As such, there are two muftis for each post, one elected by the participating faithful, and one appointed by Presidential Decree. Saudi Aramco World : Islam in Greece Greeks were the majority that fed the devshirme system. Greece - United States Department of State The millet system With the conquest of the territories that had constituted the Byzantine Empire, the Ottoman sultans were faced with the problem of governing large non-Muslim populations. [17][18], In Thrace today there are 235 minority primary schools, where education is in the Greek and Turkish languages,[3] and there are also two minority secondary schools, one in Xanthi and one in Komotini, where most of the minority is concentrated. In Athens alone, the Muslim Association of Greece says that there are more than 300,000 Muslims. "The Turks of Cyprus.". [43] These communities were formed prior to the area becoming part of Greece in 1948, when their ancestors migrated there from Crete, and their members are integrated into the local Muslim population as Turks today. [8] If the mosque is built, it will end an almost two-century wait. [72] Sultan Abdul Hamid II provided Cretan Muslim families who fled the island with refuge on the Levantine coast. In particular, he mentions that the wives of Muslims in the castle of Grds were non-Muslims. Greece's Ticking Demographic Time Bomb | Balkan Insight Conversion to Islam is quick, and the Ottoman Empire did not keep extensive documentation on the religions of their individual subjects. "The Muslim experience in the Balkan states, 19191991.". "Convention Concerning the Exchange of Greek and Turkish Populations". The second case refers to Greece only, as the only country in the European Union with Islamic religious courts. The Kuwaiti population consists of 70% foreigners and 30% Kuwaiti. There is also a small Muslim community in some of the Dodecanese islands (Turks of the Dodecanese) which, as part of the Italian Dodecanese of the Kingdom of Italy between 1911 and 1947, were not subjected to the exchange of the population between Turkey and Greece in 1923. Research projection of growth of Muslim population in - OpIndia [5] A 2017 study on the genetics of Turkish Cypriots has shown strong genetic ties with their fellow Orthodox Greek Cypriots.[67][68]. Minority groups", "The Muslim Communities in Kos and Rhodes: Reflections on Social Organization and Collective Identities in Contemporary Greece", "Shklzen ou Giannis? Even though the case was remitted afterward, nothing has changed and Molla Sali's appeal got rejected. This would have given the opportunity to other members of the family to claim parts of the deceased's property. 1 This paper focuses on the hypothesis that the expulsion of Muslim Chams from Western Epirus during the later part of 1944 and beginning of 1945 by the guerrilla forces of EDES, resisting the Italo-German occupation occurred, contrary to conventional wisdom, not only as a result of the Chams' collaboration with the forces of occupation, but rat. K. Tsitselikis. Greece and Turkey signed the convention, agreeing that all of the issues related to the personal status of minorities should be dealt with according to religious law and not the civil one. Turks of Western Thrace - Wikipedia In Fortna, Benjamin C., Stefanos Katsikas, Dimitris Kamouzis, & Paraskevas Konortas (eds). The author, one Muhammad Salih bin Umar, states that he was born in "Kumuljunah" (Gmlcine, today Komotini in Western Thrace). [8] Historically, Greek Orthodoxy has been associated with being Romios (i.e., Greek) and Islam with being Turkish, despite ethnicity or language. [2] Frequently, they refer to their native tongue as Cretan (Kritika or Girite) instead of Greek. Islam is the state religion in Qatar. [] There are [for example] some Greeks who were taken in the War of Independence. The Greek government however refrains from referring to the Muslim minority by a specific ethnic background, such as Turkish, since it is a multi-ethnic minority that includes ethnic Greek Muslims, Pomaks and Roma Muslims as well. Katsikas, Stefanos (2012). [31][32], The Molla Sali v. Greece case raised many questions regarding basic human rights. During the Ottoman period, the Rotunda was used as a mosque. With many Turks and Muslim Albanians on islands such as Rhodes and Kos, as well as the hundreds of thousands of immigrants living in Athens, the fact that Athens had no mosque became a matter . The Muslim faith is the creed of several ethnic groups living in the present territory of Greece, namely the Pomaks, ethnic Turks, certain Romani groups, and Greek Muslims particularly of Crete, Epirus, and western Greek Macedonia who converted mainly in the 17th and 18th centuries. This was still the case in Western Thrace, in the northeast of Greece, until 2018, when the laws were largely limited. After the Convention of