Islam in Armenia

Islam began to make inroads into the Armenian Plateau during the seventh century. Arab, and later Kurdish, began to settle in Armenia following the first Arab expansion and played a considerable role in the political and social history of Armenia.^[2] With the Seljuk invasions of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, the Turkic element eventually superseded that of the Arab and Kurdish. With the establishment of the Iranian Safavid dynasty, Afsharid dynasty, Zand Dynasty and Qajar dynasty, Armenia became an integral part of the Shia world, while still maintaining a relatively independent Christian identity. The pressures brought upon the imposition of foreign rule by a succession of Muslim states forced many Armenians in Anatolia and what is today Armenia to convert to Islam and assimilate into the Muslim community. Many Armenians were also forced to convert to Islam, on the penalty of death, during the years of the Armenian Genocide.^[3]