4/23/2020
ANTH-275 Global Islam
Dept. of Science of Liberal Arts Instructor:
Rochester Institute of Technology (Dubai) Dr. Yahya Haidar
Week Fourteen
Islam in Europe
Content:
- Overview
- Early historical contact
- The Balkans
- Perspective: Islam in the UK
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• Islam is the second largest religious belief in
Europe after Christianity.
• Although the majority of Muslim communities
in Europe are of recent migrations, there are
pre-Modern ones in the Balkans.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOeAWy2
vTCA
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Early Historical Contacts
• Islam entered southern Europe
through the invading "Moors"
of North Africa in the 8th–10th
centuries;
• Muslim political entities existed
firmly in what is today Spain,
Portugal, South Italy and Malta
for several centuries.
• The Muslim community in
these territories was converted
or expelled by the end of the
15th century through what is
known as the Reconquista
Islam in the Balkans
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“Muslim Europe”
• The term
"Muslim
Europe" is used
for the Muslim-
majority
countries of
Albania, Kosovo
and Bosnia and
Herzegovina.
Geography
• The Balkans, or the Balkan
Peninsula, is a geographic
area in South-eastern
Europe, as well as parts of
Eastern and Central Europe
• The Balkan Peninsula is
bordered by the
– Adriatic Sea on the
northwest,
– the Ionian Sea on the
southwest,
– the Aegean Sea in the south
and southeast, and
– the Black Sea on the east
and northeast.
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Exercise
1. In the shared screen in each breakout room, go to
maps.google.com and point the following cities:
– Istanbul
– Salonika (Greece)
– Plovdiv (Bulgaria)
– Sofia (Bulgaria)
– Tirana (Albania)
– Kosovo
– Sarajevo (Bosnia and Herzegovina)
2. What are the main languages, religions and ethnic
groups in the Balkans.
3. What does the term “Balkanization” mean?
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• The most numerous of the groups is the South Slavs,
who form the majority of the population in Bulgaria,
Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Slovenia,
North Macedonia, and Montenegro.
• The Bulgarians, North Macedonians, and Slovenes
speak their own Slavic languages, while the Slavs of
Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and
Montenegro all speak dialects of Serbo-Croatian.
• The most common religions in the Balkans are Eastern
Orthodox and Catholic Christianity and Islam (mostly
Sunni
• Balkanization is a geopolitical term for the process of
fragmentation or division of a region or state into
smaller regions or states that are often hostile or
uncooperative with one another.
Muslims in Today’s Balkans
• Bosnia
– The greatest number of Muslims are still in Bosnia, although many were killed
in the war and many more became refugees. (50.7%)
• Albania
– The next largest population of Muslims in the Balkans is in Albania, but many
were secularized during the long communist rule. Albanians in Kosovo are also
mainly Muslim. (82%)
• Macedonia
– But of all the Albanian Muslims in the Balkans, those in western Macedonia
are among the most observant. They form at least one-third of the
population, but have been kept out of most state jobs and universities. (34%)
• Bulgaria
– Bulgaria has three different Muslim populations: Turks, who are the largest
group; Pomaks, who are Slavs living in the southern mountains; and Roma,
who are largely Muslim. (13.4%)
• Greece
– In Greece, most Muslims left or were part of the population transfers in the
early 1920s. There remain, however, the Turkish Muslims of western Thrace in
northeast Greece. (5.7%)
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Islam in the Balkans
• Later Muslim (Ottoman) Conquests
– Since the late fourteenth century there have been Muslim
communities in southeast Europe.
– For most of their history they were an important and integral
part of the Ottoman Empire.
• The (European) “Ethnic wave”
– In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries when ethnic-based
nation-states came to power in the Balkans, most of these
Muslim communities lost prominence and some disappeared.
• (Cultural) Genocide
– Recent attempts by certain nationalist forces to erase the
history of Muslims in the Balkans have led to new interest in
these Muslim peoples of Europe.
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Expansion of Islam into
Southeast Europe
• Ottoman armies and Sufi missionaries brought Islam
into southeast Europe in the late fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries.
– Beginning with the conquest of eastern Thrace (Greece) in
the mid-1300s, the Ottomans soon took Macedonia. They
fought Serbian prince Lazar and his Balkan army at Kosovo
in 1389, and defeated Bulgaria soon after in 1393.
– In 1456 Athens fell to the Ottomans, followed by Bosnian
and Albanian lands, and finally Belgrade in 1521.
• Muslim Settlers
– Along with military conquest, the Ottomans brought
Muslim settlers from Anatolia to occupy main march
routes and river valleys.
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• Conversions to Islam
– There was significant conversion of local people to
Islam, principally among Bosnians and Albanians, but
also across the Balkans.
– This conversion was gradual, continuing throughout
the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries,
and even later among some Albanians.
• The Religious Background
– The Balkans had been a region of contention
between western, or Latin, and eastern, or
Byzantine, forms of Christianity.
• In Bosnia and Albania neither form of Christianity had been
well preached or well established.
• A new Religion and a new Order
– Sufi missionaries brought a tolerant form of
religion and
– the Ottoman state a system of order based
broadly on religious affiliation.
• The advantages of being Muslim were
economic and cultural and included:
– exemption from some taxes,
– privileges in land owning,
– opportunities in state administration and the
military,
– links with the vibrant culture and society of
Istanbul.
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History and Main Developments
• During the Ottoman
period, lasting from
the fourteenth
century to the early
twentieth century, the
history of Muslims in
the Balkans largely
parallels the history
of the empire itself.
