THE SPECIAL IDENTITY OF ISLAM IN THE BALKANS:

The historical, political and cultural factors

which influenced its development

Eirini Kakoulidou
University of Wales Trinity Saint David

Keywords
Islamic Studies
Balkan Islam
History of Islam
Ottoman History
Muslim Identities
Comparative Religion

Abstract
Clifford Geertz stated that a major feature of Islamsation is the "effort to
adapt a universal, in theory standardised and essentially unchangeable, and a
well-integrated system of ritual and belief to the realities of local, even
individual, moral and metaphysical perception."1 John Renard described this

Geertz, Clifford. Islam Observed: Religious Development in Morocco and Indonesia.

University of Chicago Press, 1971, p. 15.

2Renard,

John. Islam and the Heroic Image: Themes in Literature and the Visual Arts.
Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1993, p 14.
3
In 1517, Sultan Selim I defeated the Mamluks of Egypt and Syria, conquered Cairo and

phenomenon as an "indigenisation" or a "process by which a culture, ethnic

group, or region puts its own stamp on Islam, and it accounts at least in part
for the diversity within Islamdom." 2
The plurinational mixture of the Balkans gives us the opportunity to
examine this opinion. Islam acquired a special identity in the Balkans, since it
was permeated with the practices of culturally and religiously heterogeneous
communities, which had been for more than 600 years members of one of the
largest Islamic empires, the Ottoman Empire.
Nonetheless, even though the history of Ottoman invasion and rule in the
Balkans, and the role of nationalist criticism by the inhabitants of the Balkan
regions in the movement that led to the dissolution of the Empire are wellknown issues under the general course of Ottoman history, Western research
on Balkan-Ottoman Islam has been sparse. Comparatively, only a few
researchers explored the Islamic identity in the Balkans, over the last century.
They have documented, however, significant evidence verifying the special
Muslim identity in this region. This historical material is valuable, since after
the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire in the beginning of the 20th century, the
need of the new Balkan states for national legends and religious purity led to
the depreciation and destruction of a great part of historical proof about the
Ottoman period.
Why is the re-examination of the special identity adopted by Islam in the
Balkan Peninsula so interesting nowadays? Undoubtedly, it is not just the fall
of communist regimes in the Balkan countries in the late 20th century which
led to the religious revival of significant Balkan Muslim communities (such as
Bosnia, Kosovo, Albania, Bulgaria) and allowed again the researchers to
study them. The permanent nationalistic flare in the Balkans, along with the
internationally topical reappearance of the Christian-Muslim conflict, make the
examination of historical periods, during which there was an interaction
between the two cultures/religions, quite interesting. The research on the
historical coexistence of Islam with other People of the Book under Ottoman
conquest, in this region might provide contemporary lessons for a more
tolerant and peaceful world.

2Renard, John. Islam and the Heroic Image: Themes in Literature and the Visual Arts.
Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1993, p 14.
6

Table of Contents

Abstract

Dedication7

Acknowledgments 9

Table of Contents.11

Lists of Maps, Tables and Figures... 13

CHAPTER ONE
Introduction17
Muslims in the Balkans. The historical background...18

CHAPTER TWO
The nature of the Islamic expansion. An endless historical debate... 25

CHAPTER THREE
Two periods in Ottoman history | Religious interactions

Holly warriors or pragmatic rulers? The frontier Balkan society29

The transfer of Islamic heritage in the Anatolia region to the Balkans39
The role of interfaith marriages in religious interaction..48
The pioneering field research of Frederic Hasluck.51

CHAPTER FOUR
The Role of Architecture in Maintaining Muslim Identity in the Balkans
Syncretism and politics depict the typology of the first mosques.57

11

Byzantine influences on the new Islamic state ...62

CHAPTER FIVE
The reuse of sacred places ...69

CHAPTER SIX
The transformation of the Ottoman religious policy. The Islamisations
The attitude in religious orthodoxy and the Islamisations .79
Did the Ottomans conquer the Balkans in a religious sense?...............................82
New questions to be answered..88

CHAPTER SEVEN
Islam in the Balkans nowadays.....91
The Balkan communities at a glance

.....92

CONCLUSIONS...97

BIBLIOGRAPHY ..103

REFERENCES ..108

APPENDICES

Appendix | The Ottoman mosques of Greece

..111

12

List of Maps, Tables, Figures & Images

MAPS
The Balkans as part of the Ottoman Empire.

15

Ottoman Empire at fall of Constantinople in 1453..20

The Ottoman Empire: Acquisitions33

TABLES
The millet population in the Balkans and Anatolia, in the early 1500s83

FIGURES
Figure 1. Plan of theImaret of Ghazi Evrenos Bey... 59
Figure 2. The difference between the byzantine and the ottoman plan. 64

IMAGES
Isa Beg mosque, Skopje..61
Uc Serefeli Mosque, Edirne.. 62
Sultan Mehmed II the conqueror enters Constantinople ..67
The Athens Parthenon with a mosque inside it. . 77

13

The Balkans as part of the Ottoman Empire

Historical map 1. Pinkerton's 1818 map illustrates the Ottoman territories in Europe during
the early 19th century, including Greece, Albania, Macedonia, Bosnia, Croatia, Bulgaria,
Rumania, and Moldova. In most of these countries, the Ottoman heritage has survived until
today as a cultural or even a religious context.
Source: Wikimedia Commons

15

CHAPTER ONE
Introduction | Historical background

Introduction

Having constantly had a wide variety of forms and expressions, Islam in the
Balkans has never been inflexible. This special feature of Balkan Islam is
even nowadays a complex subject for researchers.

This research dissertation will study mostly the early years of the Ottoman
Empire, when the circumstances were favourable for the special identity of
Balkan Islam to be created. When the Ottomans conquered Egypt and the
Arabian Peninsula (16th century) inheriting the responsibility of the Caliphate
from the Mamluks, the religious policy of the Ottoman Empire coordinated
with the orthodox Arabic interpretations, therefore discouraging the
formulation of any belief which could be considered heretic.3

Seeking to prove the special peripheral identity of Islam in the Balkans, this
research dissertation will study the following topics, among others:

In 1517, Sultan Selim I defeated the Mamluks of Egypt and Syria, conquered Cairo and
the Islamic holy sites in the Arabian Peninsula, and secured the succession of the caliphate,
opening a new chapter in the Ottoman history.

17

a. The common traditions and principals between the local Islamic and
Christian rural populations in Anatolia and Balkans (popular Islam and
popular Orthodox Christianity).
b. The integration of Sufi and pagan influences from Asia Minor during the
migration of Islamised rural populations from Anatolia to the Balkans,
before and mostly after the Ottoman spread, during the 14th century.
c. The established Byzantine cultural background, which was mixed with
Islam in the area during early Ottoman rule.
d. The special way in which some local people converted to Islam.
e. Statistical results of these conversions to Islam in the Balkans under
Ottoman rule.

Muslims in the Balkans. The historical background

Balkan Islam is a part of the European continent, which is a cultural

overpass. It also has a coast, and to a degree an inner area, adjusted and
opposed to the most significant region of Islam in North Africa and the Middle
East. Like al-Andalus, some parts of Italy, Sicily, the Balearics, Crete and
Cyprus which, at least for a while, became important cultural centres of the
medieval Islam, some parts of the Balkans also became directly or indirectly a
mission field for the Islamic faith.

18

Having been a significant part of the Ottoman Empire for many centuries,
the Balkans shared the same political, financial and cultural life with the
Islamic world. As Machiel Kiel points out in his book Studies on the Ottoman
Architecture of the Balkans, some cities, such as Sarajevo, the capital city of
Bosnia, and the two other largest cities, Banja Luka and Mostar, or Tirana,
capital of Albania and Elbasan owe their very existence to the active
urbanisation policy of that state. Didymoteichon and Giannitsa, Greek cities
that today are hardly known, were ancient famous centres of Islamic learning.
After the Ottoman domination, the Balkan cities which evolved from a tiny
fenced town into a great industrial and cultural centre were many: Plovdiv and
the capital city Sofia in Bulgaria and Kavalla as well as Komotini (Gumulcina)
in Greece, are examples and there were also, some smaller towns.

After the first military tour to the area in 1354, the Ottoman presence in the
Balkans lasted for over five centuries. Even though the Ottoman rule ended in
the early twentieth century, the cultural and religious influence of the
Ottomans is evident until these days. The encounter with the Ottomans
produced major changes in the socio-cultural and political organisation of the
area, thus indirectly building the foundations that converted Southeast Europe
into the Balkans. Several racial and cultural Balkan groups were reorganised
from the early nineteenth century. Even though by that time the Empire had
started to gradually retreat from the region, the Ottoman cultural heritage is
still significant, even until today, especially as far as the formation of religious
identities is concerned.

19

Ottoman Empire at fall of Constantinople in 1453

Historical map 2. Source: The Illustrated Guide to Islam, Early Ottoman Architecture by
Manginis, Giorgis, Lorenz Books 2012.

The Ottomans conquered the Balkans progressively approximately from

the mid-14th until the mid-15th century. The conquest of Constantinople
(1453), by Muhammad II the Conqueror (1451-1481), was the most significant
accomplishment of the Ottoman dynasty during the 15th century. From the
14th to the 17th century, the Ottoman Empire encompassed the territories of
the Balkans, parts of western Asia, North Africa, Levant and Arabian

20

Peninsula. In 1923, the Treaty of Lausanne and the establishment of the

Republic of Turkey4 led to the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire.

However, contrary to common belief, Islam was introduced in the Balkans

a long time before the era of Ottoman Rule. The Byzantine Empire and some
parts of the Peninsula were exposed to Islam in the tenth century. The first
Balkan Muslims were mainly members of Asiatic tribes which settled in
various parts of the peninsula. A large community lived in the northern
borders of the Balkans, on the Pannonian plain and in the region of todays
Vojvodina and Hungary, and also in Northwestern Bosnia. The southern
Balkans similarly had occasional encounters with Muslims. According to
historical reports, in the thirteenth century, approximately 10,000 to 12,000
Muslim Turkmen settled in the Dobrudja, in the southern Danube delta. These
Muslims, however, left few traces, and most of them, in the end, migrated to
Anatolia.5

Throughout the Ottoman period, the Muslim communities of the Balkans

consisted of three main distinct groups:6

goston, Gbor, Masters, Bruce Alan, Encyclopaedia of the Ottoman Empire, Facts on
File 2008, pp. 612-613
5
Bali, Smail, Der Islam und seine geschichtliche Bedeutung fur Sudosteuropa (mit
besonderer Beru cksichtigung Bosniens, in Dopman Hans-Dieter, ed., Religion und
Gesellschaft in Sudosteuropa, Sudosteuropa-Gesellschaft, Munich, 1997, pp. 7172.
6
Katsikas, Stefanos, Introduction to the Special Issue European Modernity and Islamic
Reformism among the Late-Ottoman and Post-Ottoman Muslims of the Balkans (1830s1945), Volume 29, Issue 4, 2009, Volume 29, Issue 4, pp. 435-442, Published online: 15 Dec

21

a. Local Islamised communities such as Slavic Muslim populations, also

known as Pomaks, who currently live in Bulgaria, Greece, and the
Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia; Muslims of the present-day
Bosnia-Herzegovina and the area of Novi Sad in Serbia), Albanophone
Muslims (currently living mostly in Albania, Kosovo and Greece), Greek
Muslims (such as those living in Crete and Western Macedonia also
known as Valaades) and Vlach-speaking (for example, those in the
village Notia, in the western part of Greek Macedonia), Islamised Jews,
who are also known as Donmedes, (currently living in Istanbul and
Izmir).

b. Turkish Muslim populations who moved to the Balkans during the

Ottoman period and settled in cities or rural areas this group also
consists of nomad or semi-nomad Turkish speaking communities which
migrated to the region during the same period and assumed various
identities that varied from one region to another i.e. Yrks, Konjares;

c. Muslim groups, coming from different origins, whom the Ottomans

forced to settle in the region at a particular historical period (the Tatars
in Dobrudzha, the Circasians in various areas, which nowadays are
part of Greece, Bulgaria, Kosovo, Macedonia etc)

2009, Official URL:

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13602000903411341#.UuZVTyjmCc

22

d. The Romani people (also known as Gypsies and Roma), who lived
a nomadic life across various parts of the region; some of them were
already living in the region at the time of the Ottoman invasion, while
others migrated later.

23

CHAPTER TWO
The nature of the Islamic expansion | An endless historical debate

In the context of this research, it is important to mention that the spread of

Islam in the Balkans during the Ottoman period has initiated, over the last
century7, a vigorous debate among historians, with elements of ethnic and
religious prejudice. Even though this debate sometimes held extreme
theories, it was in fact based on an actual historical background; on the deep
historical relations and the cultural interaction among people who lived in the
Balkans and Anatolia, from the Byzantine and the Pre-Ottoman era until the
end of the Ottoman Empire period. This debate frequently led to the
formulation of theories which obfuscated the research on the spread of Islam
in the Balkans, converting it into a pawn of local nationalistic attitudes.