Constantinople in 1881, these Muslims started emigrating to areas that are still under Turkish administration including to the villages of Elassona. [30] The ECHR in its 2018 ruling, found unanimously that the mandatory application of Sharia law on the Muslim minority to be a violation of the European Convention on Human Rights, particularly Article 14 (prohibition of discrimination), by Greece. He says that the peoples of Gastouni speak Uruma, but that they were devout and friendly nonetheless. Grecophone Muslim communities existed in the towns and certain villages of Elassona, Tyrnovos, and Almyros. [35] Both are derived from , literally "Roman" but referring to the Byzantines. [22] There have been many international conventions between Greece and Turkey starting in 1881, which have dealt with the Greek minority in Turkey and the Turkish minority in Greece. Several decades later in 1843, the English traveler and writer Sir John Gardner Wilkinson described the state of enslaved Greeks who had converted to Islam in Egypt: White Slaves In Egypt there are white slaves and slaves of colour. "Posebna izdanja". Greece Muslims by Today's Zaman - muslimpopulation.com Islam in Greece - Wikipedia It numbered 97,605 (0.91% of the population) according to the 1991 census, [1] and unofficial estimates ranged up to 140,000 people or 1.24% of the total population, according to the United States Department of State. [3] As pretension of (religious) authority is a criminal offense against the lawful muftis under the Greek Penal Code, both elected muftis were prosecuted and on conviction, both were imprisoned and fined. [72] The majority of them are Muslims of Cretan origin. [14][15][16], The minority is always represented in the Greek parliament,[8] and is currently represented by PASOK members Tsetin Mantatzi and Achmet Chatziosman. An interpreter was needed only in 15% of transactions, half of which involved women, which might indicate that most Thessalian Muslim women were monolingual and possibly illiterate. Many people "of the Greek race" (in . Consequently, the Mufti, as a religious leader of all the Muslims in Greece, was given power by law to make decisions regarding the personal status of the Muslim minority. One of the two areas is the principle of equality of the sexes; Islamic laws that deal with divorce and polygamy prove the unequal treatment of the sexes. The largest are Plomari, Kalloni, the Gera Villages, Agiassos, Eresos, and Molyvos (the ancient Mythimna). The Muslims of Western Thrace are far from homogenous and vary both ethnically and religiously. Greece - United States Department of State On June 18, the ECtHR determined the government owed a Muslim widow 51,000 euros ($62,600) for applying "sharia against her late husband's wish." During the year, the government authorized the construction of several places of worship, including a mosque, a Jehovah's Witnesses' Kingdom Hall, and an Egyptian Coptic Church temple. Newsletters Press Donate My . religion - What happened to those ethnic Greeks who converted to Islam In 17771778, when Catherine the Great of Russia conquered the peninsula from the Ottoman Empire, the local Orthodox population was forcibly deported and settled north of the Azov Sea. Minorities agreed to annul their previous special status and be subject to the new The Turkish Civil Code. Muslims in Greece are mostly a Turkish minority whose rights are set out in the Treaty of Lausanne. [3], There are two Islamic theological seminaries, one in Komotini, and one in Echinos (a small town in Xanthi regional unit inhabited almost exclusively by Pomaks), and under Law 2621/1998, the qualification awarded by these institutions has been recognized as equal to that of the Greek Orthodox seminaries in the country. [72], Greek-speaking Muslims[6] constitute 60% of Al Hamidiyah's population. Under the provisions of the Treaty of Lausanne, the "Moslem inhabitants of Western Thrace", also referred to as "Greek nationals of the Moslem religion established in Greek territory", and the "Greek inhabitants of Constantinople", also referred to as "Turkish nationals of the Greek Orthodox religion established in Turkish territory", were exempt from the 1923 population exchange between Greece and Turkey,[4] when 1.3 million Anatolian Greeks or Pontic Greeks and Caucasus Greeks were required to leave Turkey, and the 400,000 Muslims outside of Thrace, the whole Turks in Greece, Cretan Turks, Cham Albanians and the Romanian speaking Muslim Megleno-Romanians (known as Karadjovalides (Turkish: Karacaovallar) and Muslim Roma-Groups like the Sepeides Romani, were required to leave Greece, including the Muslim Greek speaking Vallahades of western Greek Macedonia. [25][26][18] These arguments between Turkey, Greece and parts of Greece's minority have territorial overtones, since the self-identity of the Muslims in Western