• When the Ottoman Empire was
at its height in the sixteenth
century, the Balkan cities of
Edirne, Sarajevo, and Salonika
(the latter with a significant
Jewish population) were rich
cosmopolitan centers of trade
and learning, with impressive
mosques, madrasas (schools),
and bridges.
• Three of Sultan Suleyman the
Magnificent’s grand wazirs—
Ibrahim the Greek, Rustem
the Bulgarian, and Mehmet
Sokullu, a Slav from Bosnia—
were converted Muslims from
the Balkans.
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• At the end of the
seventeenth century,
Albanian Muslims from
the Koprulu family
(Mehmet, Ahmed,
Mustafa, and Husein)
served as grand wazirs
and provided well-
needed stability in a
century of decline.
Ottoman Weakness =
Loss of Balkan Lands
• As western European countries gained power in
trade routes and military prowess, the Ottoman
Empire weakened economically
• The Austro-Hungarian Empire took territories
from the Ottomans, including Hungary, part of
present-day Croatia (1699), and later Bosnia
(1878).
• The position of Muslim communities gradually
declined until the breakup of Ottoman power in
the Balkans which left many of them vulnerable.
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Advent of the (Ethnic) Nation-States
• The following period in the history of Muslims
in the Balkans, the time of growth of nation-
states, began variably in the nineteenth and
twentieth centuries
– Southern Greece becoming independent in 1821,
– followed by Serbia (whose northern part had
been autonomous since 1815), Romania, and
Bulgaria, all in 1878,
– later Albania in 1912.
Tragic Consequences of Establishment
of Nation-States in the Balkans
• The new nation-states were largely conceived as ethnic
units tied to language and a form of Christianity.
– During these times there were forced migrations, massacres,
and expulsions of Muslims, especially from the eastern
Balkans
• Balkan Muslims = Ottoman “Allies”
– In contrast, many Balkan Muslims, who did not fit in the new
nation-state design, were seen as allied with the Ottomans who
had been increasingly ineffective and oppressive in the last
century of their rule.
• Mass Migrations
– Thousands of Muslims were forced to flee to Turkey.
– This would continue throughout the twentieth century with
Balkan Muslims from Greece, Macedonia, Kosovo, and Bulgaria
emigrating to the safety of Muslim Turkey.
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• The “Balkan Connection” in Turkish
Nationalism
– Nationalism also came to the Turks. It is
interesting that an Albanian Muslim from Struga in
present-day Macedonia, Ibrahim Temo, was one
of the four founding members of what became
known as the Young Turks.
– The founder of modern Turkey, Mustafa Kemal,
later known as Ataturk, was a Balkan Muslim
from Salonika.
Under Socialist Yoguslavia
Yugoslavia is the territory
that was up to 25 June
1991 known as The
Socialist Federal Republic
of Yugoslavia (SFRY).
Specifically, the six
republics that made up
the federation - - Bosnia
and Herzegovina,
Croatia, Macedonia,
Montenegro, Serbia
(including the regions of
Kosovo and Vojvodina)
and Slovenia.
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• Later in the twentieth century, the Muslims in
Bosnia came to be seen as an ethnic group as
well.
– Before World War II they were considered a religious
community.
– But after the war, with the secularization of the
Communist Party and growing importance of
“nationalities,” they officially became an ethnic group
under the label “Muslim” in 1968.
• Just as “Jew” in the United States can have both
ethnic and religious meaning, so “Muslim” had
both meanings in Yugoslavia.
• With the warfare in the 1990s, this ambiguity
became a problem so that today the ethnic term
for Bosnian Muslim is “Bosnjak.”
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Contemporary Situation and Concerns
• The war in Bosnia (1992–1995) between Serbian and
Croatian nationalists and Muslim Bosnians and the war
in Kosovo (1999) led to human and cultural genocide:
– Along with the massacres of Muslims, the wars destroyed
many Islamic sites, institutions, and documents
• One of the purposes of these civil wars was to erase
the Islamic heritage of these regions of the Balkans.
– This is not new. There were once many mosques in
Belgrade that were destroyed in the late nineteenth
century.
• Such destruction was in marked contrast to the usual
Ottoman policy that had promoted tolerance for
Christian and Jewish institutions.
The Bosnian Conflict
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• The ethnic cleansing campaign that
took place throughout areas
controlled by the Bosnian Serbs
targeted Muslim Bosniaks and
Bosnian Croats.
• The ethnic cleansing campaign
included unlawful confinement,
murder, rape, sexual assault, torture,
beating, robbery, and inhumane
treatment of civilians;
• the targeting of political leaders,
intellectuals, and professionals;
• the unlawful deportation and
transfer of civilians;
• the unlawful shelling of civilians;
• the unlawful appropriation and
plunder of real and personal
property;
• the destruction of homes and
businesses; and the destruction of
places of worship.
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• An irony of the fighting in
Bosnia at the end of the
twentieth century is that
the attempt of Serbian
and Croatian nationalists
to eradicate the Islamic
history and the Muslim
people of the region has
resulted in a
reinvigoration of Islamic
practices there.
• The Bosnians, who were
once among the most
secularized of Muslims,
now include those who
are more observant.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9GqDljz
5mg
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_ozFGAa3gk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIZYZAgfJk
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Perspective: Islam in the UK
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmqrFK4-OfQ
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79w-6CCyzvg
Discussion
• When did Islam first reach Europe?
– How did it end?
• The Balkans
– Describe it geographically
– Which countries have majority Muslim
population?
– When and how did Islam reach it?
– What happened in Bosnia in the early 1990s?
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