Talk:List of mosques in Armenia

Mosques in "Armenia"

This is a list of mosques found within the current borders of Armenia or the Armenian Plateau? If the latter, then it should includes mosques in Van, Erzerum, and so on. This should be clarified in the first line of the article.--Marshal Bagramyan (talk) 22:39, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

I've added an image of the Abbas Mirza Mosque to the article. I think the sentence "there were 8 mosques in Erivan in the mid-19th century" needs some clarifying. Does this mean 8 mosques within the city limits of modern Yerevan or the Erivan Governorate? I know there is a book by Yervand Shahaziz called Հին Երևանը (Old Yerevan) that could probably clear things up a bit; unfortunately, I do not have access to it.

Yerevan aside, though, is there evidence of there having been mosques in Gyumri (Alexandropol) or Vanadzor (Gharakilisa)? I feel like this information could have been placed in the History of Yerevan article or the article on Islam in Armenia. JackalLantern (talk) 07:48, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

Would anyone be so kind as to answer my above question? There's a risk of overlap and over-coverage of the topic if the geographical scope of this article remains vaguely defined. I can't say I'm too thrilled with the editorial-like edits which have been added recently, but there is a problem when the original creators of this article do not care to tell us what Armenia they are referring to.--Marshal Bagramyan (talk) 00:31, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

I added a clarification. This is a list of mosques that existed within the current borders of Armenia. Grandmaster 22:04, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

So at the time Armenia became a part of the Soviet Union?--Marshal Bagramyan (talk) 23:02, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

What's the time frame of List of Armenian churches in Azerbaijan? Grandmaster 08:34, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

Improve the article

Please write what happened to these temples. Where are the users who add pages over several Armenian khachkars broken or lost in other parts of the world, say in Azerbaijan or Nakhchivan? Do we have several standards here for the cultural heritage of different nations or respecting each people's sacred religion? Please write more about the Turkish and muslim heritage that "disappeared" in this part of the world. Waiting... --E4024 (talk) 22:35, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

It is briefly discussed in Thomas de Waal's book Black Garden. Most of the demolition in Yerevan took place during the Soviet period (and churches were also subject to demolition) but I believe there was a mosque that was demolished as late as the early 1990s. Neither the governments of Armenia, Azerbaijan, nor Turkey are very good at preserving cultural heritage, however, and attempts at "restoration" like at Lake Van's Akdamar or Yerevan's Blue Mosque have, if anything, been more destructive and damaging to the structures. JackalLantern (talk) 23:57, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

See St. Paul and Peter Church. It was located where Moscow Cinema is now. There was a mosque right next to it. In this picture the mosque can still be seen at the background, while the the 5th century Armenian church is already demolished, the ruins can clearly be seen in the foreground. This is what happened to most mosques in Armenia. I believe the same happened to many Armenian churches inside the AzSSR borders. There was never a systematic destruction of mosques or any kind of Islamic cultural heritage in Armenia (except 1930s, when Stalin regime demolished all kinds of religious buildings), like there was in both Turkey and Azerbaijan. If you believe there was, please provide me with third-party sources confirming that. --Երևանցի ^talk 00:43, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

In 1990 a mosque in the capital of Armenia was knocked down with a bulldozer. You can read about that in the article from New Yorker, and in De Waal's book. And I don't think that so much Muslim cultural heritage was destroyed anywhere else. In Yerevan, they demolished 7 mosques, the fortress, khan's palace, and many other historical buildings. Just compare the pictures of pre-revolutionary Erivan and modern Yerevan. Grandmaster 07:49, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

I think the loss of the city's Islamic heritage had more to do with the cultural homogenization, modernization and anti-religious policies of the Soviet Union than Armenian bigotry, though the latter could perhaps be said about the 1990 bulldozing. In the early Soviet period, Yerevan was the least developed of the three Transcaucasian capitals so it is not surprising that it saw the most destruction in the name of modernization and cultural homogenization. Similar processes were also taking places in the other "ethnic" republics of the Soviet Union (Tiflis being renamed Tbilisi, the registration of Kurds living within Soviet Azerbaijan as ethnic Azeris, etc.). Jackal 07:55, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

