Muş


Muş is a city in eastern Turkey. It is the seat of Muş Province and Muş District. Its population is 120,699. The city is majority Kurdish.

Etymology

Various explanations of the origin of Muş's name exist. Its name is sometimes associated with the Armenian word, meaning fog, explained by the fact that the town and the surrounding plain are frequently covered in fog in the mornings. The 17th-century explorer Evliya Çelebi relates a myth where a giant mouse created by Nemrud destroys the city and its inhabitants, after which the city was named Muş. Others have proposed a connection with the names of different ancient Anatolian peoples, the Mushki or the Mysians, or the toponyms Mushki and Mushuni mentioned in Assyrian and Hittite sources, respectively.

History

Iron Age

Kingdom of Urartu

An inscription belonging to Urartian King Argisti I was unearthed near Kepenek Castle. The inscription is now under protection by the Muş Provincial Directorate of Culture and Tourism. The inscription in question reads:
The date of foundation of Mush is unknown, although a settlement is believed to have been around by the time of Menua, the king of Urartu, whose cuneiform inscription was found in the city's vicinity.

Medieval period

During the Middle Ages, Mush was the center of the Taron region of Armenia. It is first mentioned as a city in Armenian manuscripts of the 9th and 10th centuries. In the late 8th century, Mush, along with the Taron region, came under control of the Armenian Bagratid dynasty, who reconquered it from the Muslim Arabs. Mush and the Taron region were captured and annexed to the Byzantine Empire in 969. The region continued to face attacks from the Hamdanids, Uqaylids and Marwanids until the Byzantines were finally ousted from the region by the Seljuk Turks following the 1071 Battle of Manzikert. Following this battle, it came under the rule of the Ahlatshahs.
File:Armenian monastery of s apostles in moush.jpg|thumb|4th-century Arakelots Monastery before its destruction during the Armenian Genocide.
After the 11th century, the town was ruled by Islamic dynasties such as the Ahlatshahs, Ayyubids, Ilkhanids and Kara Koyunlu. In the 10th-13th centuries Mush developed into a major city with an estimated population of 20 to 25 thousand people. In 1387 the Central Asian conqueror Timur crossed the area and apparently captured Mush town without a battle. Later the Akkoyunlu ruled the area until they were conquered by the Safavids. The Ottomans under Selim I took control over the town and region in the early 16th century from the Persian Safavids. Mush remained part of the Ottoman Empire till the early 20th century and during these times retained a large Armenian population. In 1821 a Persian invasion reached Mush.

Modern

British traveller H. F. B. Lynch travelled to Muş at the end of the 19th century. He described the city as "the most mis-governed town in the Ottoman Empire".
At the turn of the twentieth century, the city had around 20,000 inhabitants, of which 11,000 were Muslims, while 9,000 were Christian Armenians. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia the town had 27,000 inhabitants, of whom 13,300 were Muslims and 13,700 Armenians. According to the Encyclopædia Britannica the population was nearly equally divided between Kurds and Armenians.
During the Armenian genocide of 1915 the indigenous Armenian population of the region was exterminated. Over 140,000 Armenians of the Mush sanjak were targeted in June and July 1915. Military-aged Armenian men were conscripted to serve in the Ottoman Army during World War I. The Armenian population was largely defenseless to these threats. The massacre of the Armenian population of the city of Mush came only after the surrounding villages were destroyed.
The town was captured by the forces of the Russian Empire in February 1916 during the World War I. It was recaptured by the Second Army under the command of Mustafa Kemal Pasha in 1917.
In the 1960s, the Arakelots Monastery was dynamited by Muş officials.

Education

is one of the universities in Muş.

Tourism and main sights

The touristic places in Muş are the historical Murat Bridge, the tulips on the Muş Plain, Muş Castle, Kepenek Castle, Haspet Castle, Mercimekkale Mound, Lake Akdoğan, Künav Cave, Lake Haçlı, Kayalıdere Castle and Malazgirt Castle. The area of Muş has several ruined castles. Under the rule of medieval Armenian dynasties, monasteries and churches were built in localities near Mush, such as the Arakelots Monastery, Surp Marineh Church, and Surb Karapet Monastery, most of which are now ruins.
Under the rule of Muslim dynasties, other types of buildings were built as well. There are mosques from the Ottoman and pre-Ottoman period which show influences of Seljuk architecture, such as the Alaeddin Bey, Haci Seref, and Ulu mosques. Other sights include caravanserais like the Yıldızlı Han destroyed in 1916, the now almost completely ruined Aslanlı Han, the bathhouse and fountain of Alaeddin Bey, and tombs of Muslim saints.

Transportation

The city is served by the Muş Airport. It has a train station and a bus station.

Demographics

In the late 19th century, H. F. B. Lynch reports that the city of Muş had two large mosques with minarets, four Armenian Apostolic churches and one Armenian Catholic church.
Before the Armenian genocide, Armenians formed the majority of the population in the kaza of Muş. According to the Armenian Patriarchate of Constantinople, on the eve of the First World War, there were 75,623 Armenians, with 113 churches, 74 monasteries, and 87 schools. They were all massacred during the Armenian genocide, many of them burned in their houses. Almost all Muslims were Kurds.
According to the 1927 Turkish census, the Muş District had 21,486 Muslims and 13 non-Muslims.
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Population of the municipality of Muş numbers 120,699 according to a 2022 estimate. Kurds make up the majority of the population. The rest are Arabs, Crypto-Armenians, Terekeme Turks and Circassians.

Notable locals

Muş has a humid continental climate with cold, snowy winters and hot, dry and sunny summers.