SOME ASPECTS OF

THE RESETTLEMENT POLICY OF THE ARAB CALIPHATE

IN AZERBAIJAN by Abbas Qurbanov

Before the Arabs appeared in Azerbaijan, its territory was the theater of a brutal
battles between the Byzantine and Sassanid empires, which had a very negative
effect on the country’s political and socio-economic situation and brought the nation to
poverty. The 1st attacks of Arabs against Azerbaijan were started in 630. About 40 years
Albanians were fighting with Arabs. After the constant Arabs attacks on Azerbaijani
southern cities, Azerbaijani marzbans were forced to sign the peace treaty with Arabs in
644. The treaty meant to subordinate the local population by imposing the land and poll
tax. Promising not to interfere in local’s religious beliefs and traditions, Arabs gave a
chance freely leave the country to those who did not accept Arabs’ conditions; those who
agreed to serve for Arab army were freed from taxes.
Arab conquests conducted a moderate policy was, which helped the local population
to accept the Islamic religion. After Caliph Umar came to power, the Arabs began carrying
out a resettlement policy, which reached its peak during the rule of the Abbasids. When
the Umayyad dynasty came to power, repression of the local population intensified, which
was expressed in its compulsory Islamization and repeated raising of taxes. During the rule
of the Abbasid caliphs, this policy led to an outburst of national discontent.

Resettlement Policy of the Arab Caliphate in Azerbaijan

The Arabs conducted a resettlement policy and territorial expansion was directly
associated with spreading their religion. The conquerors wanted the Muslims, with their
way of life, traditions, and views, to coexist with the indigenous people; this is precisely
how Islam was spread.
Islam was not spread by individual missionaries (as Christianity), but by all the
settlers wherever they lived; and they were able to do this without repressing the
representatives of other confession. However, some think that the Arabs wreaked greater
havoc with their conquests and resettlement policy than the Greeks. Arab settlers also
moved to Azerbaijan; during the rule of the Rawwadids, they became so assimilated with
the local population that they were considered an integral part of it. The first migration of
Arabs to Azerbaijan took place during the rule of Caliph Osman (644-656), they were
instructed to put down the uprising and settle some of the migrants there and to convert the
people to Islam. Larger-scale mass migration began during the rule of Caliph Ali when
most Azerbaijanis accepted Islam and learned to read the Koran.
Arab settlement had an exclusively positive influence on Azerbaijan’s development.
The people’s convictions and thoughts changed, new settlers were quickly assimilated by
locals. Arabic toponyms can still be found in the names of several villages and settlements
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of contemporary Azerbaijan, and there are Azerbaijanized descendents of Arabs who have
still not forgotten their own language.
In contrast to the Byzantines and Persians, the Arab settlers did not resort to
violence, but adopted “soft” administrative methods (particular during the first conquests),
thus disposing the local population toward them. This stands to reason, since integrity of
life and property are primary human values.
For this reason, the population of Azerbaijan, brought to ruin by the Iranian-
Byzantine wars and Khazar invasions, regarded the Arabs as their saviors. During the
rule of the Umayyads (during the first 10 years), the Arabs only collected taxes, without
interfering in the internal affairs of Azerbaijan. This led to a better and more peaceful life
for the country’s population.
One of the main reasons the Arabs did not engage in religious repression (during the
first years of their conquest) was the fact that most of Azerbaijan’s population was made
up of “People of the Book,” that is, Christians. However, the local aristocracy, wishing to
draw closer to the Caliphate, accepted the new religion faster than the peasant population.
The first suggests that the Muslims wanted to convert the people, who were mainly
pagans, to Islam.
The second supposition suggests that the people who adopted Islam found
something in the new religion that was missing in the convictions of their fathers and
grandfathers. So, the resettlement policy based on the principle “Let there be no
compulsion in religion (Qur’an Surah 2, Al-Baqarah, ayat 256), and not permitting any
religious compulsion. The people of Azerbaijan, oppressed by the Byzantine and Sassanid
yoke, readily adopted the new religion of justice and charity. However, the situation
significantly changed, giving rise to uprisings and outbreaks of discontent in the country.

The Ethnic Composition of Azerbaijan

After the Arab conquest, the ethnic composition of Azerbaijan significantly
changed, although the sources do not provide any precise information about this.
Arabization or semitisation of Azerbaijanis did not occur due to the strong Turkic ethnic
and linguistic identity of Azerbaijanis. The Seljuks and Mongol invasions also contributed
to the further strengthening of Turkism and Turkicization of Azerbaijani local peoples and
Arabisation was prevented.
The Umayyads were the first to give the families who moved to Azerbaijan land
plots suitable for setting up resident farmsteads, which made it possible for the Caliphate
to stop paying the migrants from government funds, on the one hand, and to create a social
foundation in the conquered country, on the other. It should be noted that later whole tribes
of Arabs began migrating to Azerbaijan. Most of the migrants were families from Basra
and Syria. When carrying out their resettlement policy, the Arabs took into account the
condition of the conquered lands, their strategic location, and the composition of the
population.
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 Northern Azerbaijan eventually became “Umayyad,” while Southern Azerbaijan
was known as “Abbasid,” and weapons were used to resolve the problems that arose.
Serious contradictions emerged between the Arab migrants who were settled in Azerbaijan
by the Umayyads and the Abbasids during division of the conquered lands, tax collection;
however, due to the difficult sociopolitical situation in the Caliphate itself, the
Caliph ignored these problems.
Despite Azerbaijanization, some families who moved to Azerbaijan from the
Caliphate retain their ethnic uniqueness to this day; names of places where they live, they
usage of Arabic words, and lifestyle. Most of Christians moved to Byzantium, while the
rest readily accepted Islam. The Udins, a nationality that lives to this day in Azerbaijan are
the direct descendents of the Christians who lived in Azerbaijan who escaped the
Islamization by Arabs and Grigorianization by Armenian church.
After conquering Azerbaijan, the Arabs introduced their language into the country;
all state affairs were conducted in Arabic. Moreover, the people’s desire to find favor with
the Muslim rulers prompted them to adopt Islam. In the 11th -12th centuries, after the
Seljuks came to the region, the Azerbaijani language began to replace the Arabic. The
Seljuks and Mongols also played an important role in this process.
At the initial stage of their conquests, the Arabs preserved the former way of
conducting state affairs. But later, the local rulers and the state language were changed
(from Persian to Arabic), which led to sociopolitical tension in the country. The upper
strata of the population was left jobless and lost their former prestige. The number of
unemployed also significantly increased (this was primarily associated with the change
in language). But there is no doubt that Persian was the main literary language in all the
regions (apart from the ones populated by Arabs); it is enough to mention such world
renowned poets as Firdousi, Hagani, Nizami, and Fizuli.
Most of the intelligentsia, academics, and literary figures continued to use Persian.
Nevertheless, it was obvious that many of the poets followed Islam; they sang the praises
of Allah and His Prophet, and unity of motivation and thought could be traced in their
works, while Firdousi’s creative work (which is an exception) contains motifs of
Zoroastrianism and paganism. Azerbaijani poets were not given land plots in the Caliphate
because they wrote in Persian; in other words, there were almost no literary figures who
wrote in Arabic. As for the settlers, they only spoke their native language. However, as
noted above, in the 11th-12th centuries, the Azerbaijani language became much wider
spread. In order to assimilate with the rest of the population, the Arabs were compelled to
study and use it.