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Circassians




More commonly it has referred to all the peoples of the Northwest Caucasus: the Adyghe (inhabitants of Circassia ), the Abkhaz , and the vanished Ubykh , to the exclusion of the eastern Chechens and the peoples of Dagestan .

Various communities of Caucasian origin living in the Middle East , notably Jordan and Syria , are known as Circassians, and a suburb of Damascus settled by these people is called Al-Tcharkassiyya. Modern Amman was reborn after Circassians settled there in the late 1800s. Most specifically, the term can apply only to the Adyghe.

During the French Mandate Of Syria , some Circassians in the mostly Circassian town of Al-Quneitra tried to convince in the 1930s the French authorities to create for them a Circassian national home in the Golan Heights , but they failed in their attempt. Their objective was to group there large numbers of Circassians already living in Turkey and in various Middle Eastern countries.

In Israel , there are also a few thousands Circassians, living mostly in Kfar-Kama and Reyhaniye , who enjoy, like Druzes , a ''status aparte'', being voluntarily subjected to the military service in the IDF {Link without Title} .

The term's vagueness stems largely from the fact that the northern Caucasus was a remote and relatively unknown area for Westerners, who often did not distinguish carefully between similar groups living there.


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