*Book Title: (The Massacres in Armenia)
Fayez Al-Ghusein: An Arab Witness to the Armenian Genocide
Book Title: (The Massacres in Armenia)
Fayez Al-Ghusein: An Arab Witness to the Armenian Genocide
Fayez Al-Ghusein – An Arab Witness
Fayez Al-Ghusein was a descendant of the powerful Solut tribe in the Hauran region of Syria. He was a prominent Arab lawyer and served for three and a half years as the governor of the Kharberd district.
In 1915, on his way to Erzurum, he was arrested by the Turkish authorities without any reason and spent one month in the prison of Diyarbakir. He then remained in Diyarbakir for another seven months, during which he became an eyewitness to the atrocities committed by the Turks against the Armenians deported from Erzurum, Van, Bitlis, Kharberd, and other regions. Later, Al-Ghusein presented his testimonies in a book titled (The Massacres in Armenia), first published in Arabic in 1916. Due to its wide circulation, the book was later translated into English and French.
After the hardships during which I witnessed so much death and slaughter, I arrived in Basra. Publishing this book is a service to reveal the truth about a people oppressed by the Turks, and a defense of the Islamic faith against accusations of fanaticism.
We traveled by carts to (Urfa), and on the الطريق I saw crowds walking on foot. As I approached, I found they were Armenian women—barefoot and exhausted—marching in lines under the guard of gendarmes, who struck anyone who lagged behind with rifle butts and threw them to the ground. If one of them fell behind due to exhaustion or illness, they were abandoned in the wilderness for wild beasts, or the gendarmes would end her life with a bullet.
After leaving (Urfa), we again saw crowds of women worn out from fatigue, dying from hunger and thirst, and we saw the bodies of the dead scattered along the roadside. After six hours of travel from (Urfa), we reached near a village called (Kara Jefrin), where we stopped for breakfast by a stream. I approached the source of the water and found a woman lying face down, half-naked, her clothes soaked in blood, with four bullets in her chest. I could not bear the sight and wept bitterly. I turned away to wipe my tears so my companions would not see me, when I noticed a child no older than eight lying face down, his head seemingly severed, most likely by an axe.
In the evening, we reached (Kara Jefrin), where we slept until morning. The next day, we headed to (Siverek). On the way, we witnessed a horrific scene: bodies were scattered in large numbers along both sides of the road. When we arrived in (Siverek), we encountered countless corpses, most of them children. We saw one of the inn servants carrying the body of an infant with golden hair and throwing it behind the house. When we asked him about it, he said: three Armenian women had fallen behind due to illness; one of them gave birth to this child but, بسبب مرضها، could not feed him, so he died, and was discarded like unwanted refuse.
What had these women done, in the name of God? Had they waged war against the Turks? Had they killed anyone? What was the crime of these unfortunate creatures? Their only crime was that they were Armenian—skilled in managing their homes, raising their children, and remaining faithful to their husbands and households.
I ask you, O Muslims: is this a crime? Think for a moment—what was the fault of these poor women? Was it their dignity and virtue? Even if we were to assume that their husbands deserved such treatment, is it just to treat these women in a way that even a wild beast would recoil from? God says in the Qur’an: “No soul shall bear the burden of another.”
What had these weak women or their children done? Can the officials of the Turkish government present even the slightest proof to justify their actions and convince the people of Islam—who see this as injustice and reject it? No, they cannot utter a single word before a people whose traditions are rooted in justice and whose laws are founded on wisdom and reason.
… I noticed that the crosses had been removed from the noble towers of the churches, which were now used as warehouses and markets for storing and selling the belongings of the dead …
In Mush, many Armenians were killed in barns filled with hay, where they were burned. Many others were shot or stabbed with knives. The government even hired butchers on daily wages of one Turkish pound.
Al-Ghusein recounts that a doctor named Aziz Bek told him: when he was in (Merzifon), in the province of Sivas, he heard that a convoy of Armenians had been sent for execution. He went to the district governor and said: “I beg you, allow me to witness this operation myself, for it is our duty to cut human bodies.” He was granted permission. The doctor went and found four butchers, each holding a sickle. The gendarmes had divided the Armenians into four groups, each consisting of ten people, and sent them to the butchers one after another. A butcher told an Armenian man to stretch out his neck; he did so and was slaughtered like a sheep. The doctor was astonished by his composure in the face of death—without fear, without uttering a word.
The gendarmes had grown accustomed to tying women and children and throwing them from high cliffs into a deep valley, where they would reach the ground as torn bodies. It is said that this place lies between Diyarbakir and Mardin, and even today, piles of human bones remain there.
Shafkat Bek, one of the officials tasked with the extermination of the Armenians, told me the following story:
When they began throwing Armenians into the valley, a Kurdish man approached me, kissed my hand, and begged me to give him a girl about ten years old. I stopped the shooting and ordered the gendarmes to bring her. When she arrived, I pointed to her and said: sit there, I have given you to that man—you will be spared from death.
After a while, I saw that she had thrown herself among the dead Armenians. I ordered the gendarmes to cease fire and said to her: I showed you mercy and saved you from the others—why do you throw yourself among them? Go with this man; he will take you as his daughter.
She replied: “I am an Armenian girl. My parents are being killed among these people, and I will have no one else. I do not wish to live without them.” She then wept bitterly. I tried hard to persuade her, but she would not listen, so I let her go.
She left me with a sense of strange relief, walked toward her parents—who were in their final moments—and was killed there.
He then added: if this was the conduct of the children, what then was the conduct of their elders?
Prepared and Translated by: Haik Daniel
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