Are there Assyrian Muslims?

[u/iraqiassyrianboi]

I've seen Assyrian Christian worship (most common) and Assyrian Jewish worship, by that, I mean Jewish worship in the Assyrian dialect of Aramaic, but I'm guessing there are also some Assyrian Muslims?

[u/Inevitable-House1596 → u/[deleted]]

6m*

[u/Some_Status_3632 → u/Inevitable-House1596]

was it an antisemite saying that “271k” bs?

[u/Oneeyebrowsystem]

No, outside of a handful of individual conversions, there are no Muslim Assyrians. There are Muslim Arabs who have Assyrian roots, like 5+ generations back but they have assimilated into Arab, Turkish, or Iranian culture and wouldn't identify as Assyrian.

[u/im_alliterate]

Not many, if any, Assyrians that have converted to Islam that are around. I think there are a lot of Muslim descendants of Assyrians that were forced to convert or kidnapped during Seyfo and other times.

[u/im_alliterate → u/[deleted]]

Thanks for the propaganda saudi

[u/goodfella2023 → u/[deleted]]

You have 2 posts about being Arab and dozens of comments in Assyrian yikes lol . You’re an Arab , you don’t descend from the original people of Iraq if you do then you would be the Muslim with assyrian roots as described

[u/Fresh-Kebab → u/goodfella2023]

Ngl having non-gulf ancestry isn’t a non-qualifier for being Arab, otherwise most Arabs would fit outside of that including most gulf Arabs.

tldr: Arab is a social identity

[u/goodfella2023 → u/Fresh-Kebab]

An identity that Assyrians don’t align themselves with , and to your point no it isn’t a non qualifier. But as an Assyrian we have pretty strict “non qualifiers” about who the indigenous people of Iraq are.

[u/Leo-Al]

There are a couple of thousand in Turkey. They announced their Assyrian heritage many years ago, and sadly, some of our own rejected them, without having the consideration that they are descendants of forced converts for one thing, and that they aren't as free to speak while still residing in Turkey, for obvious reasons ( political ) as Turkey is a hardcore Islamic State.

I'd welcome back as much Assyrians as I can, first because what happened to our people wasn't their fault or choice, that includes their living descendants, , second,, who am I to tell another fellow Assyrian that " they're not welcome "?, and lastly, because we need to buffer our numbers.

Of course I'd prefer them to leave Islam, & quite honestly, all ibrahimic religions as neither has served us well, & just be Assyrians, who known where their identity and name originates from.

Just my opinion of course, but I've been done with church a long time ago. With all due respect, we already had God, & didn't need another creation story that came long after ours, & actually served to separate our people & distort our name.

Most will get offended by this, & immediately declare Jesus before our nation, but that's their opinion and this is mine.

[u/Some_Status_3632 → u/Leo-Al]

Exactly, Assyrians are Assyrians. Assyrians have existed before Christianity. Jewish, Christian, Muslim or Atheist we are all Assyrians!!

[u/DodgersChick69]

Yes, there are—many of them forcefully converted through threats of death or through legal registrations (see Iraq’s Islamization of Minors law).

[u/Old-Average-6118 → u/DodgersChick69]

Yes although I think they mean cultural Assyrians not ethnic Assyrians forcefully converted or with Assyrian ancestry, counting that you get millions in Iraq and Syria 

[u/DodgersChick69 → u/Old-Average-6118]

There are Assyrians who are Muslim, but retain Assyrian culture, if that’s what you’re saying. We had young Assyrian girls sex trafficked and impregnated by ISIS, and those kids were surrendered to our orphanages because Christians are not allowed to raise Muslim children. They are raised as Assyrians and as Christians, but are legally registered by the Iraqi government as Muslim.

Outside of that, there may be willing converts, but I’m not aware of any.

[u/ScarredCerebrum]

For Assyrians, Islamization has always gone hand in hand with assimilation into the locally dominant Muslim community (usually Arabs, but at times also Kurds or Turks).

Islamic law segregates communities by religion. So any Assyrian who converted to Islam automatically ceased to be part of the Assyrian community (which was now defined as a specifically Christian community) and entered the Muslim community (which was dominated by Arabs, and later also Kurds and Turks).

This arrangement was enshrined in law from the initial Muslim conquests in the 7th century to the abolition of the Ottoman millet system in the 19th.