Thrace could conceivably support territorial claims to the Greek region by Turkey. [5][6] Greece's government gave the green light to begin construction in 2016, but both commitments continued to remain dead letters by 2017. The second half of the seventeenth century was a unique moment when the highest officials of the Ottoman state led by the triumvirate of the sultan, Grand Vizier Fazil Ahmet Pasha and the Valide Sultan Hatice Turhan Sultan pressured their Christian and Jewish subjects to convert to Islam. Greece - Muslim Population & Islamic Communities in Greece Because non-Muslims were forbidden in the Islamic court, they could not defend their cases and were doomed to lose every time. Devshirme was not, however, the only means of conversion of Greek Christians. In the Of valley, which contains the largest cluster of Pontian speakers. Legal Framework Government Practices Executive Summary The constitution states freedom of religious conscience is inviolable and provides for freedom of worship, with some restrictions. Muslim Population by Country 2023 Muslims are followers of the religion Islam, who believe in and live by the teachings of the prophet Muhammad. The latter were of Greek origin, Islamised but speaking Greek, and similar in character to the local Christians. [12] Other major taxes were the Defter and spene and the more severe hara, whereby a document was issued which stated that "the holder of this certificate is able to keep his head on the shoulders since he paid the tax for this year" All these taxes were waived if the person converted to Islam. The term Muslim minority ( Musulmanik miontita) refers to an Islamic religious, linguistic and ethnic minority in western Thrace, which is part of the Greek administrative region of East Macedonia and Thrace. The biggest difference between the ottoman empire, and earlier Islamic powers, is that their spread/forced islamization was a lot less pronounced, and peninsula greeks were already hardcore Christians, and their wasn't much conversion happening. [4] Many Vallahades still continue to speak the Greek language, which they call Romeka[4] and have become completely assimilated into the Turkish Muslim mainstream as Turks.[56]. The family did not discuss the cause of death, but Mete had been suffering from cancer for several years. [22] The Convention of Lausanne in 1923, applied to entire Greece except for the Dodecanese islands. [17] Muslim communities prospered under the Ottoman Empire, and as Ottoman law did not recognize such notions as ethnicity, Muslims of all ethnic backgrounds enjoyed precisely the same rights and privileges.[18]. Islam is Europe's second-largest religion. [30] Sufi orders such as Qadiri and Naqshbandi have a great impact. Although the Treaty of Lausanne refers to it in a religious context, as the Muslim minority of Greece, its precise identity is in contention between the minority's individual groups, Greece and Turkey. [22], Another controversial issue was Article 19 of the Greek Citizenship Code, which allowed the government to revoke the citizenship of non-ethnic Greeks who left the country. Greek-speaking Moslems of north-east Turkey: prolegomena to a study of the Ophitic sub-dialect of Pontic. This policy is aimed to give the impression that the Muslims of the region are the descendants of Ottoman-era ethnic Greek converts to Islam like the Vallahades of pre-1923 Greek Macedonia and so thereby avoid a possible future situation in which Western Thrace is ceded to Turkey on the basis of the ethnic origin of its Muslim inhabitants.[2]. Subsequently, these people became part of the Muslim community of the millet system, which was closely linked to Islamic religious rules. Even though the case narrowly connected to inheritance rights, many other general issues were raised because of it. January 30, 2023, marks 100 years since the signing of the Treaty of Lausanne a treaty codifying the compulsory "population exchange" between Greece and Turkey and led to an estimated 1.6 million people being forcibly expelled from their homes. After the husband's death, Molla Sali was entitled to the entirety of his property, including estates in Istanbul and Komotini. This is in contrast with most Greek converts to Islam from Greek Macedonia, other parts of Macedonia, and elsewhere in the southern Balkans, who generally adopted the Turkish language and identity and thoroughly assimilated into the Ottoman ruling elite. Evliya Chelebi mentions that there were 100 Muslim houses on the island of Aegina in 1660s. It recognizes Greek Orthodoxy as the "prevailing religion." Yes! The Muslim (primarily Sunni) minority, which constitutes most of the non-Orthodox sector of the population, is mainly Turkish and concentrated in western Thrki and the Dodecanese. I have seen in the bazars of Cairo Greek slaves who had been torn from their country, at the time it was about to obtain its liberty; I have seen them afterwards holding nearly all the most important civil and military grades; and one might be almost tempted to think that their servitude was not a misfortune, if one could forget the grief of their parents on seeing them carried off, at a time when they hoped to bequeath to them a religion free from persecution, and a regenerated country. [3] According to the Greek government, Turkish speakers form approximately 50% of the minority, Pomaks 35% and Muslim Roma 15%.