Either in their effort to satisfy the nationalistic expectations of the Balkan

states or while merely trying to interpret the historical interaction between
Byzantines and Christians, and between Ottomans and Muslims, some
researchers have developed extreme theories which were extensively
discussed for many years.

After the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, in 1923

25

In 1916, in his work The Foundation of the Ottoman Empire, Herbert

Gibbons attempted to prove that the Ottomans were indeed a new race,
formed by the mix of Greek and Balkan Slavic converts to Islam with Turkish
people. In the subsequent admixture, the Christian element was undoubtedly
the most significant. Gibbons justified Ottoman growth by arguing that the
creation of this new race was a kind of Islamic-Byzantine admixture. In his
interpretation, he implicitly expressed his belief that the mighty Ottoman
Empire could not have been formed from purely Turco-Muslim origins, hence
its Byzantine-Christian roots. What is more, he stressed that it was due to the
religion of Islam that the new mixture was formed.8

In one generation, the explanation for the issue of the identity of the early
Ottomans had been transformed through time; There was an explanation
which portrayed them as an admixture of Islamised Byzantines and Turks
(Gibbons), while there was a second one which described them as Turks who
attracted a vast number of converted Byzantines to their banner, due
principally to the heretical form of Islam they practiced (Langer/Blake)9;
Another explanation supported the theory of a mixture of Turkish tribes,
having inherited their administrative skills from earlier Turkish states in
Anatolia, the Seljuks, and the Ilkhanids 10 (Kprulu )11; finally, there was a

Gibbons, Herbert, Adams, The Foundation of the Ottoman Empire (Oxford, 1916).
Langer, William L. & Blake, Robert P., The Rise of the Ottoman Turks and its Historical
Background, Oxford University Press, 1932
10
Provincial hans; A Mongol group which settled in Iran, Iraq and the Anatolia region.
11
Koprl, M. Fuat , Anadoluda Trk Dili ve Edebiyatnn Tekamlne Bir Bak (Istanbul
1934), Islam in Anatolia after the Turkish Invasion. Translated, Edited, and with an
Introduction by Leiser, Gary, University of Utah Press Salt Lake City, 1993.
9

26

theory that the early Ottomans were descendants of a group of dedicated

Muslim gazis,12 who collaborated for the express purpose of fighting and
converting the Christian infidels in the border protests of northwest Anatolia
(Wittek)13. This last explanation, the Gazi Thesis, which was advanced by
Wittek, was the dominant theory of Western scholars for more than forty
years, even though it was usually either ignored or rejected in Turkey.

Cemal Kafadars work Between Two Worlds: The Construction of the

Ottoman State14, published in 1995, is probably the most significant recent
major study trying to re-evaluate the appearance and spread of the Ottomans.
Kafadar, born in Turkey and trained as an Ottomanist in North America,
attempts to look at the fourteenth-century gazis simply as one element in the
mix of groups identifiable in Anatolia during that period. If Kafadar had to
choose the most prominent aspect of early Ottoman frontier culture, he would
probably use the expression: liquidity and fluidity of culture.15 His opinion
that Islam and Christianity in this region are similar emphasises the wideranging of these two prevailing cultures.16
The research, however, has overcome all obstacles in its way. Heath
Lowry17 mentions that nationalism makes it difficult for us to understand the

12

Holly warriors
Wittek, Paul, The Rise of the Ottoman Empire, Royal Asiatic Society London, 1938.
Rise of the Ottoman Empire: Studies in the History of Turkey, University of London, 2002.
14
Kafadar, Cemal, Between Two Worlds: The Construction of the Ottoman State,
University of Callifornia Press, 1995.
15
Kafadar, Cemal, Between Two Worlds, p. 28.
16
Ibid, pp. 8082.
17
Lowry, Heath, The Nature of the Early Ottoman State, State University of New York
Press 2003, pp. 95-96
13

27

Islamic historical traditions in the Balkans. He points out that Balkan

nationalists are fixated on their view of the conquering Turk with sword in
hand presenting their hapless Christian victims with the choice of conversion
or death, rather than one in which a significant portion of the traditional ruling
class was co-opted into the Ottoman elite. Also, todays Turks (a la Koprl)
want to cling to the idea that somehow the Ottoman polity was a purely
Turkish creation, that is, a state whose essence was Turkishness wrapped in
an Islamic veneer.

28

CHAPTER THREE
Two periods in Ottoman history | Religious interactions

Holy warriors or pragmatic rulers? The frontier Balkan

society

Despite the different approaches, most researchers agree that the

Ottoman history must be divided into two main historical eras, in order to
appreciate the historical course and the nature of Islam in the Balkans:

a. The early period, which is until the mid-16th century, when the main
focus of the Empire were the Balkans and the Anatolia region.
Historical research proves that the Ottoman Empire for political
reasons absorbed its Muslim and Christian citizens, enhancing their
cultural interaction and creating deep religious relations. Tijana Krstic
states that Ottomans began to express what was considered orthodoxy
and heresy just in the early 1500s, and this practice has to be
historicised within the wider structure of confessional progress in early
modern Islamdom and Christendom.18

18

Krstic, Tijana, Contested Conversions to Islam. Narratives of Religious Change in the

Early Modern Ottoman Empire, Stanford University Press 2011, pp. 19-20

29

b. The late period, after the conquest of the Arab Lands, the centre of
Islam, by sultan Selim I. The Ottoman conquest during the OttomanMamluk War of 15161517 and the Ottoman invasion in the Arab
territories led to profound ideological and political consequences. With
his victories, sultan Selim I took control over Mecca and Medina, as
well as the cities of Damascus and Cairo, former places of settlement
for the caliphs, who believed to be the descendants of Prophet
Muhammad. As expected, Sultan Selim and his followers were granted
the title of Servant of the Holy Cities of Mecca and Medina, as well as
the protection and organisation of the annual pilgrimage to Mecca, and
thus, the Ottomans were accorded immense prestige and authority in
the Muslim communities.19 After this period, the Ottoman Empire
obtained several features of a classical Islamic dynasty, having among
others the responsibility to face at its borders a powerful opponent, the
Persian heretic Shia Safavid dynasty.

In this context, Heath Lowry observes that during the first period, Ottoman
culture became a mixture of classical Islamic administrative practices (distinct
from the beginning), inherited from Seljuk, Ilhanid20 and neighbouring Turkish

19

goston, Gbor, Masters Bruce Alan, Encyclopaedia of the Ottoman Empire, Facts on
File 2008, p. 30
20
Ilkhanids: Mongol dynasty which ruled much of the eastern Islamic world from the midthirteenth to the mid-fourteenth century.

30

principalities, which, combined with the Muslim community, created a new

society.21

Consequently, in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, Christians and

Muslims (many of whom were converts) joined forces in order to spread the
Ottoman banner, initially to the Balkans and then, to the heartlands of Islam.
Lowry mentions that the centralised empire, emerging from the mid-sixteenth
century (radically reformed after the conquest of the older Islamic states), was
one, which bore an ever decreasing relationship to the frontier society22 it
had been of the fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries.

As Heath Lowry argues:

There is an ironic twist to this interpretation; it would suggest that
the real secret of Ottoman success might have stemmed from the
failure of its early rulers to adhere to the traditional Islamic concept of
the gaza23. The founders of the Ottoman Empire, Osman and Orhan,
rather than attempting to pressure the local Christians24 into accepting
Islam, simply left the issue of religion open. One joined their banner as
either a Christian or a Muslim and made their mark on the basis of

21

Lowry, Heath, The Nature of the Early Ottoman State, State University of New York
Press 2003, p.p 133-134
22
Frontier society: The society living in the region of the borders between two countries or
in a region with a line, barrier, etc. In these areas, religious, political, economic and
geographical conditions that determine different style of life are called frontier/uc culture by
modern scholarship.
23
Military expeditions or raiding after the emergence of Islam
24
Of Anatolia and the Balkans

31

ability. What eventually was to emerge as a classical Islamic dynasty

did so, less as a result of developments during its formative period,
than due to the impact of its having annexed the traditional Arab
heartland of the Islamic world at the end of the second decade of the
sixteenth century. Thereafter, we see the implantation of a centuries
old Islamic bureaucratic tradition to a body which had theretofore been
a vibrant, syncretic, multi-ethnic, multicultural entity. In this sense, the
question of who conquered whom is debatable.25

25

Lowry, Heath, The Nature of the Early Ottoman State, State University of New York
Press 2003, pp. 95-96

32

The Ottoman Empire: Acquisitions

Historical map 3. Source: Wikimedia commons

The early Ottomans are often portrayed as gazis, who were making gazas
(holy wars) against the infidels. Nonetheless, some scholars have recently
proved that the early Ottoman military activity presented as gaza in Ottoman
history were more intricate missions; occasionally, easy invasions in which
Muslims and Christians joined forces and shared the treasure and other
33

times, they were holy wars. In addition, the Ottomans also fought several
untraditional battles against fellow Muslim Turks, overpowering and
annexing the bordering Turkoman kingdoms.26 Furthermore, the war against
the Mamluks of Egypt, in the 16th century, was an equally unconventional war.

This does not mean that the Ottomans did not adopt the ideology of the
holy war. During the 13th century, the ideology of the holy war was present in
the Turco-Byzantine border. The Ottomans were deliberately situated to wage
such wars; they had settled in Byzantium, which was the seat of eastern
Christianity, and these wars served as an attraction for the mighty soldiers of
the Anatolian Ottoman-Muslim emirates, or kingdoms. By subjugating
recurring campaigns, conquering Constantinople, and defeating the Balkan
Christian countries, the Ottomans became champions of anti-Christian wars.
Their victories against the Venetians in the Aegean and the western Balkan
states under Mehmed II and Bayezid II, and against the Habsburgs in the
Mediterranean and Hungary under Sleyman I enhanced even more the
Ottomans reputation as holy warriors and protectors of Islam. Nevertheless,
motivated both by Islamic theology and by methodical and structured use of
political pragmatism, the Ottomans did not hesitate to diverge from the
officially homogeneous approach toward its non-Muslim people, who,
acknowledging the power-game of pragmatism, also adopted pragmatic
approaches and reactions.27

26

goston, Gbor, Masters Bruce Alan, Encyclopaedia of the Ottoman Empire, Facts on
File 2008, p.30
27
Ibid

34

The Ottomans were flexible and realistic from the beginning. Settling in an
extremely heterogeneous area with Christian, Muslim, Turkish, Greek, Slavic,
and Albanian residents, the Ottomans' victory in western Anatolia and
subsequently in the Balkans in the 1400s and 1500s, was the product of their
willingness and ability to adapt, to exploit talent and accept loyalty from
various sources, and to make numerous appeals for support. Therefore, they
managed to attract not only soldiers to confront Christians when necessary,
but also Muslims and Christians to join forces for treasures and authority
when available. After their spread, if they could not take control of a land, they
would negotiate for the loyalty of local elites. They were also eager and
capable to borrow organisations. The early Ottoman state was primarily a
pragmatic state in the making, not a religious one. Because of this, the
Ottomans managed to maintain power until the modern times, whereas many
other Muslim dynasties, such as Mongols and Safavids, could not do that,
even though it will also become obvious that, from time to time, their flexibility
and pragmatism were expected to collapse.28

Regarding Christianity, Prophet Muhammads contract with the Christians

from Yemen proved to be the basis of Ottoman incorporating strategies
towards Christians in the Balkans and the Empire in general,29 as long as
Christians pay a fixed poll tax as a sign of submission. It was, thus, an aspect

28

Kafadar, Cemal, Between Two Worlds: The Construction of the Ottoman State
(Berkeley, 1995); Lowry, Heath W., The Nature of the Early Ottoman State (Albany, 2003);
Quataert, Donald, The Ottoman Empire, New York, 2000, pp13-36.
29
Montgomery, William, Muhammad in Medina, Oxford 1956, pp. 359-360; Gradeva,
Rossitsa, Ottoman Policy towards Christian Church Buildings, tudes Balkaniques 4, 1994,
pp. 14-36, especially p. 16.

