Assyrians — a historical summary

The Assyrians of today are the indigenous Aramaic-speaking descendants of the ancient Assyrian people, one of the earliest civilizations emerging in the Middle East, and have a history spanning over 6760 years.  Assyrians are not Arabian or Arabs, we are not Kurdish, our religion is not Islam.  The Assyrians are Christian, with our own unique language, culture and heritage.  Although the Assyrian empire ended in 612 B.C., history is replete with recorded details of the continuous presence of the Assyrian people until the present time.  

The Assyrian kingdom, being one of the base roots of Mesopotamia, encouraged urbanization, building of permanent dwellings, and cities. They also developed agriculture and improved methods of irrigation using systems of canals and aqueducts.  They enhanced their language that served as a unifying force in writing, trade and business transaction.  They encouraged trade, established and developed safe routes, protecting citizens and property by written law.  They excelled in administration, documented their performance and royal achievements, depicting their culture in different art forms.  They built libraries and archived their recorded deeds for prosperity.  They accumulated wealth and knowledge; raised armies in disciplined formation of infantry, cavalry and war-chariot troops with logistics; and built a strong kingdom, an unique civilization and the first world empire.

The heartland of Assyria lays in present day northern Iraq, northeastern Syria, southeastern Turkey, and northwestern Iran.  The remains of the ancient capital of Assyria, Nineveh, is next to Mosul in northern Iraq.

Prior to the Assyrian Holocaust which occurred before, during and after World War I, the major Assyrian communities still inhabited the areas of Harran, Edessa, Tur Abdin, and Hakkari in southeastern Turkey, Jazira in northeastern Syria, Urmia in northwestern Iran, and Mosul in northern Iraq as they had for thousands of years.

The world’s 4 million Assyrians are currently dispersed with members of the Diaspora comprising nearly one-third of the population.  Most of the Assyrians in the Diaspora live in North America, Europe and Australia with nearly 460,000 residing in the United States of America.  The remaining Assyrians reside primarily in Iraq and Syria, with smaller populations in Turkey, Iran, Lebanon, and Jordan.

The Assyrians are not to be confused with Syrians even though some Syrian citizens are Assyrian.  Although the name of Syria is directly derived from Assyria and Syria was an integral part of Assyrian civilization, most of the people of Syria currently maintain a separate Arab identity.  Moreover, the Assyrians are not Arabs but rather have maintained a continuous and distinct ethnic identity, language, culture, and religion that predates the Arabization of the Near East.  In addition, unlike the Arabs who did not enter the region until the seventh century A.D., the Assyrians are the indigenous people of Mesopotamia.  Until today, the Assyrians speak a distinct language (called Aramaic [Syriac]), the actual language spoken by Jesus Christ.  As a Semitic language, the Aramaic language is related to Hebrew and Arabic but predates both.  In addition, whereas most Arabs are Muslim, Assyrians are essentially Christian.

The Assyrians were among the first to accept Christianity in the first century A.D. through the Apostle St. Thomas.  Despite the subsequent Islamic conquest of the region in the seventh century A.D., the Church of the East flourished and its adherents at one time numbered in the tens of millions.  Assyrian missionary zeal was unmatched and led to the first Christian missions to China, Japan, and the Philippines.  The Church of the East stele in Xian, China bears testament to a thriving Assyrian Christian Church as early as in the seventh century A.D. Early on, the Assyrian Church divided into two ancient branches, the Syrian Orthodox Church and the Church of the East.  Over time, divisions within these Assyrian Churches led to the establishment of the Chaldean Church (Uniate Catholic), Syrian Catholic Church, and Maronite Church.  Persistent persecution under Islamic occupation led to the migration of still greater numbers of Assyrian Christians into the Christian autonomous areas of Mount Lebanon as well.  With the arrival of Western Protestant and Catholic missionaries into Mesopotamia, especially since the nineteenth century, several smaller congregations of Assyrian Protestants arose as well.  A direct consequence of Assyrian adherence to the Christian faith and their missionary enterprise has been persecution, massacres, and ethnic cleansing by various waves of non-Christian neighbors which ultimately led to a decimation of the Assyrian Christian population. Most recently and tragically, Great Britain invited the Assyrians as an ally in World War I.  The autonomous Assyrians were drawn into the conflict following successive massacres against the civilian population by forces of the Turkish Ottoman Empire, Kurds, Arabs and Persians.  Although many geopolitical and economic factors were involved in provoking the attacks against the Assyrians, a jihad or holy war was declared and served as the rallying cry and vehicle for marauding Turks, Kurds, and Persians.  Although the Muslim holy war against the Armenians is perhaps better known, over three-fourths, or 750,000 Assyrian Christians were also killed between 1843-1945 during the Assyrian Holocaust.

The conflict and subsequent Assyrian Holocaust led to the decimation and dispersal of the Assyrians.  Those Assyrians who survived the Holocaust were driven out of their ancestral homeland in Turkish Mesopotamia primarily toward the area of Mosul Vilayet in Iraq, Jazira in Syria, and the Urmi plains of Iran where large Assyrian populations already lived.  The massacres of 1915 followed the Assyrians to these areas as well, prompting an exodus of many more Assyrians to other countries and continents.  The Assyrian Holocaust of 1915 is the turning point in the modern history of the Assyrian Christians precisely because it is the single event that led to the dispersal of the surviving community into small, weak, and destitute communities.

Most Assyrians in the Diaspora today can trace their emigration from the Middle East to the Assyrian Holocaust of 1915.  Many, who fled from their original homes into other Middle Eastern countries subsequently, just one generation later, once more emigrated to the West.  Thus, many Assyrian families in the West today have experienced transfer to a new country for three successive generations beginning, for instance, from Turkey to Iraq and then to the United States.

During World War I, after the Assyrians ["Our Smallest Ally"] sided with the victorious Allies, Great Britain had promised the Assyrians autonomy, independence, and a homeland.  The Assyrian question was addressed during postwar deliberations at the League of Nations.  However, with the termination of the British Mandate in Iraq, the unresolved status of the Assyrians was relinquished to the newly formed Iraqi government with promises of certain minority guarantees specifically concerning freedom of religious, cultural, and linguistic expression.  The Assyrians lost two-thirds of their population during the World Wars.

The Simele Genocide (Syriac: ܦܪܡܬܐ ܕܣܡܠܐ: Premta d-Simele) was the first of many massacres committed by the Iraqi government during the systematic genocide of Assyrians of Northern Iraq in August 1933. The term is used to describe not only the massacre of Simele, but also the killing spree that continued among 63 Assyrian villages in the Dohuk and Mosul districts that led to the deaths of an estimated 3,000 innocent Assyrians.  Today, most of these villages continue to be illegally occupied by Arabs and Kurds.

Currently, the Assyrians are religiously and ethnically persecuted in the Middle East due to Islamic fundamentalism, Arabization and Kurdification policies, leading to land expropriations and forced emigration to the West.

Related Information

Historical timeline from 1915 to the 1958 Iraqi Revolution detailing the plight and suffering of the Assyrians

1937: The Assyrians: A Debt of Honour
1935: League of Nations — The Settlement of the Assyrians, a Work of Humanity and Appeasement
ANNEMASSE: The Assyrian Tragedy, February 1934. | Assyrian National Petition

Assyrian Holocaust

Assyrian History Timeline:  1900's | 1800's
      (historical documents, letters and articles)

Armenian, Assyrian and Hellenic Genocide News
      (current genocide news information)