[3]. Estimates of the recognized Muslim minority, which is mostly located in Thrace, range from 98,000 to 140,000 (between 0.9% and 1.2%), while the illegal immigrant Muslim community numbers between 200,000 and 500,000. Greece Greek Muslim Population Percentage 2017 [58] Evliya Chelebi, who visited the area in 1660s, also mentioned in his Seyahtnme that they spoke Greek. Successive Greek governments and officials consider the Turkish-speaking Muslims of Western Thrace as part of the Greek Muslim minority and not as a separate Turkish minority. "Defining Greek and Turk: Uncertainties in the search for European and Muslim identities". [40], Today, in various settlements along the Aegean coast, elderly Grecophone Cretan Muslims are still conversant in Cretan Greek. Serbian Academy of Science and Arts. They argued that issues related to the inheritance of property were subject to Islamic and not civil law and that the Mufti was the one who would look into the matter. Muslims from the region of Epirus, known collectively as Yanyallar (singular Yanyal, meaning "person from Ioannina") in Turkish and Turkoyanytes in Greek (singular Turkoyanytis, meaning "Turk from Ioannina") arrived in Turkey in two waves of migration, in 1912 and after 1923. [7] In Thrace today there are 3 muftis, approximately 270 imams and approximately 300 mosques.[8]. In 1990, Muslims accounted for 4.1% of Europe's population, while in 2010 the figure rose to 6%. Fridtjof Nansen was convinced that exchanging the "Greeks" of Turkey for the "Turks" of Greece would provide benefits to both countries. Convention Concerning the Exchange of Greek and Turkish Populations Signed at Lausanne, January 30, 1923. [46] Although the majority of the Epirote Muslim population was of Albanian origins, Grecophone Muslim communities existed in the towns of Souli,[47] Margariti (both majority-Muslim),[48][49] Ioannina, Preveza, Louros, Paramythia, Konitsa, and elsewhere in the Pindus mountain region. urban population . Language links are at the top of the page across from the title. [30], Many Pontic natives were converted to Islam during the first two centuries following the Ottoman conquest of the region. Under Greek law, the state has the right to choose the Moslem minority's 2 Muftis. The focus was put both on an individual and his or her right, and also on the position of Sharia law within the countries with a Muslim minority and within a broader European legal network and the ECHR. (17771847) (1948). The Greek government started appointing muftis instead of holding elections after the death of Mufti of Komotini in 1985, although the Greek government maintained that as the practice of state-appointed muftis is widespread (including in Turkey), this practice should be adhered to in Greece, and as the muftis perform certain judicial functions in matters of family and inheritance law, the state ought to appoint them. Some estimates place the number of Muslims in Athens alone at around 300,000, in a city with a population of around five million, and the clamour for an official place of prayer is growing. [61] There were also some Muslims of Vlach descent assimilated into these communities, such as those in the village of Argyropouli. However many of them left Lebanon during the 15 years of the war. )", "Xanthi's Pomaks: avuolu's description as Turkish minority is insulting to us (original: : )", Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Muslim_minority_of_Greece&oldid=1169327730, Articles containing Turkish-language text, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 4.0, This page was last edited on 8 August 2023, at 12:00. Growing population or not, Muslims in Greece still sometimes face pushback on building more mosques. The Pomaks are mainly located in compact villages in Western Thrace's Rhodope Mountains. Prior to their resettlement in Turkey, deteriorating communal relations between Cretan Greek Christians and Grecophone Cretan Muslims drove the latter to identify with Ottoman and later Turkish identity. Despite these differences among this Muslim minority of Greece, they all seem to mostly agree on the important aspects of Islamic law regarding their personal status, which is namely considered to be Hanafi law as it was in the Ottoman Empire.
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