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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 March 2024
Until a decade ago, it was unusual for officials in the Islamic Republic to use the word aqaliat (minority) to refer to ethno-linguistic minorities or Muslim sect minorities. Efforts to cast Sunni Muslims as a minority, or Azeri speakers, were treated with hostility, as the state, following a specific proclamation on ethnicity and sectarianism by Ayatollah Khomeini, viewed these concepts as divisive to the ummah and ultimately a threat to national security. Aqaliat was instead reserved for non-Muslims, specifically those recognized as minorities in the constitution: Assyrian, Chaldean and Armenian Christians, and Zoroastrian and Jewish Iranians. It is therefore worthwhile to examine how one such minority community, Iranian Armenians, has reacted to these changes.
1 Aslanian, Sebouh, From the Indian Ocean to the Mediterranean: The Global Trade Networks of Armenian Merchants from New Julfa (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2012)Google Scholar; Ghougassian, Vazken, The Emergence of the Armenian Diocese of New Julfa in the Seventeenth Century (Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1998)Google Scholar.
2 Minasian, Hovik, Arak’ K'aghak’i ew K'yazaz Gawari Hay Azgabnakch'ut’iwne [The Ethnic Armenian Community of the City of Arak and Kazaz District] (Tehran: Nairi, 2013)Google Scholar; Minasian, Levon, Patmut'iwn P'eriayi Hayeri 1606–1956 [The History of the Armenians of Fereydan] (Glendale, CA: Color Depot, 2001)Google Scholar; Ratevosian, Vahik and Movsesian, Vazgen, Gharaghan: Hay Azgabnakch'ut’iwn [Kharqan: An Ethnic Armenian Population] (Tehran: Hashemyoun, 2004)Google Scholar.
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5 Malesevic, Sinisa, Grounded Nationalisms (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2019)Google Scholar.
6 Yaghoobi, Transnational Cultures.
7 Ibid.
8 Ibid., 9.
9 Barry, James, “Sectarianism and National Cohesion: Sunni Political Activism in Iran,” in Ethnic Religious Minorities in Iran, ed. Hosseini, Behnaz (Singapore: Springer Nature, 2023)Google Scholar.
10 Barry, Armenian Christians in Iran.