Assyrians in Syria
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A large part of the Assyrian population in Syria settled there at the beginning of the French Mandate of Syria as refugees from the now Turkish areas North of present-day Syria, then as refugees from the newly independent Iraq in 1932-1933 after the massacres of Assyrians there (see Assyrians in Iraq).
In 1936, in the midst of local incidents, religious and political leaders in the Syrian province of Jazira (nowadays the Governorate of Al Hasakah) asked the French authorities to give the province an autonomous status with regard to its mixed Assyrian-Kurdish-Armenian-Jewish-Arab population, like in the Sanjak of Alexandretta, the Alaouites territory or the Jabal el Druze, with no result as the Arab nationalists in Damascus opposed any balkanisation of the future independent Syrian Republic.
Later on, in 1957, an Assyrian Democratic Organisation was put up in Syria by left-wing intellectuals from the various ethnic groups and religious communities whose main native languages were Eastern neo-Aramaic dialects.
[edit] 1943 Syrian census in the Jazira and Euphrates provinces
source: Albert Habib Hourani, Minorities in the Arab World, London, Oxford University Press, 1947, p. 76
|
community |
Jazira |
Euphrates |
Syria |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Sunni Muslims |
99,665 (68.3%) |
220,552 (98%) |
1,971,053 |
|
Shi'a Muslims |
326 |
0 |
12,742 |
|
Alawis |
93 |
78 |
325,311 |
|
Ismailis |
8 |
12 |
28,527 |
|
Druzes |
0 |
4 |
87,184 |
|
Yazidis |
1,475 (1%) |
0 |
2,788 |
|
Jews |
1,938 (1.3%) |
72 |
29,770 |
| Assyrians |
31,700 (21.8%) |
1,700 |
|
|
among whom: Syriac Orthodox |
17,793 |
763 |
40,135 |
|
2,851 |
697 |
16,247 |
|
|
9,176 |
0 |
9,176 |
|
|
1,944 |
243 |
4,719 |
|
| Armenians |
9,000 (6.7%) |
||
|
among whom: Apostolic Armenians |
7,925 |
1,679 |
101,747 |
|
1,863 |
616 |
16,790 |
|
|
Protestants |
453 |
27 |
11,187 |
|
Latin Catholics |
29 |
25 |
5,996 |
|
Maronites |
56 |
71 |
13,349 |
|
Orthodox Melkites |
336 |
159 |
136,957 |
|
Catholic Melkites |
70 |
25 |
46,733 |
|
TOTAL |
146,001 |
225,023 |
2,860,411 |
Among Sunni Muslims, according to Hourani there were about 130,000 Kurds for the two provinces.
[edit] Religious communities
- Assyrian Church of the East
- Assyrian Church of the East's Holy Synod
- Chaldean Church of Babylon
- Syriac Catholic Church
- Syriac Orthodox Church
- Assyrian Evangelical Church
- Assyrian Pentecostal Church
People who consider themselves as Assyrians are usually followers of one of the aforementioned churches, but not all members of them consider themselves as Assyrians, ethnic and national identities being intertwined with religious ones, a heritage of the millet system.