If you look at neighboring capitals of Baku and Tbilisi, the old quarters were not wiped out there, on the contrary, the local authorities did their best to preserve them. In Tbilisi Muslim quarters still exist. In Yerevan they chose to totally destroy the old city, and build a new one on its ruins. Renaming of toponims was a different issue. Grandmaster 08:31, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

Local authorities in the Georgian and Azerbaijan SSR might have tried their best to preserve historical religious structures but religious buildings were demolished (Baku's Bibi-Heybat Mosque and Church of the Immaculate Conception, for example). I think you are trying to attribute the destruction in Yerevan to some sort of Armenian intolerance in contrast to a purported respect for conservation in the other Soviet republics. I don't find this to be the case and argue that most if not all Soviet republics were subject to these Soviet policies, though Yerevan likely saw more transformation and destruction than Baku and Tbilisi. Anyway, there are several works by Armenian painters, both pre-Soviet and Soviet, that capture the cityscape before its transformation into a republican capital. An exhibition was held at Yerevan's Cafesjian Center recently, and perhaps we can find a way to incorporate one of those paintings into this article. Jackal 09:23, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

It is true that Soviets demolished cult structures everywhere, Baku included. But the difference is that both Baku and Tbilisi preserved their old towns. Icheri Sheher, the fortress of Baku, still stands, with all its mosques, caravanserais, baths, palace of Shirvanshahs, etc. In Yerevan the old quarters were totally wiped out, nothing remained, except for one mosque out of 7. I think this makes Yerevan different from other cities in the region. Apparently, the authorities of Yerevan did not feel any attachment to the Muslim history of the city, which is why they decided to replace it with new construction. In any case, it would be really interesting to look at the old pictures that you mentioned. Grandmaster 19:40, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

Old Armenian churches in Yerevan and the rest of the Armenian SSR weren't spared, either. This can be blamed on both the city planners and their vision of what the new Yerevan would look like and their general indifference to religious buildings. I would prefer to see a source that explicitly identifies the singling out of mosques before making any pronouncements on what was official state policy.--Marshal Bagramyan (talk) 20:07, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

I think this discussion needs to end, because it is just an exchange of personal opinions. The article itself makes no specific claims, just states the fact that there were this many mosques before, and there are this many now. I think it is quite in line with WP:NPOV. Grandmaster 20:49, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

Thomas de Waal

Thomas de Waal 2003 book is being quoted here but what are his sources? Is he reliable? Vmelkon (talk) 14:30, 25 April 2021 (UTC)

New Yorker

The source is paywalled. Can we verify anything from it? If not, then De Waal is enough for that mosque claim. Also, please avoid adding back unneeded obvious details like demolished “by bulldozer”. Usually that's how buildings get demolished and it's the case here as well, so it doesn't improve the article in any way to squeeze it in. ZaniGiovanni (talk) 11:32, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

If you cannot check a source because of a paywall, it is not a reason for removal of that source. Please see WP:PAYWALL. I verified the source, it does indeed say that the mosque was demolished using a bulldozer. And I see no reason why bulldozer cannot be mentioned. There are different ways of demolishing, this one was demolished with the use of a bulldozer. Grandmaster 14:14, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

Here is the quote. Cullen actually saw the pile of rubble that remained of the mosque:

In Yerevan one night, a friend took me to see a pile of rubble behind an apartment building at 22 Ulitsa Knunyantsaya. It had been, he whispered, a small, simple Azerbaijani mosque back in the days when Azerbaijanis still lived in Armenia. Then, during the cycle of pogroms and izgnaniya, the Armenians of the neighborhood had descended on the mosque and torn it apart with picks and crowbars, and a bulldozer had come to level the pile. Once in a while, after listening to an Armenian passionately list the uncivilized and genocidal acts of the Azerbaijanis against his people, I would mention the destruction of this mosque. Almost invariably, the response was an indignant denial that such a thing could have occurred. Even Rafael Papayan, the chairman of the new Supreme Soviet's commission on human rights-a man who served several years as a political prisoner in the pre-glasnost days – insisted that such a tale could not be true. "Absolute disinformation," he told me. "The only mosque that was in the city, is still preserved, and I can show you where it is." He was not lying; he simply did not know what had happened. It was not the sort of thing the Armenian press would report. It was not the sort of thing the people of Yerevan would talk about among themselves. To do so would threaten their self-image as civilized victims.

