Turkmen (Syria)

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Part of the Turkmen settlement area in northern Syria
Flag of the Turkoman people
second embodiment

The Turkmen or Turkomans ( Turkish Turkmen ) make up between 100,000 and 200,000 or up to 1,000,000 people in Syria . They live mainly in the cities of Aleppo , Damascus , Hama , Homs and Latakia, as well as in the al-Jazeera area . Despite the name given, there is no direct connection with the modern state of Turkmenistan .

Many Turkmens now mainly speak the national language Arabic , some also speak Turkish or a South Azerbaijani dialect. The predominant religion is Sunni Islam . Today's Turkmen are the remnants of the Ottoman-Turkish population who remained in Syria after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. The Turkmen of Iraq are a closely related group. Conversely, many Syrian Arabs live in Turkey . During the Syrian civil war (from 2011), many Turkmens in Syria asked Turkey for protection and help. Like other ethnic groups, the Turkmen formed their own combat units. An example of this are the brigades that call themselves the Syrian Turkmen Army (Turkish: Suriye Turkmen Ordusu ) and are part of the national coalition of Syrian revolutionary and opposition forces .

history

Since the 11th century, the Middle East and Syria have been increasingly populated by Turkish tribes. Before that, Turks served as military soldiers for the Arab caliphs and were stationed in garrisons in Syria. In the 12th century, Iraq and Syria came under the rule of the Turkish Zengids , which arose after the collapse of the Seljuk Empire . The Zengids were replaced by the Ayyubids and these by the Mamluks .

In the course of the expansion of the Ottoman Empire , Syria became part of the empire in 1516 under Sultan Selim I , who defeated the Mamluks in the Battle of Marj Dabiq near Aleppo . During this Ottoman rule, other Turkish tribes were settled here. According to the settlement policy, the Turkish settlers occupied important points (Latakia, Aleppo, Homs, Hama) and were supposed to protect the pilgrimage to Mecca , among other things . In 1864 the Vilayet Syria was established . After the Russo-Ottoman War between 1877 and 1878 and the loss of the areas in the Caucasus, the Ottomans settled some of the war refugees in Syria in the Golan Heights, among other places . When the Ottomans were defeated in the First World War in 1918 , their Arab provinces were separated from the empire and Syria was first a French mandate and later an independent state.

The Syrian governments pursued a policy of Arabization against their ethnic minorities which, among other things , wanted to establish an " Arab Belt " in the north on the Turkish border . Turkmen and Kurds in this area were resettled and should be cut off from their relatives in Turkey. Their possessions passed to Arab settlers. In addition to this policy, non-Arabic place names were also renamed.

population

The Turkish population decreased after the First World War when the Turks began to emigrate to the newly founded Turkey . Various sources assume a population of 100,000 to 200,000 people. Turkish sources estimate the community to be between 750,000 and 1,500,000 members. In 2012, the Turkish media assumed there were 1.5 million Turkish- speaking Turkmens and 2 million other assimilated Turkmens.

Well-known Syrian Turkmen

bibliography

  1. ^ David Commins: Historical Dictionary of Syria (= Historical Dictionaries of Asia, Oceania, and the Middle East. Vol. 50). 2nd edition. Scarecrow Press, Lanham MD et al. 2004, page 268. ISBN 0-8108-4934-8 .
  1. ↑ Alessandra Galié, Kerim Yildiz: Development in Syria. A Gender and Minority Perspective. Kurdish Human Rights Project, London 2005, page 18, ISBN 1-900175-88-6 .
  1. ↑ Kemal H. Karpat : Studies on Turkish Politics and Society. Selected Articles and Essays (= Social, Economic, and Political Studies of the Middle East and Asia. Vol. 94). Brill, Leiden et al. 2004, page = 436, ISBN 90-04-13322-4 .
  1. ↑ a b Abdi Noyan Özkaya: Suriye Kürtleri: Siyasi Etkisizlik ve Suriye Devleti'nin Politikaları. In: Uluslararasi hukuk ve politika. UHP = Review of international Law and Politics. RILP. Vol. 2, No. 8, 2007, ISSN  1305-5208 , pp. 90-116, online (PDF; 766 KB) ( Memento from January 24, 2011 in the Internet Archive ), acc. Oct. 3, 2012, page 112.
  1. ^ Nawar Shora: The Arab-American Handbook. A Guide to the Arab, Arab-American & Muslim Worlds. Cune Press, Seattle WA 2009, page 236, ISBN 978-1-885942-47-0 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b David J. Phillips: "Peoples on the Move: Introducing Nomads of the World" William Carey Library, 2011, ISBN 978-0878083527 (488 pages), p. 301
  2. ↑ 3. Syria, 2011: Convoluted loyalties, a chaotic insurgency, and the revival of the caliphate, page 168. // Al Qaeda's Global Crisis: The Islamic State, Takfir and the Genocide of Muslims in the Google book search. Author: VG Julie Rajan. Contemporary Terrorism Studies. New York: Routledge, 2015, 366 pages. ISBN 9781317645382
  3. ^ A b Turkmen in joint battle 'for Syria democracy In: AFP . Retrieved March 4, 2013
  4. ↑ Middle East Information Service (ISSN: 0949–1856): Press cuttings on politics, economy and society in North Africa and the Near and Middle East. Authors: German Orient Institute; German Overseas Institute. Hamburg: Deutsches Orient – ​​Institut, 1996, page 33. - "The number of Turkmens in Syria is not fully known, with unconfirmed estimates ranging between 800,000 and one million."
  5. ↑ Dispossessed Turkomans in Syria wait for Turkey's support ( Memento from January 5, 2013 in the web archive archive.today )
  6. ↑ Syrian Turkmen ( Memento from April 10, 2012 in the Internet Archive )