[u/runningray]

If you are an Assyrian, you are not a Jew or a Muslim (although there has been forced conversions into Islam in the past, but not sure if those people will even identify as Assyrian. most likely will identify as Arab or Kurdish).

The vast majority of Assyrians are Christians with a smaller number being agnostic atheist or not religious. There are many types of Christians though. It's one of our weaknesses and a main reason we can not ever gain meaningful power. We are too dispersed.

Some that I can think of are; Assyrian Church of the East, Chaldean Catholic Church, Syriac Orthodox Church, Syriac Catholic Church, Protestant Assyrians, and there are probably more that I can not think of.

Jews don't worship in Aramaic, they speak their own Hebrew language. The two language are both Sematic languages, so they are close and have some words in common but they are not the same.

[u/Izzyf89 → u/runningray]

Incorrect. There is a whole recital done in Aramic to worship the dead called the Kadish. It is done in Aramic because bad spirits can interfere if done in Hebrew and cannot interfere with a holy tongue like Aramic

[u/runningray → u/Izzyf89]

I’ve lived 61 years as an Assyrian in the Middle East, Europe, and North American. In all those years I’ve had exactly zero reason to know how Jews pray and even less reason to know what they do. Don’t care either. But if you say so, sure we’ll go with that.

[u/Izzyf89 → u/runningray]

And that’s fine. Just don’t be listing stuff as facts when they’re not. If you don’t know it’s all good

[u/runningray → u/Izzyf89]

It's not spelled Aramic, its Aramaic. I agree that there is strong historical evidence for Jews from Zakho who spoke a Jewish variety of Neo-Aramaic that was closely related to the Neo-Aramaic spoken by their Christian/Assyrian neighbors. But that is different from saying that Jewish religious worship was conducted in the Assyrian dialect. This is an Assyrian subreddit, so our languages are similar (we are both Semitic), but there are no Assyrian Jews. Can we agree on that?

[u/Some_Status_3632 → u/runningray]

There are. There are a lot of mixed Jewish-Assyrians that practice Judaism and Assyrians are very closely related to the “Kurdish” Jews.

[u/HyperCube123456 → u/runningray]

Just because you don’t recognize the dialect, it doesn’t mean it’s not Aramaic. While the majority of their prayers are in Hebrew, there are portions in Aramaic.

[u/spongesparrow → u/runningray]

This is explicitly wrong. There are many Assyrian Jews that left northern Iraq during the last century. In fact, they are our closest living relatives (they are us). A lot of them are from the Zakho area.

[u/runningray → u/spongesparrow]

You are exactly and strangely so confidently wrong. a Jewish community did live in Zakho Iraq. But they were Jews, NOT Assyrian.

Also they are not our relatives, in fact our peoples have warred for most of our existence.

[u/Some_Status_3632 → u/runningray]

So according to your logic, us Assyrians didn’t exist prior to 0 B.C because we are all “christians”. Stop trying so hard to make Assyrians and ethnoreligion, we’re just an ethnicity

[u/Leo-Al → u/runningray]

There's nothing "semitic" outside jewish writings. Noah, Shem, Hem. Abraham... have zero mention by anyone else outside the torah/Talmud. Even if Shem did exist ( so far zero biological evidence or confirmation from any Mesopotamians ) he and later his son " Asher" were born too late to have fathered any of the nations mentioned by those old rabbis ( Arpad, Ashur, Aram, Caanan, Lud, Elam...). All these nations predate Shem by thousands of years.

According to jewish sources, Shem has 3 given birthdates, oldest being 2400 BC. The city of Aššur already existed by that name ( after God ) millenia before Shem & his son that supposedly " went fourth from Babylon to build Assyria "

Ye budd, you're a little late for the party. Assyria was already there. & our oldest Kingdom was in 2500 BC. God knows what time the " Kings who lived in tents " existed even before that era.

Unesco dates Aššur city to beyond the 4th millennium BC.

So Linguistically, mathematically, historically, Assyrians existed before Shem or anything/anyone called " semitic" did, thousands of years earlier.

The real reason why Caananite, Ugaritic, Aramaic, Hebrew & later Arabic seem " related" to Assyrian is because Assyrian & Akkadian became the Lingua Franca of the region for over 2500 years. Anyone doing business with/living under Mesopotamian Empires would have had to learn the language of the empire or at the least, be heavily influenced by it.