35

in Islamic legal practice that the Christian subjects of a Muslim state could
keep their own religious institutions and customs. The millet30 system, which
concerned the non-Muslim communities within a Muslim state, owed its
Islamic legal bases to the facts of Prophet Muhammads years in Medina 31. In
the Ottoman Empire, millet was a technical word, and was employed for the
structured, accepted, religio-political communities having certain rights of
independence under their own leaders.32 This system required that the sultan
accept the existence and limited power of a non-Muslim community. Although
non-Muslims were always considered dhimmi,33 residents of the Islamic state
exercising the privilege of dealing with their own communal matters in certain
defined spheres of life, in this case, within the Church society.34

Naturally, this policy was implemented in the entire Ottoman Empire. The
Balkans, though, had another special feature which designated the political
pragmatism of the Ottomans and the institution of Muslim-Christian
coexistence as a catalyst for a religious syncretism which determined the
identity of Islam in the region. At least until the mid 15th century, they

30

The Quranic Arabic word milla, commonly known as millet, has an Aramaic origin,
and initially meant a word, referring to a group of people who agreed to a specific word or
revealed book. It is also refers to other religious groups, and some unusual groups of the
Islamic world (Lewis, Bernard, The Political Language of Islam, The University of Chicago
Press, 1988, p. 38).
31
Bosworth, C.E., The Concept of Dhimma in Early Islam, in B. BraudeB. Lewis,
Christians and Jews in the Ottoman Empire, vol. I, Holmes & Meier Publishers, London-New
York 1982, p. 37.
32
Lewis, Bernard, The Political Language of Islam, The University of Chicago Press,
1988, pp. 38-39.
33
For what this meant to non-Muslims lifestyle in an Islamic country, see Schacht,
Joseph, An Introduction to Islamic Law, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1982, pp. 130-133.
34
Inalcik, Halil., The Status of the Greek Orthodox Patriarch Under the Ottomans,
Turcica, Revue d'tudes turques, Tome 21-23, Sous la direction de Gilles Veinstein, Paul
Dumont, Louvain, Peeters, 1991, p. 420.

36

constituted a frontier society, an environment favouring cultural exchange/

mixture and syncretism. As Abdullah Ulker states:
Frontiers have been seen to be a reflection of political history and
as the ideal framework for the indication of military power. But, frontiers
have much more meaning than that. They are mechanism for
economic, social, cultural, religious and artistic exchanges between
social groups, whether they are friend or foe. As regions distant from
centres of governmental control and ideological orthodoxy, groups with
different political and social affiliations could live in together. Society in
the marches included highly mobile nomads, refugees from central
authority, heterodox elements, adventurers, and jobless immigrants. In
contrast to the highly developed conservative civilization of the
hinterland, frontier regions are the centre of mysticism, tolerance,
flexibility, heterodox beliefs, and romantic legends. The society living in
frontier regions usually acquire a special idiosyncrasy within the
frontier. Thus, in these areas, religious, political, economic and
geographical conditions that determine different style of life, called
frontier/uc culture by modern scholarship.35

35

Ulker, Abdullah, Interaction, Flexibility and Pragmatism in the Uc/Frontier Societies:

The Ottoman-Byzantine Example (1277-1402), Introduction.
https://www.academia.edu/4065112/

37

Speros Vryonis, a specialist in Byzantine history, describes the first period

of the spread of Islam in the Balkans, under Ottoman rule, with the following
conclusions36:
a. During the first Turkish invasions of the Balkan territories, paganism
was an extremely distinctive trait of folk Christianity in the Balkans, and
shamanism of nomadic Islam.

b. Even though the majority of the Anatolian Christians was incorporated

in the Muslim community, their conversion to Islam was still an
insignificant phenomenon in the Balkan lands. The opposing
circumstances of the Turkish conquests in the two peninsulas lead to
the conflicting fate of Christianity and Islam in the two areas.

c. Even though the Islam emerging in the Balkans was officially

'orthodox', unofficially, it was profoundly influenced by the Ancient
Paganism and Christian elements retained by converted believers. As
a result, despite the fact that the invasion of the Turks and their longlasting rule constitute a real era in the history of the Balkan masses,
the changes which they forced in the religious life of the Balkan
peoples were limited. Most of the Balkanites did not convert, but even
those who did so retained beliefs and practices from their previous
religions. Therefore, in spite of the religious change which was

36

Vryonis, Speros Jr., Religious Changes and Patterns in the Balkans, 14th-16th
Centuries, in Henrik Birnbaum and Speros Vryonis, Jr., editors, Aspects of the Balkans:
Continuity and Change, The Hague, Mouton Press, 1972, pp. 151-176.

38

introduced under Ottoman rule, the prominent feature of Balkan

religious life during this period was continuity.

The transfer of Islamic heritage in Anatolia to the Balkans

Authors who had portrayed the Ottomans during the years of the first
conquest as horrifying plunderers, with the passage of time started to flatter
the Seljuk sultans to a surprising degree; this was a natural outcome of their
righteous and effective administration, as well as their sympathetic protection
of their Christian subjects. The religious tolerance of the Seljuks, and the
freedom of Christians, made the latter more devoted to the Seljuks, and
enhanced their hatred for Byzantium, which was stirred up by the heavy
taxation and the Byzantine persecutions of the numerous heretics, mainly
monophysitic Christian groups, mostly in Anatolia region, but in the Balkans
as well.
Sufi mystics like Jalal al-Din Rumi and Yunus Emre reflect this social
environment. The great mystic Muhyi al-Din Ibn al-'Arabi came as well to
Anatolia37, and settled in Konya, with the purpose of enjoying intellectual
liberty. Believers who initially belonged to different religions and cults were
united and supported Jalal al-Din Rumi and his successors. Muslims and
Christians joined forces, under the supervision of the Syrian patriarch, with an

37

The Asian part of Turkey

39

oath of fidelity, when the Mongol invaded Malatya, which had been left without
administration. Despite the censorious efforts of Muslim scholars, dancing and
music were used to encourage religious joy, and, thus, could not be
abolished. The Seljuk sovereigns frequently invited theologians, jurists,
physicians, artists and poets from the older Muslim world, and erected
schools, madrassas, hospitals and religious institutions for the improvement
and progress of Islamic culture.38

The Ottoman supremacy in the Anatolia region after the Mongol wars and
the surrender of Seljuks, brought very few changes in this governance model
they had inherited. The reason for this was simple: Even though the Ottoman
Turks had accepted Islam a century before their arrival in Anatolia, their
conversion, due to their nomadic lifestyle, remained very superficial; under the
facade of Islam, their old shamanistic traditions and principles survived. Baba
Ishaq, Barak Baba, Sari-Saltuk and other Turcoman babas39 were the
continuance of the ancient Turkish shamans, rather than Muslim sheikhs40.
Consequently, shamanism profoundly influenced Muslim Turkish religious
orders and cults, by participating in their religious ceremonies.41

38

Pre-Ottoman Anatolia, Cambridge Histories Online, Cambridge University Press, 2008,

pp 255-257
39
Saints
40
Religious officials
41
Vryonis, Speros Jr., editors, Religious Changes and Patterns in the Balkans: 14th-16th
Centuries Aspects of the Balkans: Continuity and Change, The Hague, Mouton Press 1972,
pp. 151-176.

40

According to Vryonis, the strength and perseverance of nomadic life

indicated that Islam remained a shallow religious group among the Turkic
tribesmen, for many years.42

After the Ottoman conquest, these traditions were passed on to the

Balkans, where a similar religious background existed.

Vryonis has observed that the religious lifestyle of the non-Muslim people
in the Balkans resided on a foundation heavily influenced by their pagan
roots.43 Even though most of the Balkan populations had turned to Orthodox
Christianity by the 10th century, this conversion had only been accomplished
by accepting the incorporation of several pagan beliefs, superstitions and
practices into the official doctrine of the Church. Hence, Balkan Christians
continued to examine their traditional practices, such as the use of marriage
crowns, the contribution of professional mourners during funerals, the placing
of money in the grave, the preparation of a special meal for the funerals, the
official observance of a one-year mourning period etc. Many of the feast days
in the Orthodox calendar were actually Christian only on the surface. In their
essence, these feasts were associated with agrarian and pastoral life and
therefore, the old magical practices to guarantee fertility were persevered.
According to Vryonis, the extensive hagiolatry and iconolatry originated in the

42

Vryonis, Speros,Jr., Religious Changes and Patterns in the Balkans: 14th-16th

Centuries , Mouton 1972, p. 161.
43
Ibid p. 154.

41

pagan past as well.44 The former, relying mostly on the worship of local saints,
had many of the features of the ancient hero cult and polytheism. The icon,
however, was equally associated with miracles and magic, as were the pagan
statues of the past.

Vryonis states that, Balkan folk Christianity in the late medieval period
represents a syncretism of magic, animism, monotheistic dogma, polytheistic
practices, monism and dualism. Christianity succeeded in destroying or
effacing the major gods and in replacing them with a triune surface. But
underneath this surface the old spirits and forces retained their grip on the
masses.

He rejects the stereotype that the Greeks of the classical period did not
believe in superstition, arguing that, There was a great deal of superstition in
Greece, even when Greek culture was at its height and even in the center of
that culture, Athens.45

A similar ambience of syncretism dominated the religious beliefs of the

Muslim settlers in the Balkans, too. For instance, the conversion of the Ogz
tribes from paganism to Islam had only started during the ninth century.46 That

44

Ibid p. 159.
Ibid p. 162.
46
Norris, Harry, Islam in the Balkans: Religion and Society Between Europe and the Arab
World, Columbia 1993, University of South Carolina Press 1994, p.86.
45

42

is to say, Islam had had even less time than had Christianity to put down roots
among the Muslim conquerors and the Balkan population respectively.

With the gradual sedentism47 of the nomads, pagan-shamanistic elements

infiltrated popular Islam. In Asia Minor, Christians who turned to Islam, from
the eleventh until the fifteenth century, also contributed to the mix with
additional layers of religious beliefs. Another scholar, Anton Minkov, claims
that some of the Muslim inhabitants in the Balkans had converted or were
descendants of converted people from Asia Minor, many of whom had
preserved some elements of their former religious lifestyle, in their idea of
Islam.48 Put differently, the Muslim and Christian communities shared many
common methods of comprehending religion, which stemmed from their quite
recent pagan or former Christian past. For these two strands of belief to be
brought together, all that was needed was a motivation for interaction and a
means of some sort to trigger this interaction.

The interaction, as Franz Babinger points out, became unavoidable with

the Ottoman conquest. The means was apparently the cult of saints, typical
characteristic of the Islamic mystical orders (tarikat) mixed with the local

47

Sedentism (sometimes called sedentariness), is a term applied to the transition from

nomadic lifestyle to a society which remains in one place permanently. Essentially, sedentism
means living in groups permanently in one place.
48
Minkov, Anton, Conversion to Islam in the Balkans - Kisve Bahas Petitions and
Ottoman Social Life, 1670-1730, Brill 2004, pp. 108-109

43

preference for hagiolatry as its Christian equivalent.49 Essentially, the tarikats

influenced the integration of similar pagan and local non-Muslim principles
into popular Islam, consequently making the conversion process more
pleasant to the new Muslims. In the Balkans as well, the involvement of the
orders in the spread of Islam was equally important. The dervishes, the
followers of the different tariqats, usually founded their tekkes (dervish lodges)
and zaviyes (monasteries) around the turbe (grave) of a religious person, who
was almost immediately proclaimed as a saint. Also, the dervishes often used
the already existing local cult of a saint in order to promote a new one, whose
miracles were made to be similar to those of the superseded holy person.50
The construction of a common ritual site led to the gathering of people of both
religious groups on particular dates. The rituals performed were often
similar.51 Some of these rituals were the animal sacrifice (kurban) and
bringing gifts to the saint.

Despite the fact that the Bektashi, per se, had no connection with the first
Ottoman leaders, other dervishes did.52 Taken to a great extent, the dervishes
during the early Ottoman period, wanted to reunite Christianity and Islam.
They put aside their religious and cultural differences. Some were downright

49

Babinger, Franz, Der Islam in Sdosteuropa, In Vlker und Kulturen Sdosteuropas,

Schriften der Sdosteuropa Gesellschaft. Munich, 1959, pp. 206-207.
50
For both religions, the most famous saint was Sar Saltuk, who was respected in the
Balkans, the Middle East and possibly even in Sinkiang. See Norris Harry, Islam in the
Balkans: Religion and Society Between Europe and the Arab World, University of South
Carolina Press 1994, p.p 146-160.
51
Vryonis, Speros Jr., Religious Changes and Patterns in the Balkans: 14th-16th
Centuries Mouton 1972, p.174.
52
Langer, William L. and Blake, Robert P., he Rise of the Ottoman Turks and Its
Historical Background, The American Historical Review, Vol. 37, No. 3 (Apr., 1932), pp. 468505 Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Historical Association.

44

missioners in their purposes, like the Ishaqi53, who are believed to have
converted to Islam thousands of Jews and fire worshipers in Persia, India, and
China before they arrived in Anatolia. Both Christians and Muslims frequented
indiscriminately several holy places in Anatolia.54 Actually, it is difficult to
make any essential distinction between the Turkish dervishes on the one
hand and on the other, the numerous zealots, pilgrims, beggar monks,
travellers and insane people who swarmed through Byzantine during the
Palaeologan dynasty (1261-1453). H.A Gibbons is probably right in assuming
that there was widespread apostasy on the part of the Greeks, who found the
change of religion a not considerable one and discovered that it was a useful
expedient. Many accepted Islam outwardly, while still remaining Christian in
faith and feeling55.

