How did Armenia remain Christian after the advent of Islam?

by HuffsGoldStars

Most of its neighbours appear to have converted to Islam, so I'm curious how they stayed Christian (especially during the time they had Muslim rulers).

woeskies

Armenians did, modern Armenia did not. From the 1600s, when Persia forcibly relocated Armenians out of modern day Armenia, until its takeover by Russia, the area was majority Turkic. While mountainous regions such as nagorno karabakh and the area around Van were are harder to acculturate, remaining Armenian majority, there is nothing in particular about Armenians that made them more likely to survive. Many became Muslims, adapting a Turkic language or Persian or Arabic. However Armenian minorities existed all around these areas. same as they do with Palestinian Christians. But via Russian settlement policy, they became concentrated in one area, modern Armenia. This was further supplemented by refugees from turkey. And it should be noted that the highest concentration of Armenians in turkey were in the more mountainous terrain of south eastern turkey

I wrote this from my phone. Can provide citations if needed, feel free to ask further questions