Grandmaster 14:22, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

Grandmaster can you please read carefully what I said? it does indeed say that the mosque was demolished using a bulldozer. - Where I said otherwise? My argument follows WP:ASTONISH, please read it and I hope we can agree that "was demolished" is enough and adding after that "with/by bulldozer" isn't an improvement to the article. We don't add such obvious details as it conveys unnecessary value of sensationally/surprise/astonishment, again see WP:PLA, and there aren't many ways to demolish a small mosque, I hope you know that.

Let's tone down on non-encyclopedic and obvious sensational value a bit, at least in the upcoming new year. After all, edits should improve the article and I don't see much improvement/value in adding "with a bulldozer" after "building was demolished", even saying this makes it clear. Enjoy your holidays, cheers. ZaniGiovanni (talk) 14:53, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

Blue mosque

Two other sources refer to the mosque as Iranian/Persian without any quotations, and this is completely your theory: ...it uses 'quotes', i.e. this is what the Armenian authorities told the journo, and he reports that - Nowhere in the source it says this, and if we're playing the OR guess game, they could've used quotes as an introduction of the mosque's name in the article. Also, UNDUE theories by De Waal don't need multiple quotes per WP:UNDUE. We could even remove it entirely, but I'm not doing it (If a viewpoint is held by an extremely small minority, it does not belong on Wikipedia, regardless of whether it is true, or you can prove it, except perhaps in some ancillary article). And on the contrary, we have multiple other sources actually describing the mosque as Iranian/Persian. ZaniGiovanni (talk) 10:54, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

Do we really not have any recent studies by art historians on the architecture of this mosque so we can judge how much space we devote to the controversy surrounding its naming? I mean, that is the reason why we call it the Persian Blue Mosque, right? Because it presumably resembles eighteenth-century Persian mosque architecture. Are there any studies that compare it to the other mosques of the region or how much it resembles differs from local architecture? Marshal Bagramyan (talk) 19:23, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

Why should we state that the mosque is Iranian, when clearly there are different opinions on this? This is exactly what tendentious editing is, when only the sources that suit certain narrative are picked, and others are ignored. I suggest we remove the word "Iranian", as clearly it does not add anything to the article, and VOA puts it in quotes. As for de Waal, the full quote is as follows:

That the Armenians could erase an Azerbaijani mosque inside their capital city was made easier by a linguistic sleight of hand: the Azerbaijanis of Armenia can be more easily written out of history because the name “Azeri” or “Azerbaijani” was not in common usage before the twentieth century. In the premodern era these people were generally referred to as “Tartars”, “Turks” or simply “Muslims”. Yet they were neither Persians nor Turks; they were Turkic-speaking Shiite subjects of Safavid dynasty of the Iranian Empire – in other words, the ancestors of people, whom we would now call “Azerbaijanis”. So when the Armenians refer to the “Persian mosque” in Yerevan, the name obscures the fact that most of the worshippers there, when it was built in the 1760s, would have been, in effect, Azerbaijanis.

Thomas de Waal. Black garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan through peace and war. ISBN 0814719457

When he talked about erased mosque, he did not mean the Blue Mosque, but the one that was bulldozed, which he discussed in preceding paragraph of his book. He actually meant physical erasure. So ZaniGiovanni distorted the quote, writing that "Journalist Thomas de Waal claimed that another Islamic site, the Blue Mosque, has been often referred to as Persian to "erase an Azerbaijani mosque inside their capital city"." That is not what de Waal said about the Blue Mosque. It is always good to check the source before quoting it. What is written now in the article does not even make any sense, how can one erase a mosque by referring to it by different name? It still stands where it stood.