The proof of religious syncretism concerning Balkan Christianity and Islam

appears to be conclusive. For instance, Vakarelski examines the survival
among the Pomaks in the Rhodopes, where old magical practices were linked
with harvesting and sowing, and where the Kukeri56 dances were linked with
Dionysian fertility rituals.57 Many people who had converted to Islam in
Bosnia, Serbia and Northern Greece, maintained some traditions from their

53

Isaqi or Qaradaglik order was founded by Khwaja Isaq-i-Wali in Khurasan, Central

Asia.
54

Vryonis, Speros Jr., Islam and Cultural Change in Middle Ages, Harrassowitz,
Wiesbaden 1975, p 139.
55
Gibbons, Herbert Adams, The Foundation of the Ottoman Empire: A History of the
Osmanlis Up to the Death of Bayezid I (1300-1403), Clarendon, 1916.
56
Kukeri is a traditional Bulgarian ritual to scare away evil spirits, with costumed men
performing the ritual. Closely related traditions are found throughout the Balkans and Greece.
57
Vakarelski, Christo, Altertmliche Elemente in Lebensweise und Kultur der
bulgarischen Mohammedaner, Zeitschrift fur Balkanologie 4, 1966, pp 149172.

45

former religion, such as dyeing eggs during Easter, seeking the blessing of a
priest on feast days, and keeping church books and icons in their houses.
They also preserved the ritual of animal sacrifices in the yards of churches
and monasteries.58 Several of these traditions still exist.

There is evidence that the Muslims in the Balkans have always been
visiting Christian healing temples, even nowadays, and this fact may have
been a significant stage in the conversion of many holy places from
Christianity to Islam.

According to the Greek theologian Ef. Zegkinis,59 even in the present day,
Muslims of Western Thrace retain several practices which are similar to
Christian ones.

Some of these practices are the following:

a. They visit Christian chapels, especially the chapel of Agios Georgios
(Aya Yiorgi), in order to pray or to perform animal sacrifices (kurban),

58

Vryonis, Speros Jr., Religious Changes and Patterns in the Balkans, 14th-16th
Centuries, in Henrik Birnbaum and Speros Vryonis, Jr., editors, Aspects of the Balkans:
Continuity and Change, The Hague, Mouton Press, 1972, pp.175176 and Norris, H.T, Islam
in the Balkans: Religion and Society Between Europe and the Arab World, University of South
Carolina Press, 1993, p. 48. In the work of Hasluck, Frederick William, Christianity and Islam
under the Sultans, Oxford University Press, 1929, there can be found examples of CryptoChristianity.
59
Zegkinis, Efstratios Ch., Bektashism in Western Thrace, Institute for Balkan Studies,
Pournara Editions 2001, Second edition, p. 232. , .,
, , 2001,
, . 232.

46

on the name day of the Greek Saint according to the Old Calendar
(before the Julian).
b. They worship Christian saints whom they regard as Muslim saints.
They follow the Greek Orthodox Calendar, which contains elements
from Christianity.
c. They visit the sacred springs, wash themselves or drink holy water, in
the same way Christians do.
d. They perform animal sacrifices similar to the ones performed by
Christians of Thrace.

What is more, we should probably add some cases of Muslim sanctuaries

frequented by Christians to these conversions.

Furthermore, as L.S Stavrianos60 states, during the Islamisation of the

Albanian regions, dual religious traditions made their appearance: the
converts continued on worshiping the Holy Mary and the Saints, and making a
pilgrimage to the Holy Places. On the other hand, Christians visited the tombs
of Muslim saints so that they could have their wishes fulfilled.61 Converted
Muslims secretly remained Christians, even though, in most cases, their

60

Stavrianos, Leften, Stavros, The Balkans Since 1453, C., Hurst & Co. Publishers, 2000,
p. 500
61Arnold, T.W, The Preaching of Islam, A History of the Propagation of the Muslim Faith,
Lahore, Pakistan, 1976, p 188.

47

children would turn into genuine converts.62 This fact is called cryptoChristianity (laraman in Albanian)63.
Also, Stavrianos states that, The Albanians never have been fanatics in
religious matters. Most Moslem Albanians belonged to the Bektashi sect, an
extremely unorthodox and tolerant order that preached a pantheistic
universalist creed. Moslems and Christian Albanians lived side by side for
centuries, and, although quarrels between tribes and individuals were only too
common, religion was rarely the issue in dispute. Tolerance went so far that
members of the same family not infrequently professed different religions.
More than one traveller reported that infants were both baptized as Christians
and circumcised as Moslems, and that adults who had begun life in that
fashion used two names, one Christian and the other Moslem, depending
upon the circle in which they happened to be moving at the time. 64

The role of interfaith marriages in religious interaction

Mixed marriages between a Muslim man and a Christian strongly favoured

the religious interaction. Vryonis states that women, through extensive
intermarriage, were another medium by which popular Christianity and Islam

62

Ibid
On laraman, see the contribution of Duijzings, Ger, (Duijizings, 2000: 86-105)
64Stavrianos, Leften, Stavros, The Balkans Since 1453, C., Hurst & Co. Publishers,
2000, p. 500.
63

48

were mixed. A well-known example of this case is Sheikh Bedreddin Simavi,

whose family tree indicates a long history of intermarriages and religious
syncretism.65 Another example is Balim Sultan, possibly the real creator of the
Bektashi order, who is also considered to have been the child of a mixed
marriage.66 An illustrative example of this attitude is the fact that even the
mothers of some sultans were not only Christians converted to Islam, but
even practicing Christians, as well.

Even though Christianity and Judaism did not accept intermarriages,

Muslim law allowed Muslim men to marry non-Muslim women, or more
correctly, women of the Book.67 Nevertheless, Muslim women could not marry
non-Muslim men. Off course, the practice of marrying Christian women or
taking them as slaves was rarely looked upon favourably by the Christian
community. The discrepancy in authority and in sexual economy, which was a
typical characteristic of the Ottoman Empire, provoked the anxiety of mixed
marriage, which left an indelible trace on popular Christian descriptions from
the Ottoman period. It posed a considerable challenge to the protectors of the
Christian moral community's limits, and women who disobeyed the religious
divide through permanent or temporary (kebin) marriages, even without
openly converting to Islam, immediately found themselves excluded from the

65

Vryonis, Speros Jr., Religious Changes and Patterns in the Balkans: 14th-16th
Centuries Mouton 1972, p.173
66
Birge, John Kingsley,The Bektashi Order of Dervishes, Luzak, London 1937, p.56.
67
Vryonis, Speros Jr., Decline of Medieval Hellenism, and Religious Changes and
Patterns in the Balkans, pp.151-76. See also Melikoff, Irene, Les voies de penetration de
lheterodoxie islamique en Thrace et dans les Balkans aux XIVe-Xve sicles, Halcyon Days in
Crete, Rethymno, January 1994, pp. 9-11, Norris, Islam in the Balkans pp. 159-170; Balivet,
Michel, Romanie Byzantine et pays de Rm Turc: Histoire d'un Espace d'Imbrication GrcoTurque, The Isis Press, 1994.

49

bounds of "orthodoxy". Nonetheless, it does not mean that they automatically

stopped considering themselves Christian, and it is important to take their role
under consideration in the context of the debate on syncretism and
conversion.

After marriage, a non-Muslim woman had the same rights as a Muslim

wife, and she was allowed to observe the principles of her religion. According
to laws, the husband could forbid his wife from drinking wine or bringing the
cross into their residence, but he could not legally prohibit her from doing so.68
She had the right to read the Bible, provided that she was reading it in a low
voice. Even though the children of an interfaith marriage were Muslim by law,
through their mother, they could learn another language, be exposed to the
principles of the New and Old Testaments, and possibly even be secretly
baptised. A few sources even imply that in some cases where the mother was
Christian, daughters would be baptised and sons circumcised, despite this
being a clear violation of the Sharia.69 Similar cultural incidents are
documented even in cases where the wives actually adopt the religion of
Islam upon marriage.70 Interfaith marriages were thus significant
circumstances of religious change in which non-Muslim women were
important agents of religious mixture. In these conditions, anti-syncretic tactics

68

Balivet, Michel, Byzantins et Ottomans, Gorgias Press & The Isis Press, 1999, p.156.
Lindner, Rudi, Paul, Nomads and Ottomans in Medieval Anatolia (Uralic and Altaic), The
Uralic and Altaic Series, Curzon Press, London, 1997; Kafadar Kemal, Between Two Worlds
The Construction of the Ottoman State, University of California Press, 1995 ; and Lowry
Heath, Nature of the Early Ottoman State, State University of New York Press, 2003.
70
Kafadar, Kemal, Between Two Worlds: The Construction of the Ottoman State,
University of California Press, 1995, p.76.
69

50

could become part of family politics and could be employed by wives,

husbands, and children.

The pioneering field research of Frederic Hasluck

Between the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century,
Frederic Hasluck, a pioneer historian, conducted a remarkable field research
on the Muslim-Christian relations and their places of worship, in the Anatolia
region and in the Balkans. This research offers, even at the present time,
valuable information regarding religious syncretism in this area, since many
monuments and historical elements have disappeared with the surfacing of
nationalistic behaviours.
According to Hasluck71 the popular religious thinking, and still more the
ritual practice, of Oriental Christendom and Islam have many similarities
despite the deep theoretical prejudices. As he states, on the topic of saints,
the attraction of healing miracles goes far to dispel any doubts, and Turk no
less than Greek in his age (early 20th c.) admitted the idea that, if his own
saints disappointed him, an alien might be summoned.

Hasluck mentions some traditions between Muslims which Orthodox Sunni

Islam would categorically reject. The baptism of Muslims, as mentioned

71

Hasluck, Frederick William, Christianity and Islam under the Sultans, edited by Margaret
Hasluck, Oxford University Press, 1929, pp. 76-77

51

above, was one of these traditions.72 We are going to focus on this special
feature, since it fuels, even nowadays, speculations about the existence of
crypto-Christians, mostly in Turkey, but in other Muslim countries of Middle
East, as well.

Hasluck states that, in the middle of the sixteenth century, Busbecq73

knew quite a few Ottoman Muslims who had had their children secretly
baptised, because they were persuaded that the ceremony contained some
good in itself and they were sure that it had not been randomly introduced.
Quoting from Casalius74, he mentions that the Patriarch of Constantinople
noticed that some of those who wanted to get baptised from Christians
requested it because they considered this ceremony as some kind of
incantation by which they would be able to acquire physical cleanliness; they
did not want to receive baptism for the orthodox reason, which is the
purification of their souls and sanctification. Therefore, in the same way and
for the same reason, the Agerini (Muslims) wanted to be baptised, as a
Balsamum says in his commentary on the nineteenth canon of the ' Concilium
Sardicense ', and at another part on the forty-ninth canon (Synod VI in Trullo),
where he states that these Agerini75 were convinced that their children would

72

A person is immersed in water. It is a purifying ceremony.

De Busbecq, Ogier, Ghiselin (15221592) was a Flemish writer, herbalist and diplomat
th
in the 16 century, employed by three generations of Austrian emperors. He was an
Imperial Ambassador at Constantinople and published the book Itinera Constantinopolitanum
et Amasianum in 1581, writing about his time there. It was re-published in 1595 under the title
"Turkish Letters"(Turcicae epistolae).
74
Casalius, Joannes, Baptista, De Veteribus Sacris Christianorum Ritibus Sive Apud
Occidentales, Sive Orientales Catholica in Ecclesia Probatis, first published in 1647.
75
Alteration of Algerians, synonymous with Muslims
73

52

be disturbed by demons, and smell like dogs, if they were not baptised as
Christians.

Then, there is the case of Muslim mothers (especially Albanian) who

baptised their children because they considered baptism as a charm against
leprosy, witchcraft, and wolves. According to a Venetian Relazione76 of 1579,
Turkish mothers generally used baptism as a protection against leprosy, and
another of 1585 says that Sultan Murat III was baptised so that he would
never get sick.

Hasluck agrees with Vryonis that, at a certain degree, this participation in

Christian superstition definitely arises from the imposed intimacy of Christian
and Muslim women, and mainly from mixed marriages and the introduction of
Christian women to harems. It does not necessarily mean that Muslims who
use the Cross or even baptism as charms are converted Christians, though in
some regions (for instance, in Albania and Crete), this is a vital contributory
cause of the abnormality.

In his research, Hasluck often mentions the Muslim tradition of invoking

Christian saints who were considered as miracle workers. In fact, Hasluck

76

The famed final reports, or Relazioni, of the Venetian ambassadors in Constantinople.

53

recounts a story narrated to him in 1916 by a Greek resident of rgp in

Cappadocia77.

For instance, Hasluck mentions, this town possesses the mummified body
of an Orthodox neo-saint, S. John ' the Russian ', who is supposed to have
lived and died in the eighteenth century. The body enjoys considerable
respect both from Christians and Mussulmans. On the occasion of an
epidemic of cholera in 1908 among the children of the Turks, the latter
begged and obtained as a favour from the Greeks that the saint should be
paraded through their quarters. During the procession the Turkish women
threw costly embroidered handkerchiefs on the bier as offerings to the saint,
who in answer to their faith immediately put an end to the epidemic.
Also, according to Hasluck, in a strongly Moslem village in Albania Miss
Durham saw two men and four women, all Mohammedans, and three of the
women with ailing infants, crawl under the altar during mass and stay there
until it was over. Afterwards the priest blessed them: Moslem charms had not
succeeded, so they were trying Christian ones ' for their sickness.

