The sancak of Amid (today known as Diyarbakır) has been ruled by the Byzantines, Arabs, Selçukids, Artukids, Ayyubids, Akkoyunlus and Ottomans. Therefore the sancak has been exposed to the cultures of these states. Thus the province had undergone a great cultural impact which can clearly be traced in the personal and place names used in the sancak. The place and personal names recorded in the 1518 Ottoman cadastral survey of the sancak of Amid are the basis of some pointers made in this article.

Tenacious and systematic attempts are being made by a number of Armenian 'scholars' to sway, especially Jewish public opinion, that there is a link between the experiences of the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire during World War I, which they label as 'the first genocide of the twentieth century', and those of the European Jewry during World War II. By their persistent attempts, skilful manipulation of the feelings of some Jewish and other sympathisers, and masterful use of distorted, tendencious, and even forged 'documents', they have succeeded in winning over some of those who are the real victims of the Holocaust, and a number of younger generation Jewish writers, such as Yehuda Bauer, Leo Kuper, and a few others. Is there such a parallel? Let us examine the arguments for and against before we answer this question.

As a result of the tension now existing between Israel and the Muslim world, it long has been assumed that the anti Semitism to which Jews of the Ottoman Empire were subjected over the centuries was the result of Muslim antipathy for Judaism and Jews, and that it was carried out largely by Muslims. This idea was spread by Christian nationalist groups within and outside the Ottoman Empire for the purpose of gaining the support of world Jewry for their causes. At times, moreover, these groups even stimulated Muslim attacks on their own people to gain the support of the Christian nations of Europe.

The move of the Bulgarian Communist Government to liquidate the Muslim Turks in Bulgaria, initiated at the end of 1984 and completed in the beginning of 1985, by forcing the Turks in Bulgaria to exchange their Turkish names for Bulgarian ones, is a crime against the most elemantary principles of human rights, of world civilization and culture. By this act the Bulgarian government has committed itself to a policy of an ethnic, cultural and political genocide. Though this term has been initially used to mean physical destruction of one or another nation, in a broader sense it signifies a cultural and political extinction of a national minority.

For almost six centuries the position of the Armenian nation (millet) within the Ottoman Empire, was one of relative peace, order, security and prosperity until the genesis, in the 1870s, of the so-called "Eastern Question". The Turco-Russian war of 1877 had resulted in the abortive Treaty of San Stefano, and had brought about the signature of the Cyprus Convention and the Treaty of Berlin. These treaties were supposed to procure more privileges for the Ottoman Armenians, but they were actually intended to enable the Great Powers, in particular Britain and Russia, to interfere in the internal affairs of the Ottoman Empire with the hope of snatching a greater share of the spoils when the Empire ultimately collapsed.

The historical importance of the Eastern Region of Saudi Arabia can never be denied; Al-Hasa may have the fame as an oasis, but Katif as part of it is of no less importance. The territory of Katif is divided from Al-Hasa province by an intervening range of hills, the most famous of which is know as Jabal Mushahhar. This hill, seven hundred feet high, falls about ten miles to the south of Katif.

Islam gave a new civilization to the Turks who were always great admirers of sciences. The last words of Sultan Osman to his son Orhan -"Be the supporter of the faith and the protector of the sciences"- was religiously observed. Turks also became faithful of those nations who had contributed in various fields of sciences and like the Arabs they have distinguished themselves in the science of geography. They have a definite stage in the history of this branch of knowledge and their contents are amazingly vast. Their effects are also far-reaching but their contributions are not well known to scholars as it should be.

Seventy years ago, in June 1916 to be precise, Sherif Hussein ibn Ali, the Hashemite amir of Mecca, having been encouraged by the British with vague promises of "independence for the Arabs", revolted against his suzerain, the Ottoman Sultan-Caliph, and became an instrument in the destruction of the Caliphate by Christian Powers. In the words of Robert Lacey, "his (Hussein's) movement was less an Arab revolt than an Anglo-Hashemite conspiracy", cemented by about one million pounds sterling in British gold.

When the Turks made the fateful decision of embracing Islam as their religion, they became a marked people in the eyes of the Christian World, which saw that religion as a great danger to its very existence. The Turks failure, or refusal, to accept Christianity, despite the efforts of Pope Pius II, did not endear them to the Christians of the West; nor did their contribution to the Muslim cause during the great politico-religious upheaval of the Crusades. These religious wars created bitterness, hatred and hostility between Islam and Christianity, which were to last for centuries. Christendom saw Islam as a deviance, a bogey, which, it believed, aimed at eradicating the Christian heritage; and therefore the Ottoman Turks, who had espoused the cause of Islam by taking over the Caliphate, became the object of that Christian hatred and hostility.

In the beginning of the sixteenth century the Indian Ocean witnessed the course of events which greatly effected the economies of the Mediterranean as well as the Ottoman and Arab countries. The Portuguese reached the Western India at the end of the fifteenth century and established themselves at various strategic points around the Indian Ocean, seeking to dominate and shift the flow of trade which had been running through the Red Sea and the Gulf to the Mediterranean world for many centuries. On the other hand, the Ottomans became a sea power as well as the land after the conquest of Constantinople; and conquered Egypt in 1517 taking control of the Red Sea. Towards the middle of the sixteenth century, in the time of Suleyman the Magnificent, they took Baghdad and made a direct contact with the Gulf, thus establishing themselves at various important points around the Arabian Peninsula. So became the two empires, Catolic Portuguese and Sunni Ottoman, vis-a-vis, in the waters of the Indian Ocean, drawing themselves far from their capitals.