And Blue Mosque is not different from local architecture, it is in the same style as mosques in Nakhchivan and Ganja, for example. It represents traditional regional Azerbaijani architecture. Grandmaster 20:33, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

Kaeter, Margaret (2004). The Caucasian Republics. Facts on File. p. 12. ISBN 9780816052684.

• The Blue Mosque [...] is the only Persian mosque in Yerevan still preserved.

Carpenter, C. (2006). "Yerevan". World and Its Peoples, Volume 1. Marshall Cavendish. p. 775. ISBN 9780761475712.

• ...only one large Persian mosque, the eighteenth-century Blue Mosque, is still open, now renovated as a cultural center.

Brooke, James (12 March 2013). "Iran, Armenia Find Solidarity in Isolation". Voice of America.

• In all of Christian Armenia, there is only one mosque: "The Iranian Mosque," restored 15 years ago by Iran.

We have 3 sources describing the mosque as Persian/Iranian. You're adding "quotations" like this based on UNDUE De Waal theories (per WP:UNDUE, "If a viewpoint is held by an extremely small minority, it does not belong on Wikipedia") and calling other edits "tendentious"? You understand De Waal can be completely removed in this instance per WP:UNDUE, right? He is the only one so far you've demonstrated that refers to the mosque as "Azerbaijani" and calls it "Azerbaijani culture erasure" or something along those lines. Multiple other sources refer to the mosque as Persian/Iranian, which Armenians also refer to and which it is. If you have no other sources besides De Waal, his UNDUE views can be removed entirely from the article, again per WP:UNDUE. And just in case, I'll ask for a third opinion from someone who has previously mediated discussion between us, maybe I'm missing something. Feel free to ask for other third opinions. ZaniGiovanni (talk) 22:45, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

Are we talking about the Blue Mosque, yet again? Every once in a while, the irredentist concept of retroactively "Azerbaijanifying" this structure pops up on Wikipedia, usually lingering on the words of De Waal, who's a journalist by education. An entire peer-reviewed journal article was written on Yerevan's mosques by historian of Islamic art Markus Ritter, with the Blue Mosque in particular being discussed; Ritter calls it nothing but Iranian.

• Ritter, M. (2009). The Lost Mosque(s) in the Citadel of Qajar Yerevan: Architecture and Identity, Iranian and Local Traditions in the Early 19th Century, Iran and the Caucasus, 13(2), 239-279. doi: https://doi.org/10.1163/157338410X12625876281109

- LouisAragon (talk) 23:48, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

Yes, this is about the Blue mosque. I'll remove the undue De Waal views per WP:UNDUE if there are no valid objections, clearly overwhelming RS describe the mosque as Iranian/Persian. ZaniGiovanni (talk) 04:26, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

It is not about whether it is Azerbaijani or whatever. It is about how it is presented in the sources. When there are differing accounts, one cannot claim that it is only one thing. And distorting the quote to make it loose any sense is certainly not acceptable. And I don't see why such an important source as de Waal should be removed. Grandmaster 09:17, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

Regarding Ritter, he calls it rather the Qajar mosque. For example: "The Qajar mosque was ordered, when Iran had lost the first war against Russia", etc. It was built by the Turkic ruler of the Irevan khanate, which at the time was a part of Qajar ruled Iran. And indeed, the people who prayed there were Azerbaijanis, since Russian imperial and Soviet censuses did not register any Persian population in Erivan. This is what de Waal points out, this mosque was historically used by Azerbaijani population of Yerevan until it was expelled from Armenia. Grandmaster 09:23, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

• "Regarding Ritter, he calls it rather the Qajar mosque"

" A substantial redecoration with tiles dated 1305/1887-8 suggests a still considerable Muslim community in Yerevan in the late 19th century, 60 years after the Russian conquest. Today it remains the only extant building of the Iranian period in Yerevan." -- p. 252