The syncretism of popular beliefs indicates that, at least until the sixteenth
century, the process of religious conversion did not necessarily mean that the
converted people abandoned their previous religious beliefs or lifestyle. For a

77

Hasluck, Frederick, William, Christianity and Islam under the Sultans, edited by
Margaret Hasluck, Oxford University Press, 1929, p 65

54

long time, all that was needed for someone to convert to Islam was to adopt a
Muslim name; therefore, it mainly symbolised an acceptance of Ottoman rule,
rather than the actual adoption of a foreign religion.

55

CHAPTER FOUR
The Role of Architecture in Maintaining Muslim Identity in the Balkans
Byzantine Influences in the new Islamic State

Syncretism and politics depict the typology of the first

mosques

While documenting the unique typology of Balkan mosques, both

archaeologists and architects confirm the conclusions of historians about the
special features acquired by Islam in this region during the early Ottoman
Rule.

According to Maximilian Hartmuth,78 Islamic monuments in the Balkans,

inherited by the Ottoman Empire, point out the features of the two previously
described periods.

78

Hartmuth, Maximilian, Proceedings of the International Conference: Center and

Peripheries in Ottoman Architecture : Rediscovering a Balkan Heritage, 22-24 April 2010.
Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, pp. 18-29, Stable url:
http://www.chwb.org/regional/publications/Centres%20and%20peripheries%20in%20Ottoman
%20architecture-%20Rediscovering%20a%20Balkan%20heritage.pdf, Sarajevo, 2011.

57

Preceding this event, Hartmuth mentions that the early Ottoman regime
until the 15th c., was polycentric. The Ottoman emirs and sultans preferred
Bursa, and eventually Edirne, as seats of residence (capitals), but apart from
them, there were also several urban centres in Asia Minor and the Balkans,
the status of which was also reflected in the standing of their monuments
within the broader architectural construction of the Ottoman Empire.

Instead of the Friday mosque, this class of patrons preferred

multifunctional buildings, imarets79 and zaviyes.80 In the earlier literature,
these buildings, which were typically domed and often T-shaped, have been
called mosques in the Bursa style or mosques with zaviyes, which is a
significant element of Islamic identity in the Balkans. In the end, it was
revealed that they had not been originally erected or conceived as mosques
at all, but served many different functions, such as: place for prayer and ritual,
accommodation of dervishes and travellers, and providing food for clients, the
poor and other citizens in need (like slaves, for instance)81. Frequently, the Tshaped imarets served as cores for building Islamic cities in the Balkans.
They were founded by people engaged in expanding the Ottoman Empire on
the Balkan frontier. However, these individuals were not yet mere servants of

79

A verse from the Quran, inscribed over the gates of more than one Ottoman imaret
(public kitchen), reads: And they give food in spite of their love for it, to the needy, the
orphan, and the captive [saying]: We feed you only for the Face of God; we desire no
recompense from you, no thankfulness. (76:8-9). Singer, Amy, Imarets, in The Ottoman
World, ed. Woodhead, Christine, Routledge, London, 2012, p.1.,
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.178.6091&rep=rep1&type=pdf
80
Zawiya: Dervish tekke / monastery.
81
Hartmuth, Maximilian, Proceedings of the International Conference: Center and
Peripheries in Ottoman Architecture: Rediscovering a Balkan Heritage, 22-24 April 2010.
Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina pp. 18-29

58

the sultans sent off to the provinces, as were most architectural patrons from
the 16th century onwards; they were frontier agents having a high degree of
autonomy in their own marches. This considerable autonomy is probably a
reason for the difference between monuments in various Ottoman cities,
during this period, not being as great as in subsequent periods. What is more,
regarding style and form, these patrons relied on models originating from
Anatolia: the designers and engineers were obviously brought from the Asian
region of the Ottoman emirate/ sultanate82, whereas most of the employees
were indeed hired locally for practical reasons.

Imaret of Ghazi Evrenos Bey (1375-1380), Komotini Greece.

Figure 1. Source: meen, Fatouh, Ahmed, Byzantine Influences in Early Ottoman

Architecture of Greece, PhD Thesis, Athens 2010.

82

Ibid

59

After the significant conquest of Constantinople in the 15th century and

especially of important Islamic places such as Jerusalem, Cairo, Damascus,
Mecca and Medina in 16th century, military leaders with a front in the Balkan
territories were substituted with military governors trained in Istanbul. As
previously mentioned, during fundamental conflict with bordering Shia Iran,
the sultans made a traditional Sunni interpretation of the Islamic religion and
persecuted as heretics numerous heterodox groups and their leaders which
had greatly aided them in the past in spreading their domination over the
Balkans.

All this influenced the architecture construct from then on. A new kind of
royal architecture emerged along with Mimar Sinan83 in the mid-16th century.
Regarding the Balkans, the favoured types of architecture supported by
various patrons modified following these developments. The T-shaped
imarets were abolished and replaced by groups of buildings centred on a
Friday mosque, which was not only a prayer or oratory space, but also a
mosque in which the Friday preaching is delivered by an imam (khatib) having
received a decent madrasah education. The imam-khatib was expected not
only to summon the monarchs name, but also to spread and reinforce with

83

Mimar Sinan (c. 1489/1490 July 17, 1588) was the chief Ottoman architect and civil
engineer for sultans Suleiman the Magnificent, Selim II, and Murad III. He was responsible for
the construction of more than 300 major structures and other more modest projects. His
masterpiece is the Selimiye Mosque in Edirne, although his most famous work is the
Suleimaniye Mosque in Istanbul.

60

their sermon Orthodox Islam in regions still being under the influence of
heterodox tendency.

The multifunctional T-shaped mosques of the early Ottoman period

constitute another feature of the special identity of Islam in the Balkans.

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Isa Beg mosque, Skopje,

1475/78. It is a T-shaped
multifunctional building in the
Ottoman domain. According to its
inscription, it is an imaret
(public soup kitchen), not a Friday
mosque. It is also described as a
hankah (dervish lodge) in the
endowment deed.
Source: Centers and Peripheries in
Ottoman Architecture:
Rediscovering a Balkan Heritage,
Conference, Sarajevo, 22-24 April
2010.
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61

7"

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."Xqn0"ZK"*3;:5+."rr0"58/78."ekv0"r0"730

The Uc Serefeli Mosque

(1438 -47) was the first
in Edirne to have a large
courtyard adjoining the
prayer hall.
Source: The Illustrated
Guide to Islam, Early
Ottoman Architecture by
Giorgis Manginis, Lorenz
Books 2012.

Byzantine influences on the new Islamic state

Suraiya Faroqhi, in Approaching Ottoman History An Introduction to the

Sources, states that one of the fields most strongly related to Ottoman history
is its Byzantine counterpart. However, the difficulties between Ottomanists
and Byzantinists stem less from the differences in source bases than from the
relevant fields being adopted by Turkish and Greek nationalist historiography
respectively. According to Faroqhi, European philhellenism, which has the
tendency to look for Byzantine influence everywhere, has more complex
matters. For, as a defensive reaction, ever since Turkish historians and
foreign Ottomanists, in their wake, have had a tendency to underestimate
connections between Byzantines and Ottomans. It is merely during the past
thirty years approximately that some researchers have made real efforts to
62

circumnavigate these particular shoals.84

In this context, the influence of Byzantine architecture on the Ottoman

mosques during this period is another factor of interaction which should be
studied in the Balkans of the early Ottoman rule. Ameen Fatouh studied the
Byzantine influences on the first Ottoman mosques in Greece, many of which
are authentic samples of this period. Fatouh draw some conclusions which
confirm their relations.85

As he points out, Byzantine influences are both direct and indirect. An

example of indirect influences is the use of pre-existing byzantine sites in
Greece, and the use of existing buildings in Byzantine cities through
conversion with few transformations. What is more, in the early ottoman
buildings, we can see the reuse of the foundations of older byzantine
monuments and the use of spolia.

The direct influences on the Ottoman buildings are obvious. For instance,
there is a similarity between the construction techniques, architectural
elements, decorations etc. Ameen Fatouh mentions that, in architectural
elements in the Ottoman mosques of Greece, like in the domes, arches,

84

Faroqhi, Suraiya, Approaching Ottoman History An Introduction to the Sources,

Cambridge University Press, 2004, p.7
85
meen, Fatouh Ahmed, Byzantine Influences on Early Ottoman Architecture of Greece,
Phd Thesis, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, 2010, pp. 230-234.
http://thesis.ekt.gr/thesisBookReader/id/20731#page/1/mode/2up

63

columns and windows, Byzantine influences are obvious, whereas the mihrab
has been influenced by the apse of the Byzantine churches. The domes of
some Ottoman mosques in Greece, supported by windowed drums, and the
plan of their prayer halls are similar to the octagonal Byzantine churches, the
island category. In general, the use of Byzantine spolia in the Ottoman
mosques in Greece, with the most characteristic being the byzantine capitals,
illustrates the permanence of Byzantine practices in the early Ottoman
mosques.86

The difference between the cross-in-square (byzantine)

and the quatrefoil (ottoman)

Figure 2. Source: meen, Fatouh, Ahmed, Byzantine Influences in Early Ottoman

Architecture of Greece, PhD Thesis, Athens 2010.

86

Ibid p 234

64

Undoubtedly, the influence from Byzantine architecture is a product of a

wider historical background. The Ottoman regime in its formative years was
cultivated and developed in the late-Roman, Byzantine Christian environment
of the Balkans. After the dissolution of the Byzantine Empire, the cultural
Byzantine influence did not fade away immediately. Even though both
Muslims and Christians considered it a catastrophic event that would
anticipate the end of time, the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople also
triggered the politics of religious mixture from various districts. For instance, in
his letter to Sultan Mehmet II from Rome, in July 1453, the Byzantine
philosopher and scholar George of Trebizond requested the sultan to unite
humanity in a single religion and thus realise the political harmony of the
world, as Alexander the Great did. This was a unique Byzantine manuscript
that regarded Christianity and Islam as equals, recognising the divine origin
of the Qur'an and the authenticity of Muhammad's prophetic mission."87
Dissatisfied with developments in the Christian community and the collapse of
Orthodox-Catholic unification in face of the Ottoman threat, George of
Trebizond asked the sultan to embrace Christianity in order to become an
open-minded leader destined to outfox all of his Roman, Byzantine, and
Turkish predecessors. According to George of Trebizond, that would not
constitute betrayal to the sultan's ancestral practices, since the discrepancies
between Christians and Muslims are based less on the faith per se than on
mutual ignorance, arrogance, and capacity for quarrel.

87

Hibetullah, B. ibrahim, Sa'atname, 3b. Princeton Collection of Islamic Manuscripts,

Ottoman Turkish Texts.

65

Sultan Mehmet II the Conqueror expressed a considerable interest in the

practices of his Byzantine predecessors, and the conquest of Constantinople
initiated a new phase in his relationship with both his Christian and Muslim
subjects. shortly after the conquest, he chose Gennadius Scholarius, the
champion of the anti-Latin party within the Byzantine ecclesiastical society, as
the first Orthodox Christian Patriarch of Ottoman Constantinople.88 The sultan
invited Gennadius Scholarius to prepare a Confession of the Christian faith,
which was translated into Turkish in 1455-56.89 Another prestigious Byzantine
intellectual, George Amiroutzes, the Greek philosopher and imperial
administrator at the Empire of Trebizond (a Byzantine descendant state that
was captured by the Ottomans in 1461), also confirmed Mehmets interest in
Christian traditions and even documented his alleged conversations with the
sultan on this subject in 1463-65. Although they were edited and adjusted, the
sultan's questions to Amiroutzes still prove his genuine and strong interest in
Christian faith. He felt obliged to protect his Christian subjects and became
heir of their cultural and political traditions90. Apart from religious polemics,
Mehmed II demanded an inspection of Byzantine monuments in
Constantinople and patronised several translations from Greek.91

88

Ibid., 6b-7a.
Yazma bagislar, Suleymaniye Library 3693.
90
Mesih Pasa, Suleymaniye Library, 109.
91
Serez, Suleymaniye Library, 1634. This copy was donated by two women, Ayse b.
Kadir and Hatice b. Orner Kara batak. Also see Yazma bagislar 3398, a manuscript from the
vakif. There is a copy in the Oriental Collection in the National Library in Sofia (number 499).
This copy belonged to Hatice Hatun, the daughter of El-Hac Hasan Gaferalla, the imam of
Samokov, Bulgaria.
89

66

The descriptions of the iconic image of Sultan Mehmet II the Conqueror

confirm the intention of the Ottomans to become the political and cultural
successors of their Byzantine predecessors.

Sultan Mehmet II the conqueror enters Constantinople Dressed as a Byzantine

Emperor. By Jean-Joseph Benjamin-Constant (18451902). Source: Wikipedia
Commons.

