“Your Religion is Worn and Outdated”

Abstract

The assimilation of orphaned Armenian children during the Great War was an integral part of the Armenian Genocide. In every sense, figuratively and actually, the Armenians became, as Ronald Grigor Suny has poignantly put it, an “orphaned nation”. A particularly moving example of this policy was the orphanage established by Cemal Pasha in Lebanon, at Antoura, with the purpose of Islamizing and Turkifying Armenian orphans. The three memoirs by Antoura inmates, cited in this article, prove beyond a doubt that Islamization and Turkification were carried out. One of the main points made in this article is that Halide Edib, the famous Turkish nationalist and prolific writer, was very much part of the project. Appointed as the general director of education in Cemal Pasha’s Syria, she was personally involved in the project of Turkification and Islamization at Antoura, although she was later to deny it in her memoirs. Therefore, this article is as much about Halide Edib as it is about Antoura.