Arran (Caucasus) - People

People

Whether under Armenian or Caucasian Albanian rule the population of Arran consisted of a great variety of peoples. Greek, Roman and Armenian authors provide the names of the some peoples who inhabited the lands between the Kur and Araxes rivers:

• Utians and Mycians — apparently migrants from the south,
• Caspians, Gargarians and Gardmans
• Sakasenians — of Scythian origin,
• Gelians, Sodians, Lupenians, Balasanians — possibly Caucasian tribes,
• Parsians and Parrasians — were probably Iranian

In the late 4th century, when the region passed to Caucasian Albania, its population consisted of Armenians and Armenicized aborigines, though many of the latter were still cited as distinct ethnic entities.

In pre-Islamic times the population of Arran and most of Caucasian Albania had mostly been Christian who belonged to the Church of Caucasian Albania. Under Arabic rule (7th-9th cc.) a part of the population was Islamicized and adopted the Sunni branch of Islam, which was later largely replaced by the Shia branch. Muslim chronicles of the 10th century reported that some of the population of Arran spoke al-rānīya, as well as Arabic and Persian languages. Because there is no written evidence, some scholars have presumed al-rānīya to be an Iranian dialect while others have presumed it to be a remnant of a Caucasian Albanian language. The area in which there was Ganja, during the 9th to 12th century named Arran; its urban population spoke mainly in the Persian language

After the Turkification of the region, the population became Turkic speaking, and thus referred to by Europeans, particularly the Russians, as Tartars. They were much later called Azerbaijanis.

The population of Arran which remained Christian, was ultimately absorbed by the Armenians and in part by the Georgians.