67

CHAPTER FIVE
The reuse of sacred places

The reuse of sacred places has also left traces of the interaction between
Islam and Christianity in the Balkans and on the special identity of Islam in the
region. This phenomenon is quite common in the better documented
transferred religious groups and at first glance, appears to be the last trace
and the most concrete evidence of previous Christian activity. So, can we,
due to lack of other evidence, consider Christians frequentation of a Muslim
sanctuary as proof that the specific holy place was originally Christian?
Frederic Hasluck, at the beginning of the 20th century, states that an orthodox
Christian farmer, in theory, considers the Muslim religion as impure, while the
Turk has no such prejudice against Christianity; despite being Sunni and
scholar, he considers it rather imperfect than bad in itself. In addition, he
regards it as being founded on an earlier revelation than Islam, and dissolute,
regarding the worship of idols92. An apparent expression of this approach is
the fact that, in the re-conquered countries, a mosque is hardly ever occupied
as a church by the Orthodox, except if it has been (or is thought to have been)
a church.

92Hasluck,

Frederick William, Christianity and Islam under the Sultans, edited by Margaret
Hasluck, Oxford University Press, 1929, p. 70

69

However, Hasluck mentions if we think about the popular Christian

attitude towards Moslem saints, in the frequentation of Mohammedan
sanctuaries by Christians, we will realise that it is almost the same as the
Mohammedan attitude towards Christian saints.93

The existence of Islamic motifs in Christian icons, in several Greek

regions, confirms the Haslucks belief. In the 7th Meeting of Byzantinologists
of Greece and Cyprus, held in Komotini, 20-23 September 2007, it was said,
among others, that, in the Islamic kind rounded and sharp-tipped arches, the
icons of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, as seen in Western art, and the icon
of the descent into Hades, as seen in the northern dance of Voutsa monastery
in Ioannina (1680) are placed one above the other. Another product from this
mixture and interaction with the Ottoman art are the spruce-shaped decorative
edges of domes, wrapped with covers or objects like the hemicycle and the
spear on the culmination of the domes (alem)94.

The conversion of churches to mosques occurred mostly out of need,

though encouraging somehow the religious exchanges. As Heath Lowry
states, after the Balkans had been fully integrated into the rising empire during
the second half of the 14th century, Muslim Ottoman officers, soldiers and

93

Ibid
Sixth Meeting of Byzantine experts, 20-23 of September 2007, Komotini. Announcement
title: Ottoman decorative motifs in the post-Byzantine monumental painting of Epirus in the
16th and 17th century. http://christosmerantzas.blogspot.gr/p/ottoman-decorative-motifs.html
:
16 17 , Z
, 20-23 2007, .
94

70

civilians settled in the abandoned walled cities, while many countrymen and
cattle farmers migrated from Anatolia to settle in any available land. At the
same time, a proportion of the Christian population chose to convert to Islam,
since the Muslim identity offered the citizen special privileges and an
opportunity for advancement in the Ottoman system. Therefore, there was a
sudden and constantly increasing need for many mosques, in order to fulfil
the religious needs of the increasing Islamic populations.

Except for the overwhelming need for more mosques for the rapidly
growing Muslim community, which began in the second half of the 15th
century, there were some other various factors which accelerated this
transformation.

In Christianity and Islam under the Sultans, Hasluck thoroughly explored

these phenomena and attempted to find their background. The first group of
Muslim immigrants was probably linked to the conquest of Granada in 1492
by the Spaniards and the destruction of the last Caliphate on Spanish soil. A
wave of Arab refugees flooded the Muslim lands afterwards, along with,
thousands of Jews before the forceful Spanish Catholicism. These immigrants
found a new home in every part of the Turkish Empire, but they also conveyed
their implacable hatred of anything Christian to their fellow Muslims.

71

This policy of reusing the same buildings is known in all civilisations and it
is a typical strategy of many conquerors, including the Ottomans. The
architectural history of the core of central sites in the old world cities, like
Athens for instance, draw a magnificent example of the historical continuity of
these sites. One of the most representative examples is the Parthenon.

The Ottomans continued using sacred Greek sites, in order to satisfy their
own religious needs. Their activity in this domain can be divided into two main
categories:
a) Reuse of an existing building with or without limited alterations or
additions.
b) Reuse of the site of a ruined building.

Reuse of an existing building

The Ottomans could reuse Christian churches only in cities which they had
occupied. In cities which had surrendered by a treaty or had capitulated
voluntarily with a covenant, Christians could keep both their fortune and their
churches. The most famous covenant of the conquered cities is the Pact of
Umar (Al-Unda al-Omariyya), which was signed in 638 AD between the
Caliph Umar Ibn al-Khattab and the Patriarch of Jerusalem, Sophronius, after
the Siege of Jerusalem, in order to establish the rights and impose the
72

obligations of all non-Muslims in Palestine, Christians and Jews, People of

the Book.

The Ottomans obeyed these rules in the Balkanian cities which had
surrendered to them. For instance, Sinan Pasha, senior governor of the
Ottoman territories in Europe, signed with the military and political authorities
of Ioannina, a treaty known as the Decree of Sinan, which meant the
submission of Ioannina to the Ottomans in exchange for some privileges.
According to the terms of this decree of 1430, no church was to be converted
into a mosque; Muslims were not allowed to erect a mesjid (small mosques)
and were prohibited from living inside the citadel. In Athens, the Conqueror,
the Sultan Muhammad II visited the city twice, in 1458 and in 1460; during his
first visit, he gave the inhabitants of Athens certain privileges95. It is
remarkable that, to the best of our knowledge, these rules were violated only
in one case: when the octagon building of the Horologion of Andronikos, the
so-called Tower of the Winds of Athens, was converted96 into the tekke of
Braimi. The details of this conversion remain unknown.

On the other hand, the conqueror had at his disposal all churches of the
cities which had been forcefully captured. Ibn Al-Kaim (1292-1350), a

95

Kourouniotis, Konstantinos, - Sotiriou, Georgios, Inventory of Monuments of Greece,

Greek Ministry of Education, 1927, p.18. , . .
. . , Y , 18.
96
It had been previously converted to a church

73

theologian (ulema) commented on this approach;97 he said that the Imam

(meaning, the conqueror) must do what is best for Muslims, even if this
means taking churches from Christians or demolishing them; this might
happen if Muslims are too many and Christians are few in number. However,
if there are many Christians and need their churches, Muslims should leave
the churches for Christians.

In general, the Ottomans in the Balkans, when they controlled a city by

force, they immediately converted the largest church into a mosque98, as a
symbol of victory, but they left the second largest church to Christians for their
services. If there was only one church in the city, Christians were allowed to
build a new church for themselves.

Reuse of the existing site of a ruined building

Most of the early Ottoman religious structures in the Balkans replaced
existing buildings; therefore, the Ottoman religious buildings were not the first
ones on those locations. In fact, it is rather difficult to imagine that these
strategic and important sites of the plurality of the early Ottoman structures,
which dominate the view of the city, were unoccupied until the Ottomans built
their constructions.

97

Al-Jawziyyah, Ibn Qayyim, vol. I. pp 222-225, vol. 3, pp. 1200-1210

The church of Agia Paraskeui, which means Holy Friday, was frequently converted
into a Friday mosque.
98

74

It is remarkable that the Ottomans generally maintained the old use of

each location99. Bakirzis became aware of this phenomenon in Thrace: In
this respect it is illuminating that many of the places of the worship of the
Bektashi dervishes and Sunni Muslims were established on the sites of
Christian churches and monasteries100 . There are many examples of
Ottoman monuments constructed on the ruins or foundations of earlier
Christian buildings; for example, the Khalil Bey Mosque in Kavala, was
erected on the ruins of an early Christian church. Another example, in the
same city, is the mosque of Ibrahim Pasha (which is now the church of Agios
Nikolaos). In Athens, the Fethiye Mosque, in the northern area of
the Roman Agora, replaced an older mosque, which was also constructed on
the remains of an early Christian basilica. At Ioannina101 , according to the
tradition, the Aslan Pasha Mosque was erected on the site of the byzantine
church of Agios Ioannis102 and the Fethiye mosque, is said to have been built
on the site of the church of Archangel Michael, who is the patron saint and
defender of the byzantine city of Ioannina103.

99

The conversion of the sacred buildings into institutions by the Ottomans was not made
for civil use. However, the church of Saint Mark in Rhodes was converted into a bath,
according to Belabre. See: Belabre 1908, p. 153, cf. p. 156, Hasluck 1929, vol I, p.38.
100
Bakirtzis, Ch. - Triantaphyllos, D., Thrace, Cultural Foundation of ETBA, 1988, p.12.
101
In Ioannina, after the Ottoman conquest, Christians kept their churches for two
centuries, due to the Decree of Sinan, and the neighbourhoods of Christians remained inside
the citadel. After the revolution led by Dionysius the Philosopher in 1611, many of the
privileges granted in Sinans Decree were revoked and Christians were forced out of the
citadel in 1613 and in 1616. Soon after 1611, the churches in the citadel were destroyed by a
fire, and the Ottomans built new monuments. See OAG 2008, {catalogue entry: Papageorgiou
N. Tsimpida E.J. pp 177-158.
102
OAG 2008, {catalogue entry: Papadopoulou V.J. p 160
103
OAG 2008, {catalogue entry: Papadopoulou V.J. p 162

75

The reuse of existing sites was mostly related to the sanctity of the
location, rather than to its foundations. In many cases, the existence of older
foundations could affect the design of the new constructions as well, at least
their dimensions. As we see in the Fethiye Mosque in Athens, which was
constructed on the ruins of an early Christian basilica, the rewaq (portico) of
the mosque terminates where the north wall of the basilica stopped; what is
more, the unusual position of the minaret and its orientation were the direct
result of these older foundations. In some cases, the architectural design was
determined by the given conditions of the plan of the city, especially when an
enlargement was needed, like, for example, in Thessalonica, in the case of
the mosque of Hamza Bey (Aklazar) in the final irregular and distinctive shape
of the courtyard. However, in many occasions, the reuse of the older sites
allowed the use of the spolia104 of these sites, like in the cases of the Hamza
Bey Mosque and Ishak Pasha Mosque, the Fethiye Mosque at Nafpaktos and
the Fethiye Mosque in Athens.105

Following the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, many of the mosques

which had replaced some churches, were once again converted into Christian
churches. In several cases, there are some traces of their use as mosques. A
typical example is the case of the Parthenon, on the Athenian Acropolis; on

104

Spolia is a Latin word meaning 'spoils'. It refers to the common practice of reusing
earlier building material or architectural sculpture on new monuments.
105
See the OAG Catalogue, no. 6

76

the inside, nowadays, there is the base of a minaret which reminds us of its
conversion into a mosque.

The small mosque inside the temple of Parthenon at the Acropolis of Athens.
By Christian Hansen, 1936, Source: Wikimedia Commons

77

CHAPTER SIX
The transformation of the Ottoman religious policy | The Islamisations

The attitude in religious orthodoxy and the Islamisations

In Conversion to Islam in the Balkans, Anton Minkov mentions106 that

Islamisation in the Ottoman Balkans was a gradual process, which started
with the conversion of the former Balkan military elite. It developed as a
widespread phenomenon in the sixteenth and especially in the seventeenth
century, when larger segments of the rural population started to embrace
Islam. The seventeenth century may be designated as the Balkans age of
conversions. By the beginning of the eighteenth century, the third period of
the conversion processearly majorityhad been completed. At this time,
close to 40% of the Balkan population was Muslim.

Conversion to Islam in the Balkans was a voluntary process, at least until

the seventeenth century, when we can see a large increase in conversions.
Until then, conversion was primarily a voluntary process, driven by a
combination of social and economic factors such as market pressures,

106

Minkov, Anton, Conversion to Islam in the Balkans - Kisve Bahas Petitions and
Ottoman Social Life, 1670-1730, Brill 2004, pp 28-63

79

heavier taxation (hara,107 and jizya) 108 desire for social advancement,
religious syncretism and past heretical influences.

As Suraiya Faroqhi mentions, the Ottomans began to define the meaning

of orthodoxy and heresy only after the fundamental conquest of the Holly
Lands of Islam (1517) which can be compared, as a historical fact, with the
Fall of Constantinople109.

After the religious reform in the 1600s, some institutions had a profound
impact, such as devirme (recruitment and Islamisation of the Janissaries by
Christian populations) and the srgn (a discriminatory policy, transferring
and converting Christian communities). Correspondingly, semi-feudal native
leaders and the local converts had a considerable influence on the spread of
Islam. What is more, conversion was considered a means of social rise in the
Ottoman administrative and political system.

Tijana Krstic 110 states that, since by the second half of the sixteenth
century the Ottomans had not succeeded to convincingly defeat their imperial
enemies and set up a Universal Monarchy which would resolve religious

107

The hara, or hara, was a poll tax in the Ottoman Empire.

Jizya or jizyah is a per capita tax levied on a section of an Islamic state's non-Muslim
citizens.
109
Faroqhi, Suraiya, Approaching Ottoman History An Introduction to the Sources,
Cambridge University Press, 2004, Introduction, p.7.
110
Krstic, Tijana, Contested Conversions to Islam - Narratives of Religious Change in the
Early Modern Ottoman Empire, Stanford University Press, 2011, p. 37
108

80

differences, the reality of new religious divisions in Islamdom was established

and accepted through several peace treaties111.

