But in the summer of the year, a Muslim insurgency broke out against Armenian rule, and in August the region came under the control of Azerbaijan and the newly appointed commissar of Ordubad, Abbas Guli Bey Tairov.

The plight of its inhabitants worsened when, in November of that year, the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic unsuccessfully attempted to wrestle the region of Zangezur from Armenian control.

[8][9] Matters came to a head-on December 17, when frenzied Muslims who had been deported from Zangezur, made their way to Lower Agulis and began to attack its Armenian inhabitants, forcing them to retreat to the upper town.

One of the main reasons for this was that Azerbaijani refugees from that district had suffered so intensely from exposure and famine due to the Armenian outrages in Zangezur, they had apparently lost control and sought relief in Lower Agulis.

A prime example of this was the destruction of the Saint Thomas Monastery of Agulis which still remained standing in the late 1980s per the field research of Argam Aivazian[12] but, was subsequently bulldozed and a mosque was built over it.