"(...) religious architecture of the late 18th to early 19th century in what was the territory of Iran under the early Qajar rule"

"The toponym Yerevan is in Persian equivalent to Iravan and, more broadly, to Chukhur-i Sad, which denote both the city and the historical Armenian province under late-medieval and pre-modern Iranian rule" -- p. 243

"At the beginning of the 18th century, Yerevan was taken again by the Ottomans,16 but Nadir Shah and the first Qajar ruler Agha Muhammad Khan secured it together with the neighbouring regions once more to Iran. Subsequently, the advance of Russia into the Caucasus led to two wars with Iran in 1804-13 and 1826-28. In the peace treaty of Gulistan in 1813, Iran conceded supremacy over most parts of the South Caucasus to Russia. Yerevan remained a part of Qajar Iran, and even critical European observers were impressed by its flowering, but in the treaty of Turkmanchay 1828 it also had to be conceded to Russia." -- p .244

"After a brief Ottoman occupation, Iranian rulers since Shah 'Abbas I in the 17th century considered the South Caucasus as part of their lands". -- p. 244

Yet I wasn't able to find any mention of "Qajar Azerbaijan(i)", nor "Azerbaijani period in Yerevan", nor "territory of Iran under Azerbaijani rule", nor "Armenia under Azerbaijani rule", nor "Azerbaijani Qajar dynasty", nor "Azerbaijani architecture", etc, in Ritter's entire article.

• "It was built by the Turkic ruler of the Irevan khanate"

Iran has been ruled by a lot of different dynasties of various ultimate origins; yet all their architectural works are labeled as Iranian and/or Persian in Western academic works and museums. The bizarre claim that there was somehow a break (read: hiatus) in Iranian architecture/arts when, for instance, the Qajars (of "Turkic" origin) ruled Iran can only be found in Ankara, Baku and/or Soviet publications. In short; countries without freedom of press and a long history of trying to spread historical negationism.

• "And indeed, the people who prayed there were Azerbaijanis (...)"

Those people were known as Turks, Turkics, Tatars or Yerevanis/Iravanis at the time, not Azerbaijanis. They were only later rebranded as Azerbaijanis, in the course of the 20th century. I have some ~ 20 Western peer-reviewed academic books and journalist, written by historians and other specialists, laying on my shelf that attest to this. Do I need to post them? Its 2022, Brandmeister, and this is WP:AA2 territory.

• "This is what de Waal points out (...)"

Who's still a journalist by education.

- LouisAragon (talk) 15:59, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

None of those quotes specifically refer to the mosque as Iranian. And as I have shown, Ritter calls the mosque Qajar mosque. Indeed, in what sense a mosque built by a Turkic ruler for the Turkic people is Iranian? Calling it a Qajar mosque makes more sense, as per Ritter, because it was built by a local Qajar ruler in the Qajar empire. But in general, this whole argument is pointless. I only suggested not include the word "Iranian", to avoid this whole argument. It does not add any useful information anyway. This article is just a list of mosques that once existed in the territory of modern day Armenia. Grandmaster 18:43, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

I think talk consensus is pretty clear. And as I already said, per WP:UNDUE (If a viewpoint is held by an extremely small minority, it does not belong on Wikipedia), De Waal can be removed. Your suggestion doesn't make sense btw, how on earth you can say we "shouldn't include the word Iranian" when multiple sources describe the mosque as such? I feel like this is starting to become WP:CRUSH. ZaniGiovanni (talk) 22:35, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

Thank you, Louis. That is exactly the kind of source I was asking about and Ritter's arguments are by far more convincing, as well as nuanced and sophisticated, than De Waal's simplistic (and now woefully dated) pronouncements. Grafting a twentieth-century modern national identity onto a structure during whose time the region was so ethnic diverse, as LouisAragon points out, is anachronistic. Grandmaster, I think you can hang this one up already. Marshal Bagramyan (talk) 17:47, 15 January 2022 (UTC)