Krstic mentions that for this reason, in the second half of the sixteenth
century, the Ottomans were able to focus on their own affairs and implement
measures such as religious reform, social disciplining, and state building.
Ottoman narratives imply that during this period, conversion to Sunni Islam
progressively became fundamental to Ottoman imperial ceremonial and was
institutionalised in the most unexpected ways. Subsequently, sultan Suleyman
adopted a series of sunnitizing and social disciplining measures through the
judicial reform of the empire and through its harmonisation, thanks to
Ebussuud Efendi 112.

This attitude in religious orthodoxy had profound social consequences,

visible both in the imperial administrative system and on the outside. In the
second half of the sixteenth century, the Sunnitising measures coincided with

111

In 1555, Sultan Suleman the Magnificent and Shah Tahmasp signed the Treaty of
Amasya which was the first peace agreement between the Ottomans and Safavids. In this
treaty, the two parties recognised each other's authority within their respective fields, defined
the border between the two empires, and agreed to make peace, which lasted twenty years.
This peace did not prevent the Ottoman from producing anti-Safavid polemical literature or
making more wars, but it established a precedent which became more permanent after the
last Ottoman-Safavid war (16231639).
112

th

Ebussuud Efendi (1490-1574) was an Ottoman jurist during the 16 century. Efendi
and Suleiman reorganised Ottoman juridical system and got it under stricter governmental
control, developing a legal framework uniting sharia and the Ottoman administrative code
(qnn). While until that time the general opinion was that judges could freely interpret sharia,
the law that included even the ruler, Ebussuud created a framework according to which the
judicial power was derived from the Sultan and which obligated judges to follow the Sultan's
"law-letters"(qnn-nmes) while enforcing the law.

81

the varying social and political conditions in the Ottoman Empire, particularly
the processes of bureaucratisation, intense competition for administrative
positions, and the increase of elite families who created their own channels of
recruitment. The role of converted believers in the Ottoman government had
been controversial since the mid-fifteenth century, when Sultan Mehmed II
handed his government to the recently converted members of the Balkan
aristocracy and devirme recruited soldiers, who were the Sultan's "slaves"
(kuls), so that he could establish a loyal base without any other allegiances
and decrease the influence of Muslim notables. Since then, the general policy
has been to favour the kuls over other successful Muslims and descendants
of the Muslim dynasties for administrative positions in the Ottoman state,
providing a motive for Islamisation.

Did the Ottomans conquer the Balkans in a religious sense?

There is a part of Islam in the Balkans which is mysterious and it is worth

mentioning at this point. The Ottomans inherited the old central territories of
Byzantine culture, such as Asia Minor and the Balkans, and within these two
peninsulas Islamisation had two completely different outcomes.

82

Were we to return at the hearth lists of the early 1500s, for a brief moment,
we could see that, in Asia Minor, the ratio Muslim to non-Muslim population in
the Balkans was the following:

The millet population in the Balkans and Anatolia, in the early 1500s

In Asia Minor

In the Balkans:

Muslim 953,997 (or 92.4%)

Muslim 194,958 (or 18.8%)

Christian 77,869 (or 7.5%)

Christian 832,707 (or 80.7%)

Jewish 559 or (0.1%)

Jewish 4,134 (or 0.5%)

__________

__________

1,032,425 hearths

1,031,799 hearths

Table 1. Population Statistics, Source: Birnbaum H. & Vryonis S. Aspects of the Balkans.
Continuity and change.

The Muslims in Asia Minor constituted an overwhelming majority of the

population, while they were a minority in the Balkans. How can someone

83

explain the spectacular success of Islamisation in Asia Minor, and the mass
survival of Christianity in the Balkan region?

Vryonis113 states that the first difference we can spot is in the duration of
the period of conquests in every region. The Ottoman conquest of Asia Minor
was characterised by longevity, since the Anatolian peninsula was not entirely
conquered until four hundred years after the first Turkish invasions, which
began during the 11th century. The conquest in the Balkans lasted for
approximately one century due to the Timurid interlude. In addition, several of
the Balkan states were initially integrated as vassal states prior to the ultimate
incorporation into the Ottoman system.

On the contrary, as Vryonis mentions, the conquest of Anatolia was an

extensive, repetitive situation, influenced by various states and tribes, and
converted a great part of the area into a land of war for long periods. This
resulted in destruction, which was much more large-scale in Asia Minor than
in the Balkans. Vryonis states that the Ottoman conquests of Anatolia
abolished political harmony, and brought a perplexing political pluralism; the
Anatolian peninsula was reunified in the 15th century. According to Vryonis,

113

Vryonis, Speros Jr., Aspects of the Balkans. Continuity and change, Contributions to
the International Balkan Conference held at UCLA, October 23-28, 1969
http://www.kroraina.com/knigi/en/hb_sv/hb_sv_svryonis.htm

84

the Ottoman conquest of the Balkans eradicated political pluralism and

brought political unification.114

Regarding religious polity, there was a major difference as well. As Vryonis

mentions, during four centuries of wars and conquest in Anatolia, the
Orthodox Church of the Peninsula was closely associated with the patriarch of
Constantinople, who was ultimately connected with the monarch, the main
opponent of the Ottoman conquerors. Consequently, the church was
considered a political suspect. Therefore, the Ottomans took away practically
all its properties, profits, and exiled its bishops for extended periods. In the
Balkans, we can see the same strategy of financial confiscation and exile of
bishops in the first territories invaded by the Turks. However, the conquest did
not last so much. Several of the regions were under Ottoman rule just for a
few years before 1453, and after the dissolution of the Christian Empire, in
1453, the patriarch did not have dangerous political relations. The chain of
command was revived and the church kept what was left from its properties,
which was still substantial, compared with the little property left to the church
in Asia Minor. as a result, the Christian churches in the Balkans did not have
to experience disruption for so long periods as in Anatolia. Its location was
normalised rather quickly. 115

114

Ibid

115Vryonis,

Speros Jr., The Decline of Medieval Hellenism in Asia Minor and the Process
of Islamisation from the Eleventh through the Fifteenth Century, University of California Press,
1971, p 34.

85

From a demographic point of view, the mass of Ottoman settlement

occurred mostly in Asia Minor rather than in the Balkans. Incidentally, the
Turkish nomads were the most significant, and this was a key factor in the
disruption of the Christian society in Anatolia. This element had affected to a
great extent the conquest of Anatolia, and the sultans could control the
nomads only in the thirteenth century. Nonetheless, when the principal
authority was fragile, which was during the 11th-12th and in the late 13th and
14th centuries, they became autonomous agents, invading and pillaging
inactive society. Consequently, a great part of the agricultural areas relapsed
to nomadic pastoralism. The financial lifestyle of the nomads was an
additional nuisance to the inactive population because of their activity in the
slave trade. The conquests in the Balkans operated under a harsher unified
authority, and as the occupation ended, the sultans imposed stricter restraint
and controlled more tightly this particular factor than had been the case in
Anatolia.116

The most considerable disruption which the nomads suffered in Anatolia is

linked to the collapse of central authority, to the existence of political
pluralism, and to the factor of their huge numbers. Considering that the
Ottomans settled in the Balkans through Asia Minor, most of the nomads were
to be found in Anatolia. Even though there are no statistics regarding the tribal
numbers which came in the initial conquests, according to the figures of
Barkan for the early 1500s, the nomads of the Balkan Peninsula were

116Ibid
86

definitely fewer than those of Anatolia. Just in the province of Anadol

(meaning, only in central and western Anatolia, not in eastern Anatolia which
had large tribal gatherings), there were 77,268 nomad hearths. In the entire
Balkan Peninsula, there were just 37,435, or a little less than half of the
figures in central and western Anatolia. It is more interest that the nomads of
Anadol, as well as those of the Balkans, composed just about the same
percentage of the overall Muslim population of their respective provinces, for
instance, 19.7 % and 19 % of the total Muslim populations. However, the
important figure was actually the percentage of nomad population of the total
population (Christian, Muslim, Jewish) in each region. In Anadol, the nomads
represented 16.2% of the total population, while in the Balkans, they
represented just 3.6%. According to Vryonis, this is an extremely important
factor not only as far as Islamisation is concerned, but also in the issue of
disruption.117

These contradictory aspects in the conquests of the Balkans and Asia

Minor certainly had an important role to the differing destiny of the altering
fates of Islamisation in the two peninsulas.

117Ibid
87

New questions to be answered

Even though historical evidence confirms the overwhelming influence of

Christian traditions on Islam in the Balkans, there are still several interesting
questions relevant to this subject:

As Tijana Kristic118 states, while trying to recreate the process of

conversion to Islam and integration of Christians and converted believers into
the Ottoman offices during the fifteenth century, scholars have been counting
either on Ottoman administrative evidence, such as survey records, or on
hagiographies and histories, and rarely on both of them. Besides
methodological preferences, the reason for employing two different source
bases is that they appear to be telling two different stories about who lead the
process of conversion. Studies based on Ottoman population surveys (tahrir
defterleri), the earliest of which originating from Ottoman Rumeli119 in the midfifteenth century, show that the process of conversion in this area varied
considerably, depending on the strategic importance of the region; What is
more, the records prove it was merely in its beginning at the time, and did not
profoundly impact Rumeli's tremendously Christian demographic character
until the next century. Furthermore, these survey records indicate that a great
number of early converted believers exercised a military function, which led

118

Krstic, Tijana, Contested Conversions to Islam. Narratives of Religious Change in the

Early Modern Ottoman Empire, Stanford University Press 2011, pp. 19-20
118
Lowry, Heath, The Nature of the Early Ottoman State, State University of New York
Press 2003, pp. 53-54
119
The Balkan Peninsula was called Rumeli under Ottoman rule.

88

several scholars to disagree on the fundamental role of the "state" in the

conversion process. Nonetheless, Ottoman hagiographies from both Anatolia
and Rumeli, in the fourteenth and fifteenth century (especially of the
viliiyetniime genre), suggest that the numerous conversions of Christians was
undertaken by the Sufi mystics, who typically had a dual role as holy men and
gazi warriors, therefore projecting the image of the dervishes as the most
significant agents of conversion. The dervishes' role in the Islamisation of the
Anatolian and Rumeli region, for example, through the building of Sufi
sanatoria, is well documented. However, apart from hagiographic material,
there is no adequate evidence to indicate that dervishes of any influence
preached openly to non-Muslims or intentionally sought anybody's
conversion. In Ottoman historiography, the "state" and the dervishes have
also been described as the main agents of syncretism.

According to Krstic, the emerging challenge is how to bring the Ottoman

administrative sources and Ottoman hagiographies together, in order to reach
a more sophisticated understanding of the early process of conversion to
Islam, under the Ottoman regime, and of the politics of religious mixture. Even
though some scholars have revealed the possible hazards of using Ottoman
survey records for the examination of conversion, hagiographies continue to
mystify students of the matter. What shall we do with many stories about
dervish warriors and talented preaching spiritualists spreading Islam in
Rumeli? Devin DeWeese120 proposed that, instead of hoping to

120

DeWeese, Devin, The Problem of the Sirj allin: Notes on Two Hagiographies by
Badr alDn Kashmr, in Writing and Culture in Central Asia and the Turko-Iranian World,

89

demythologise conversion descriptions and extract the essential part of

historical truth, we should study the ways their creators, both verbal and
literary, used religious language to convey their visions of human and
collective truths.

A close look at fifteenth-century Ottoman sources reveals a new regime

with a varied political landscape aware of the overwhelming need to increase
its manpower, but still at the same time profoundly hesitant about assimilating
those who up until recently it had to fight. The question of what and whom to
integrate into the promising Ottoman Muslim project remained at the centre of
the discussions about the nature of the leadership and future of the regime.
Mehmet II's conquest of Constantinople, and the city embracing the Roman
imperial idea along with the notion of the Christian oikumene posed a
challenge of self-definition not only to the Ottoman leader, but to all Ottoman
interpretative communities described above. Which of the Byzantine and other
practices and subjects should be incorporated into the political community of
the new leaders, and under what stipulations? How can these practices and
people be integrated and at the same time, how can their "infidel" past be
considered innocent? Who can determine whether someone belongs to the
community of gazis and is a believer and who cannot? These debates among
various Ottoman interpretative populations, led to the appearance of the limits
of a Balkan Ottoman- Islamic identity in the late fifteenth century.

14th-19th Centuries, ed. Francis Richard and Maria Szuppe , Studia Iranica, Cahier, Paris,
2009, pp. 43-92.

90

CHAPTER SEVEN
Islam in the Balkans nowadays

The eccentricities of Balkans Islam nowadays are not only due to its
Ottoman origins but also, the fact that it suddenly became a minority, as a
religious community, after the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire. In fact, this
aspect helps clarify its pragmatism and its ability to adapt to the majority
Christian or prior communist political environment.

