Gokchen19
Using Taner Akcam's fringe propaganda as source
editHow does Akcam explain the fact that in both the English and French translations of Andonian’s book the one document that allegedly reports a decision of the Ottoman Government to begin killing the Armenians en masse is misdated to February 1915, when the Rumi date given in the alleged Ottoman-language original clearly corresponds to February 1916?
The Rumi date given in the alleged document is February 1331 AH, which corresponds to February 1916 CE, since the Rumi year 1331 ran from 1 March 1915 to 28 February 1916.
It is inconceivable that a genuine order to kill the Armenians could have been issued in February 1916, since by then the deportation of the Armenians had been underway for almost a full year. It is clear therefore that whoever wrote the Ottoman-language document intended it to refer to February 1915, but got it wrong because he did not realise that in 1917 the official Ottoman dating system had been changed to correspond to the Western calendar, with the year beginning on 1 January.
[calendar|Rumi calendar - Wikipedia]
“The Julian calendar, used from 1677 AD on for fiscal matters only, was adopted on March 13, 1840 AD (March 1, 1256 AH), in the frame of Tanzimat reforms shortly after the accession to the throne of Sultan Abdülmecid I, as the official calendar for all civic matters and named "Rumi calendar" (literally Roman calendar). The counting of years began with the year 622 AD, when Muhammad and his followers emigrated from Mecca to Medina, the same event marking the start of the Islamic calendar. The months and days of the Julian calendar were used, the year starting in March. However, in 1256 AH the difference between the Hijri and the Gregorian calendars amounted to 584 years. With the change from lunar calendar to solar calendar, the difference between the Rumi calendar and the Julian or Gregorian calendar remained a constant 584 years.
Since the Julian to Gregorian calendar changeover was finally being adopted in neighboring countries, the Rumi calendar was realigned to the Gregorian calendar in February 1917, leaving the difference of 584 years unchanged, however. Thus, after February 15, 1332 AH (February 1917 AD), the next day instead of being February 16 suddenly became March 1, 1333 AH (March 1, 1917 AD). The year 1333 AH (1917 AD) was made into a year with only ten months, running from March 1 to December 31. January 1, AD 1918 thus became January 1, AH 1334.”
It is simply inconceivable that if the Ottoman-language document published in Andonian’s book had been written by an Ottoman official in February 1915, he would have got the year wrong by writing February 1331 instead of February 1330, thereby misdating the document to 1916.
It is quite conceivable that someone writing a letter at the very beginning of a year could misdate it by putting in the previous year, eg writing January instead of January 2019; I have regularly done that myself and had to correct what I initially wrote. But I have never written January 2021 by mistake in January 2020, and I doubt that anyone else would either.
Furthermore, February 1330 AH was at the end of a Rumi year, not at the beginning, so there is no logical reason why an Ottoman official would have written 1331 rather than 1330.
The only logical conclusion is that this document, the first one in Andonian’s book, allegedly reporting an Ottoman Government decision to begin killing the Armenians, is a forgery by someone who did not realise that the Ottoman dating system had been changed a few years before the forgery was carried out, and that February 1331 AH corresponded to February 1916 CE, and not to 1915 CE as the forger obviously believed.
How did Akcam explain away all that?
Indefinite block
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{{unblock|reason=Your reason here ~~~~}}. El_C 16:08, 24 October 2022 (UTC)