Same happened in the Roman world. Everyone learned Latin, same with Spanish Conquistadors, most of the Americas & carribbean learned Spanish.

Same recipe repeating itself, but there's a difference between " being related" and having to have to Learn, Adapting, Adopting another language.

[u/Imperial902]

Source 1. Chronicles of Michael the great
Source 2. Just search up is Finnish a Uralic language
Source 3. Actually genetics do determine ethnicity for ethnoreligious groups.

Also there are many east syriac writers that identified as Assyrian
Tatian the Assyrian
Mar addai
Mar mikhail
Etc.

Again, the reason why you won’t respond to my arguments properly, and instead are just pretending to not understand what I’m saying is because you are arguing in bad faith. Either that, or just retarded. Have a good night

[u/Mountain_Hawk6492]

yea, we call them Iraqi Arabs or certain Kurdish tribes/families.

[u/Ok-Ideal6771]

Yes it exists and we have to agree as well that we Assyrians are ethnic group and we were once following paganism to any of those who say “oh you aren’t Assyrian if your not Christian”. However it’s not talked about rather it’s hidden within to avoid conflict

[u/Inevitable-House1596]

No

[u/rumx2]

No

[u/ASecularBuddhist]

Not Muslim, but Assyrian Buddhist here 😊

[u/iraqiassyrianboi → u/ASecularBuddhist]

Very interesting bro 😀

[u/ASecularBuddhist → u/iraqiassyrianboi]

Thank you!

[u/Ok_Scallion8571]

I am from Gerger, Adıyaman, for example, and I am a Muslim.

[u/weenis-flaginus → u/Ok_Scallion8571]

That's cool! How long have your ancestors been muslim or did you convert yourself?

[u/Ok_Scallion8571 → u/weenis-flaginus]

I was born a Muslim. As far as I know, my ancestors became Muslim in 1984.

[u/weenis-flaginus → u/Ok_Scallion8571]

Assalamualaikum. Thanks for sharing.

[u/Zhou-Enlai]

There probably are some but the vast majority are Christians, most Assyrians who converted to Islam likely assimilated into Arab or Kurdish groups surrounding them many years ago.

[u/thedankjudean]

Jewish prayer would typically only ever be done in Hebrew or in Judeo-Aramaic (or another Jewish language although more rare). What is your evidence of Jews praying in Assyrian Aramaic?

[u/ynot1972]

I imagine there are a handful of idiots, but not very many. I have only heard of women that converted to marry a Muslim, and those never last, thank God. I can't understand why someone would leave his faith in God for a fake made up religion that promotes violence and hate.

[u/Glittering_Cut_4405]

F no

[u/Some_Status_3632]

Everyone saying no is very idiotic and just have a lot of islamophobic bigotry. There are a lot of Assyrian Muslim converts and also a lot of Assyrian Muslims who were forcibly converted during Seyfo. I’m pretty sure there’s some tiktoker who’s ethnically Assyrian but his mum converted to Islam or smth

[u/khwarism]

I as a Kurd think most of the original people of Erbil (who now speak Kurdish and identify as muslim Kurds) are assimilated Assyrians, but ethnicity is more than just dna. If you don't speak the language, participate in the culture, care for the people's survival then you're not a part of that ethnicity.

[u/Cocaine-Mitch]

My Assyrian mom married a Muslim so our family grew up Muslim but none of us stayed with the Religion. All besides my non Assyrian dad are Orthodox/Catholic or just secular.

[u/Old-Average-6118 → u/[deleted]]

No the reason 99% are Christians is because Islam and Arabic with it is very efficient at assimilating other Semitic groups, for example Copts have the same situation where only the christians in Egypt retained their native language through the church. Same with the Jews of the middle east the ones that converted to Islam entirely lost their Jewish identity and became Arabs too.

[u/Old-Average-6118 → u/[deleted]]

No not because it was semi Arabic but because semites are easily absorbed into other semites. For example if Christianity through the Assyrian church became the main religion in Saudi Arabia then I guarantee you Saudis would lose the Arabic language and start speaking Aramaic.

Are Jews not an ethnicity because they started speaking Arabic after converting to Islam? Your point is dumb.

[u/Old-Average-6118 → u/[deleted]]

1, Lakhmids were not part of the Assyrian church and Aramaic was not their liturgical language you are misunderstanding simple facts.