The long-lasting Ottoman rule, the historical evolution towards a minority

political status and the communist history in the Balkans initially led to Islams
rather secondary role in the Balkans and, afterwards, to the unusual structure
adopted by Islam in comparison to practices in other Muslim states. In
addition, Muslims in the Balkans come from varied linguistic and national
groups, which also have different relationships with religion.

Except for the particular nature of Islam associated with its Ottoman
origins, the transition from a majority to a minority because of the dissolution
of the Ottoman Empire is an equally significant factor that we should consider,
in order to describe the pragmatism of Islam in the Balkans, that is to say its
flexibility in a political context primarily Christian or secular. Since the

91

dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, the Muslim religious authorities in the

Balkans are controlled by the direct authority of the new rising Balkan states.
As the researcher Xavier Bougarel mentions, the Islamic religious institutions
must thus "adapt to their new minority status and, beyond, to modernize the
state and society".121

The Balkan Muslim Communities at a glance

Bosnia & Herzegovina

Back in 1463, Bosnia had already been conquered by the Ottoman
Empire, and a large-scale conversion of Bogomilism122 tolerated the presence
of a large and powerful Islamic community in the state. For several centuries,
this region was the focus of Muslim life in the Balkans, because of its
convenient location in the heart of South Eastern Europe and its lively Muslim
community.
The distinct religious and cultural differences between Catholics, Orthodox
and Sunni Muslims were not resolved with the creation of Yugoslavia at the
close of World War I. Today, Muslims in Bosnia and Herzegovina constitute

Bougarel,Xavier &Duijzings, Ger, The New Bosnian Mosaic: Identities, Memories and

121

Moral Claims in a Post-War Society, Ashgate Publishing, 2007, p. 25.

122According to Bogomils, Christ had only a human body, and they rejected Orthodox
sacraments such as the Eucharist, as well as the saints relics and material objects in
worship. They also rejected marriage and the consumption of animal products. They only
recognised the New Testament and Psalms as scripture.

92

40% of the population, mostly inhabiting the urban centers.123

Kosovo
The population in Kosovo is mostly Albanian, with a percentage of more
than 90%, and they are mostly Muslims.
Muslims in Kosovo constituted approximately 50-60% of total population,
from the Ottoman period until the mid-20th century. Due to the mass
immigrations of (Serbians to Europe, and Albanians from Northern Albania)
and their ever-increasing birth rate, there was created an almost blended
Albanian-Muslim Kosovo during the late 20th century.124

Republic of Macedonia
Republic of Macedonia can be described as an axis between Serbia,
Albania, Bulgaria and Greece. Several ethnic and religious minorities, mainly
Muslims gave always chosen this state to settle, due to its unique location.
For the most part, it is composed by Turks, Albanians and Roma. After the
Kosovo War of 1999, several Albanians migrated from Kosovo to Macedonia,
and therefore the total percentage of Muslims in the country increased.
Already, 30% of the population practices Muslim religion.125

123

Michaletos, Ioannis, Muslim Communities in the Balkans, Research Institute for

European and American Studies, RIEAS, 2012.
124
Ibid
125Ibid

93

Montenegro
Due to the constant influx of refugees, after the Yugoslavian wars in the
90s, the previously small Islamic community of Montenegro has dramatically
increased. Approximately 25% of the population is Muslim, and their vote was
decisive during the Montenegrin independence referendum in 2006, when
Montenegro officially announced its independence from Serbia.

Albania
Regarding Muslim citizens, Albania is the only Balkan country with an
outright majority. On the record, 70% of the population is Sunni Muslims. The
main reason for this is the extensive conversion during the Ottoman Empire,
since many Albanians embraced Islam. In fact, many important Turkish
people were Albanians, such as Mehmet Ali Pasha, the first Pasha of Egypt.
Since 1992, Albania is a member of the Organisation of the Islamic
Conference (OIC), an intergovernmental Muslim organization.126

Bulgaria
In the southern regions of Bulgaria, there is a considerable Muslim minority.
Because of the harsh measures implemented by the Communist regime in
Bulgaria after 1945, Muslimschiefly of Turkish descentwere forced to

126

Ibid

94

migrate to Turkey. Merely in the 1980s, 300,000 of those left Bulgaria.

However, Muslims constitute 10% of the population in the country. 127

Greece
The Muslim minority Greece has settled in Western Thrace, the province
bordered by Bulgaria and Turkey. In 1363, the first Muslims immigrated there
from Anatolia.
Due to the population exchange between Turkey and Greece, agreed in
1923, the Greeks immigrated from Minor Asia to mainland Greece and vice
versa. Muslims constitute a Quarter of the Western Thracian population and
1% of the Greek population.128

Ibid
128Ibid
127

95

CONCLUSIONS

The siege of Constantinople, the city representing the Roman imperial

notion along with the concept of the Christian oikumene, presented a
challenge of self-definition both to the Ottoman leader and to every
Ottoman illustrative community. Which of the Islamic, Turkish and
Byzantine practices and subjects should be incorporated into the
political community of the new leaders, and under what stipulations?
How can these practices and people be integrated and at the same
time, how can their "infidel" past be considered innocent? Who can
determine whether someone belongs to the community of gazis and is
a believer and who cannot? These questions among various Ottoman
interpretative communities constitute the factors of the Balkan
Ottoman- Islamic identity, as it was developed until the 16th century.
This identity preserves, even at the present, numerous features of that
period.

Until the mid-sixteenth century, due to the process by which the

majority of the Christian population was integrated into Turkish Islam,
the Byzantine exterior of Anatolian society was effaced. However,
since this process had not been complete, there survived several

97

important and distinct Byzantine traces. Like in every historical case of

cultural absorption, the Islamised Byzantine believers brought with
them many elements of their popular culture and thus Byzantinised to
some extent, the surfacing community on the folk level.

Historical research confirms that pagan and shamanistic elements

penetrated popular Islam in the Balkans, after the Ottoman conquest.
In Asia Minor, Christians who converted to Islam, until the fifteenth
century, also played an important role in the amalgam with more layers
of religious beliefs. Some of the Muslims in the Balkans were
descendants of converted people from Asia Minor or were converts
themselves; many of them had kept several elements of their previous
religious lifestyle, in their concept of Islam.

Sufi orders and Muslim-Christian interfaith marriages greatly facilitated

the religious interaction. The means was apparently the cult of saints,
typical characteristic of the Islamic mystical orders (tarikat) mixed with
the local preference for hagiolatry as its Christian equivalent.
Essentially, the tarikats influenced the integration of similar pagan and
local non-Muslim principles into popular Islam, consequently making
the conversion process more pleasant to the new Muslims. However,
women, through extensive intermarriage, were another medium by
which popular Christianity and Islam were mixed in the region.

98

 The syncretism of popular beliefs indicates that, at least until the end of
the sixteenth century, the process of religious conversion did not
necessarily mean that the converted people abandoned their previous
religious beliefs or lifestyle. For a long time, all that was need for
someone to convert to Islam was to adopt a Muslim name; therefore, it
mainly symbolised an acceptance of Ottoman rule, rather than the
actual adoption of a foreign religion.

The religious monuments in the Balkans reflect the special identity of

Islam in the region, during the early Ottoman period. Instead of the
Friday mosque, the first Ottoman rulers preferred multifunctional
buildings, imarets and zaviyes. These buildings are a significant
element of Islamic identity in the Balkans.

The Ottoman regime in its formative years was cultivated and

developed in the late-Roman, Byzantine Christian environment of the
Balkans. After the dissolution of the Byzantine Empire, the cultural
Byzantine influence did not fade away immediately.

After the integration of the older Islamic heartland in mid 16th c., a new
Ottoman mixture was formed, and after a while, the state consequently
adopted a more conventional Islamic character. In the second half of
the sixteenth century, the Ottomans implemented measures such as

99

religious reform, social disciplining, and state building. Ottoman

narratives imply that during this period, conversion to Sunni Islam
progressively became fundamental to Ottoman imperial ceremonial.

The Ottomans took over the old central lands of the Byzantine Empire,
such as Asia Minor and the Balkans, and in these two peninsulas
Islamisation had two entirely different results. Most of the Balkanites
did not convert, but even those who did, retained many beliefs and
practices from their previous religions. Therefore, in spite of the
religious change which was introduced under Ottoman rule, the
prominent feature of Balkan religious life during this period was
stability. These contradictory aspects in the conquests of the Balkans
and Asia Minor certainly had an important role to the altering fates of
Islamisation in the two peninsulas.

Today, Muslim communities in the Balkans speak several languages

and live in various countries. In the 20th century, these countries
pursued different paths of development and, thus, Muslims were
frequently implicated in social conflicts due to their different culture.
Because of the EU membership of Greece, the recent EU membership
of Romania and Bulgaria, the dissolution of Yugoslavia through violent
conflicts in the 1990s, Albanias isolation for decades deep-rooted in
socialism, and the special geopolitical and social circumstances in

100

Turkey, the countries populated by the majority of Muslim communities

will most likely follow different paths in economic and social
development. The commonly demoted social and economic status of
Muslims in the Balkans and their frequently contradictory demographic
behaviour in comparison with bordering ethnic groups will probably
widen the gap between them and majority communities.

It is obvious that the religious identity of several Muslim Balkan

communities is controversial. However, the population explosion,
compared to Christian communities, and the rapid urbanisation of the
Muslim communities raises new issues and questions. Until now, in the
socio-political sector, Muslims usually created their own political
organisations, independently from the popular national parties and the
customer relationships with them. On the other hand, many of these
organisations attempted to associate this Muslim identity with another
one, different from the state where they live. They consider Islam a
protective shield towards their assimilation in Slavic or Greek
communities (for instance, in Western Thrace).

101

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102

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bulgarischen Mohammedaner, Zeitschrift fur Balkanologie 4, 1966.

Yazma bagislar 3693, Suleymaniye Library, Istanbul, Turkey

Mesih Pasa, Suleymaniye Library, Istanbul, Turkey

Serez, 1634. Suleymaniye Library, Istanbul, Turkey

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APPENDIX
The Ottoman mosques in Greece - Influences and special features

Despite the fact that all Ottoman mosques in the Greece are samples of
magnificent provincial architecture, the first Ottoman mosques exhibit
pioneering architectural features, which cannot be found anywhere else in the
territories of the Ottoman Empire and in the Lands of Islam in general. In this
way Maciel Kiel commented on the originality plan of the Great Mosque or the
Mosque of Iskender Bey Evrenosoglou (1510-1511) in the northern-Greek city
of Gianitsa129 stating that, It is a highly original building of a type we do not
find anywhere else in the vast dominations of ottoman architecture extending
from Hungary to Egypt and from Bosnia to the lands beyond Baghdad.

What is more, Greece is the Balkan country where we can see the most
profound influence of Byzantine architecture in its rich typology of mosques of
the early Ottoman period.

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Kiel, Machiel, "Observations on the history of Northern Greece during the Turkish rule
historical and architectural description of the Turkish monuments of Komotini and Serres,
their place in the development of Ottoman architecture, and their present condition," in:
Balkan Studies 12,2, Thessaloniki 1971, pp. 415 - 462.

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The Byzantine influence on the transition system and on the plan

The pedentives, the half-dome (as a transition system) and the
resemblance between some mosques and churches of cross-in-square
plan represent the Byzantine influences on the plan of the Ottoman mosques
in Greece.

The pendentives:
The use of the pendendives in order to convert the square into an octagon to
hold up a semi-spherical dome undoubtedly resembles Byzantine
architecture, since outstanding examples can be seen both in the church of
Saint Irene and Saint Sophia (6th c.) in Istanbul. The notable examples of
pendentives can be found in the Muhammad Bey Mosque (1492-1493) in
Serres, the Iskender Bey Evrenosoglu Mosque (1481-1512) in Gianitsa, the
Osman Sah Mosque (16th c.) in Trikala and the Ibrahim Pasha Mosque
(1540-1541) in Rhodes.
A remarkable detail in the construction of the pendentives comes from
Byzantine architecture, the so-called acoustical jars or resonators, which
are ceramic elements that helped broadcasting the sound.

The columns:
In early Ottoman architecture, when the single-domed (or single-unit) plan of
mosque was the most popular, columns were not necessary as in Byzantine

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architecture, where we can see for example the cross-in-square plan which
needed four similar-sized columns as scale, in order to match the intended
building. In this sense, the use of columns in the first Ottoman mosques was
limited only in the portico. The Ottomans, especially during this early period,
reused columns and capitals that they discovered in the ruins of classical and
Byzantine antiquities in Greece. In the mosques with courtyard, like for
instance, in the Hamza Bey Mosque (Alkazar) at Thessalonica, columns and
capitals were reused in the arcades of the courtyard. In Alkazar, there are 23
marble columns in total. Seventeen columns bear capitals which are clearly
Theodosian (byzantine), one column has a Doric capital, whereas the other
five capitals are Ottoman. This variously and ornately decorated collection of
Theodosian capitals in the Hamza Bey Mosqe at Thessalonica, is a unique
collection not only in Ottoman architecture but in most of the Byzantine
buildings as well.

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