MUSLIM COMMUNITIES IN THE BALKANS

Ioannis Michaletos
(RIEAS Junior Analyst, and Editor, Southeast Europe at the World Foundation Network)

Note: Personal assessment by the writer, along with various unofficial reports and observations. No official data convey with the above predictions.

In contemporary Europe there is a great debate on the role of Islam in modern societies and the path that the European-Muslim relationship will lead into the 21st century. The Balkans is a European area where considerable Muslim communities reside, some of them for over 700 hundred years and since the era of the Ottoman Empire.

The Balkan Peninsula was always an area characterized by continuous population arrivals and exodus due to the turbulent history of the region and because of its geopolitical disposition in the midst of three continents. Sine the fall of the Roman Empire immigration and conquest waves have over the centuries shaped the population composition of this European soil. The Slavs in the 6th Century AC, the Bulgarians in the 7th and the Turks in the 14th one, have all constructed more or less modern ethno-diversity in the Balkans.

The former were able –after the conquest of Constantinople in 1453 AC- to create the Ottoman Empire stretching from modern day Saudi Arabia and North Africa, right up to the infamous “Gates of Vienna” or more specifically in Klagenfurt and the Styria province. During much of the previous 6 centuries, there have been massive conversions to Islam that formatted the existing Islamic enclaves in the Balkans. The fall of the Soviet Bloc in 1989 and the civil wars in Ex-Yugoslavia; brought the remembrance of the religion wars that were a part of the Balkan history for the better part of the last Millennium (1).

Nowadays, all Balkan states-Bar Rumania- have Muslim minorities that are part of the social and political life of the respective states and most importantly have been often accused as acting like a “Trojan Horse” from powers seeking to exercise influence in the area.

Bosnia-Herzegovina

Bosnia was already a part of the Ottoman realm, back in 1463 and a mass conversion of the Vogomil Christian sect (2), endured the existence of a large and influential Islamic community in the state. This area was for centuries the epicenter of the Balkan Muslim life, since it was ideally placed in the centre of South Eastern Europe and had a viable and vibrant Muslim community. In this point it has to be noted that the Vogomils were the most affluent class of Bosnia and their adherence to Islam constituted an initiative from their part to retain their privileges and rights under the newly formed dominion.

In 1908 Bosnia-Herzegovina was annexed by the then Austria-Hungarian Empire, at the same period the idea of a united confederation of the Southern Slavs –Serbs, Croats, Slovenians- was gaining hold. The creation of Yugoslavia after WW1 didn’t resolve the wide religious and cultural gaps between Catholics, Orthodox and Sunni Muslims. The Second World War saw the alliance between the Fascist, pro-German Croatian regime of Andre Pavelic and the Muslims in Bosnia.

Actually in 1943 the latter created the 13th Mountainous SS Brigade –Waffen Gerbings Division der SS- that committed atrocities against the civilian Serbian population in a classic ethnic cleansing fashion (3). In 1944 a similar brigade was to be formed by the Kosovo Albanians -21st Skanderberg Brigade- that sought as well the elimination of Serbians from Kosovo-Metohia.

During the 90’s Mujahedeen from various Islamic states, fought along the Bosnian Muslims against both the Croatians and the Serbs. Numerous allegations and documents reveal a strong Jihad connection between the then Izebegovic administration and Al Qaeda operatives that sought a safe have in the centre of the Balkans and close to mainland Europe (4).Currently 40% of Bosnia’s population is Muslims, mainly populating the urban centers (5).

Serbia-FYROM-Montenegro

Serbia’s largest Muslim minority is to be found in Kosovo where over 90% of the population is of Albanian descent and Muslim in denomination. The situation after the 1999 NATO intervention has revealed a massive destruction of the Serbian Christian Orthodox heritage (6). Kosovo has been since the early Middle Ages a traditional Serbian pilgrimage and state epicenter. The negotiations in action concerning the status of the province have come to a halt and there is a great debate within the international community on which direction Kosovo should move on within the coming months.

The percentage of the Muslims in Kosovo was traditionally 50-60% from the Ottoman period and up until the 1950’s. The mass immigrations of Albanians from Northern Albania, the immigration of Serbians to Europe and the very high birth rate of the former; resulted in the creation of an almost homogenized Albanian-Muslim Kosovo in the course of the second half of the 20th century (7).

Another Serbian province with large numbers of Muslims is Sanjak –Close to Kosovo borderline- that is also a habitation of Wahabbi strings as recent investigations point out (8).

FYROM is a state that can be characterized as a hub between Serbia, Albania, Bulgaria and Greece. Due to its unique placement it always attracted various ethnic and religious minorities, amongst them the largest would be the Muslim one. It is mainly composed by Albanians, Turks and Roma. After the 1999 war, scores of Kosovo Albanians sought refuge in FYROM thus increasing the total percentage of Muslims in the country. The 2001 conflicts between the Slavic majority of the country and the Albanian minority revealed a cultural chasm between them, as well as, he fear of the Slavs that the high birth rates of their Muslim compatriots will lead them to majority levels in the course of the 21st century. Already, grossly 30% of the citizens claim Muslim religion (9).