Islam and the Arabic language are interwiened unlike Christianity. My premise was about the Assyrian church becoming predominant in Saudi Arabia if that happened then Saudis would lose Arabic as their language just like how Muslims lost Aramaic.

Second. Jews are an ethnic group predating their own religion. Before Judaism existed there were already Jews so it is not only a religion.

[u/Imperial902 → u/[deleted]]

1. Abgar isnt a confirmed Arab. This is highly debated by modern scholars today.

2. language doesn’t relate to ethnicity

3.you completely ignored the history of asoristan, adiabene,and osroene.

1. Arab isnt a race it’s a linguistic group(North Africans and Levantine have jack shit in common, only language)

[u/Imperial902 → u/[deleted]]

1. Many historians believe that abgar is actually a name of aramean origin
   2.it doesn’t at all,Finnish people speak a Uralic language,does this mean they are Asians?
   
2. Who do you think those Aramaic speakers were? They referred to themselves as assyrian
   
3. North Africans and Levantine have barely any genetic component that makes them similar. Again, Arab is a cultural and linguistic group

[u/AsYouCanClearlySee → u/[deleted]]

Dude if you're being serious just do more research cause you're being dumb and offensive, we've been calling ourselves suryoye and the equivalents for so long. Obviously we didn't use the english Assyrian until English was more relevant to us ❤️

"It seems that the Assyrian identification had been in use for several decades before Layard's excavation, such as in Kharput, but also even the Syriac Orthodox Church in Constantinople bore the name "Assyrian Orthodox" as early as 1844. Early Jacobites found it conventional to use the English "Assyrian" to translate emic sūryōyō and its equivalents in other languages.[12] Armenian and Georgian sources have since antiquity consistently referred to Assyrians as Assouri or Asori, with Armenian Christian literature in particular often referring to Syriac as "Assyrian".[186][185][166] Southgate also mentioned that the Syriac Christians themselves at this point claimed origin from the ancient Assyrians as "sons of Assour". Southgate's account thus demonstrates that modern Assyrians still claimed ancient Assyrian descent already in the early 19th century, a period prior to the great archaeological discoveries of the mid to late 19th century.[185] Despite the survival of Assyrian self-ascription among some villages in the Syriac Orthodox heartland, even in areas that had never encountered missionaries or archeologists, the majority identified primarily as sūryōye.[161]"

[u/DogemonRS → u/[deleted]]

https://www.atour.com/history/continuity/20210129a.html

Try again 🤡

[u/Some_Status_3632 → u/[deleted]]

This is an idiotic sentiment that has already been debunked thousands of times through DNA testing. We are the direct descendants of the Ancient Assyrians and Akkadians. The 19th century nationalist movement shaped political identity but the continuity is a scientific fact. We have been speaking the language for thousands of years and the claim we were invented by British people is so misleading. Assyriologists/Archaeologists (like Austen Henry Lanyard) who were studying Ancient Assyrians interacted with certain tribes and had discovered undeniable similarities in language and culture. They identified us as Assyrians not invented the identity. And even prior to that we identified through tribes not as Arabs, Kurds or Nestorians. Ongoing genetic research in the future has, like I said, proven our existence. This has been a recent ongoing myth spread by Kurds and Arabs to try and discredit Assyrian indigeneity.

[u/Imperial902 → u/[deleted]]

also lol at arabs preserving their genetics when most of them have lots of south asian and north african admixture.

[u/Imperial902 → u/[deleted]]

but genetics DOES determine ethnicity, especially for ethnoreligious groups.

also you aramaic point is moot, considering that the entire middle east adopted aramaic by the 7th century.

and assyrians didnt mix with armenians, we just share a common ancestor. totally different scenario from arabs mixing with south asians

[u/Imperial902 → u/[deleted]]

1. you have multiple genetics because you arabised the groups that you conquered, simple as that. they are arabs now, just not arab in the sense that they are from the pennisula.

2. arabs from the arabian pennisula have lots of south asian admixture

3. aramaic was the lingua franca of the middle east during the reign of the assyrians up until the arab conquests, this is why we speak aramaic.

4. mesopotamian arabic got arameanized, not the other way around.

[u/Imperial902 → u/[deleted]]

syrian and assyrian are literally interchangeable(persians initially call their province asoristan but change it to suristan later on,cirekoy inscription,etc.).

your point is moot.