian-Iraqi border carried out religiously and ethnically motivated massacres and deportations on unarmed Assyrian civilians (and Armenians) both in the mountains and on the rich plains, resulting in the death of at least 300,000 Assyrians.[11] In 1914 alone, they attacked dozens of villages and drove off all the inhabitants of the district of Gawar. The Assyrians defended themselves and for a time successfully repelled further attacks under the leadership of Agha Petros, seizing control of much of the Urmia region and defeating Ottoman forces and their Kurdish and Arab allies in the process. However lack of ammunition and supplies, due mainly to the withdrawal of Russia from the war, and the collapse of allied Armenian forces led to their downfall. Massively outnumbered, surrounded, undersupplied and cut off, the Assyrians suffered terrible massacres.

By the summer of 1918 almost all surviving Assyrians had fled to Tehran or to existing Assyrian communities or refugee camps in Iraq such as Baqubah. Local Kurds and Arabs and took the opportunity of the last phases of World War I to rob Assyrian homes, murder civilians and leave those remaining destitute. The critical murder that sowed panic in the Assyrian community came when Kurdish militias, under Agha Ismail Simko, assassinated the Patriarch, Mar Benyamin Shimon XIX, on March 3, 1918, under the pretext of inviting him to negotiations, although the Assyrian leader Malik Khoshaba exacted revenge upon Simko by attacking and sacking his citadel, forcing the Kurdish leader to flee for his life.[10]

St. Joseph Chaldean Catholic Church, Tehran

Most Assyrians in Iran are followers of the Assyrian Church of the East, with a minority of 3,900 following the Chaldean Catholic Church.[12] Some also follow Protestant denominations such as the Assyrian Evangelical Church, Assyrian Pentecostal Church and possibly Russian Orthodoxy due to a Russian Ecclesiastical Mission in Urmia during the 1900s.

• Urmia (Syriac: ܐܘܪܡܝܐ‎):
  • Abajalu, Abdulkandi, Adeh (ܥܕܐ), Aliabad, Aliawach, Alikumi, Alqayeh, Anhar, Ardishai, Armutaghaj, Babarud, Badelbu, Badiki, Balanush, Balu, Borashan, Chamaki, Chamashajan, Charagushi, Charbakhsh (fa), Darbarut, Digala (fa), Dizataka, Diszgeri, Gawilan, Geogtapa, Lower Gniza, Upper Gniza, Gulpashin/Gulpashan, Gowzgavand, Hesar Babaganja, Ikiaghaj, Iryawa, Jamlawa, Khanishan, Kosi, Lulpa, Mushawa, Nazlu, Piqabaklu, Qala, Qara-Aghaj, Qarajalu, Qaragoz, Qasemlu, Qezel Ashuq, Qurtapa, Saatlu, Sainabad, Sangar, Saralan, Sardarud, Shirabad (ܫܝܪܐܒܕ), Sir, Sopurghan, Taka, Tarmani, Tazakand, Urmia, Vazirabad, Yaghmiralu, Yengija, Zumalan (ܙܘܡܠܢ).
• Margawar:
  • Diza, Gerdik, Gullistan, Nergi, Razhani.
• Targawar (Syriac: ܬܪܓܘܪ‎):
  • Anbi, Balulan, Darband, Dastalan, Haki, Mavana (ܡܥܘܢܐ), Qurana, Salona, Shibani, Tuleki, Tulu.
• Sumay Baradust:
  • Gangachin, Tazakand.
• Salmas (Syriac: ܣܵܠܵܡܵܣ‎)::
  • Akhtekhana, Chara, Delemon (fa), Guliser, Khanaga, Khosrawa, Mahlam, Patamur, Qederabad, Sarna, Sawra, Ulah, Zewajik.

[13]

Mart Maryam Church in Urmia

• Holy Mary (Mart Maryam) Church – Urmia
• Assyrian Pentecostal Church – Kermanshah – 1955
• St. Joseph (Mar Yozep) Church – Tehran (Forsat St.) – 1950
• St. Thomas (Mar Toma) Church (fa) – Tehran (Amirabad) – 1967

• Hannibal Alkhas, poet and visual artist
• Andre Agassi, Assyrian-Armenian tennis player
• Evin Agassi, music artist
• Mike Agassi, Olympic boxer and father of Andre Agassi
• Ramona Amiri, Miss World Canada 2005
• Ashurbanipal Babilla, actor, theatre director, playwright and visual artist
• Steven Beitashour, MLS player
• Bukhtishu family, famous physicians in the Middle Ages
• Beneil Dariush, MMA fighter
• Eprime Eshag, Fellow of Wadham College, Oxford
• Alexander L. George, Graham H. Stuart Professor of Political Science Emeritus at Stanford University
• Mar Youhannan Semaan Issayi, Archbishop of Assyro-Chaldean Metropolitan Tehran
• George Malek-Yonan, procured a seat in the Iranian Parliament for Assyrians
• Rosie Malek-Yonan, actress, author and activist
• Andrew David Urshan, evangelist and author

• Christians in Iran
• Ethnic minorities in Iran
• List of Assyrian settlements
• Religious minorities in Iran
• Russian Ecclesiastical Mission in Urmia
• Da'tid Bahrana
• Urmia Orthodokseta

• Hooglund, Eric (2008). "The Society and Its Environment". In Curtis, Glenn E.; Hooglund, Eric (eds.). Iran: A Country Study (PDF). Area Handbook Series. United States Library of Congress, Federal Research Division (5th ed.). Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office. pp. 81–142. ISBN 978-0-8444-1187-3. Retrieved 13 October 2013.

• Eden Naby, “The Assyrians of Iran: Reunification of a ‘Millat,’ 1906-1914" International Journal of Middle East Studies, 8. (1977) pp. 237–249
• Eden Naby, “The Iranian Frontier Nationalities: The Kurds, the Assyrians, the Baluch and the Turkmens,”Soviet Asian Ethnic Frontiers, ed.by McCagg and Silver (New York, Pergamon Press, 1979).
• Eden Naby, “Christian Assyrian Architecture of Iran,” News – Harvard University Center for the Study of World Religions (Spring 1998) vol. 5, no. 2, p. 7, 10.
• Eden Naby, "Ishtar: Documenting the Crisis in the Assyrian Iranian Community," MERIA 10/4 (2006)https://web.archive.org/web/20090124055153/http://meria.idc.ac.il/journal/2006/issue4/Naby.pdf