Sason | town, district center

 town, district center

• Belediye / Municipality:
www.sason.bel.tr
• Kaymakamlık / District-Governorate:
www.sason.gov.tr

Sason (Armenian: Սասուն Sasun, Kurdish: Qabilcewz‎, Arabic: قبل جوز‎; formerly known as Sasun or Sassoun) is a district in the Batman Province of Turkey. It was formerly part of the sanjak of Siirt, which was in Diyarbakır vilayet until 1880 and in Bitlis Vilayet in 1892. Later it became part of Muş sanjak in Bitlis vilayet, and remained part of Muş until 1927. It was one of the districts of Siirt province until 1993. The boundaries of the district varied considerably in time. Although the historical people of the region are Armenians, Kurdish and Arab elements are also encountered from the earliest period.

Historically the area was known as Sasun, part of the historical Armenian Highland. Sasun was in the Arzanene province of the ancient Armenian Kingdom. The region was eventually conquered by the Ottoman Empire, becoming part of the sanjak of Muş in Bitlis Vilayet, and continued to hold a substantial population of Armenians. During this period, Sason was a federation of some forty Armenian villages, whose inhabitants were known as Sasuntsis (Armenian: Սասունցի) Surrounded by fierce Kurdish tribes to whom they were often forced to pay tribute, the Sasuntsis were able to maintain an autonomy free of Turkish rule until the end of the 19th century when the Kurds themselves were finally brought under government control.

At the end of the 19th century, Sasun became one of the most important focal points of the Armenian national movement. The Sasun Rebellion, which started in 1891 with the initiative of the Hinchak party, came under the control of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation ("Dashnak") organization after a short while and continued intermittently until 1904. The rebellion ended with the intervention of Western states on this date and Antranik Ozanyan, who was the leader of the rebellion, went abroad in exile.

Currently, a large part of the population of the district speaks Arabic in daily life. A small Kurdish-speaking population remained in some of the highest villages in the interior. An Armenian minority may still exist İn the region.