From some accounts I have read from the Greek Pontian genocide that happened around the same time as the Armenian one - Cherkessian Muslims (spelling?) - themselves recent converts to Islam as a population - saved many Christian lives. Cherkessian tribesmen lived side by side with Greeks and Armenians for hundreds of years so there was not the hostility and insecurity of being thrown out of their stolen land that the Turk - a recent invader - had.
cicassian, i think.