Montenegro always had a small Islamic community that has risen up considerably due to the continuous influx of refugees because of the Yugoslavian wars in the 90’s. Roughly 25% of the population is Muslim, and their vote was crucial during the independence referendum in 2006, that broke Montenegro’s ties with Serbia.

Albania

Albania is the only Balkan country that has an absolute majority in terms of Muslim citizens. Officially 70% of the population is Sunni Muslims, even though there are considerable segments of non-practicing secular ones. The main reason for such a large Muslim impact in the state is the mass conversion during the Ottoman Empire that saw a considerable stratum of the Albanian population exchanging their Christian religion for Islam in order to gain considerable advantages in the Ottoman bureaucracy and army. Actually many Turkish historical figures were Albanians, and one of them rose to become the first Pasha of Egypt; Mehmet Ali Pasha (10).

Albania since 1992 is a member of the Islamic conference, an intergovernmental Muslim organization and it has often become a country focused by the international community because of links by fundamentalists and members of the state apparatus.

Bulgaria

Bulgaria has a considerable Muslim minority in the southern regions bordering with Greece and Turkey. The Communist regime in Bulgaria after 1945, initiated measures that forced Muslims –Of Turkish descent mostly- to immigrate to Turkey. In the 1980’s alone 300, 000 of those were to flee Bulgaria (11). Nevertheless the percentage of Muslims in the country is well over 10% and they exercise significant influence in the political climate of Bulgaria. The existence of a well established Turkish-Muslim minority in Bulgaria has proved to be one of the main reasons for the Greek-Bulgaria rapprochement that enacted in the mid-70’s and continues up to date, bringing the two states with a colorful history of rivalry together; along with excellent bilateral relations.

Greece

Greece’s Muslim minority is to be found in Western Thrace, the province neighboring with Bulgaria and Turkey. The first Muslim coming from Anatolia, settled there in 1363 along with the Ottoman Turks in the first European conquest Endeavour.

In 1923 Greece and Turkey agreed to a mass exchange of populations and consequently Greeks resettled from Minor Asia to mainland Greece and vice versa (11). The Muslim minority in Thrace along with the Greek-Orthodox in Istanbul remained as a counterweight to its other and as a symbolic remembrance of the oldest Muslim settlement in Europe and the historical Byzantine - Christian presence in the East respectively.
The course of events though revealed a systematic extinction of the Greek-Orthodox Christians in Istanbul that number some 5,000 people down from 200,000 in the 1920’s (12). In Western Thrace 110,000 Muslims reside and constitute a 1% of the total population in Greece and a Quarter of the Western Thracian populous (13). The strategic importance of the region has often attracted Turkish attention that sporadically tries to inflame nationalistic or religious conflicts between the Muslim citizens and the Christian ones. The Thracian area has immense growth potentials because of the large infrastructure projects in progress, one of them to be the Burgas-Alexandroupoli pipeline, transferring oil from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean (14).

Future trends

In all Balkan states excluding Greece the overall Muslim population is set to increase because of very low birth rate of the Christian population –Especially in Bulgaria- and the reverse trend by the Islamic communities. Moreover an immigration movement from the Balkans towards Western Europe has actually lowered population like in Bulgaria, over the past decade or so (15). In the case of Greece the economic growth of the only Muslim population area –Excluding newly coming immigrants from Asia- has assured a steady flow of Greeks from other parts of the country added by resettled retired immigrant Greeks from Germany mostly. Finally the influx of Christian Orthodox Bulgarians, Rumanians and Ukrainians that often marry Greek citizens, will to most respect increase the percentage of Christians in that region and consequently in the whole of the state (16).

The Balkans has always constituted one of the fiercest terrains of ethnic – Cultural enmity in Europe. The reasons for the above are the placement of the Peninsula close to Asia that reserved the role of the “European gatekeeper” for the whole of South Eastern Europe. One has to remember of the Kraijna border area created by the Austrians in the 17th century in order to counterweight the Ottoman forces. Moreover the Venetians were active in recruiting Greeks as “Soldatti” in order to combat all along the Aegean Archipelagos and the Greek coastline.
Future seems to have elements of repeating this situation due to the ongoing rivalry between West and East, a phenomenon that one can easily retrieve by reading Homer’s Iliad or by comprehending the Persians wars dated in the 5th century BC.

An ancient Greek philosopher Heraclites had, since the 6th Century BC, grasped the all continuing circles of history and life itself by stating “The way up and the way down are one and the same”. A cyclical notion of history that has to be examined firstly before anyone can surely state that he understands history, war and culture, an area that is full of all three to a maximum grade.

References:

(1) http://www.hqda.army.mil/library/balkans.htm
Selective reading list on Balkan conflicts by the Pentagon library

(2) http://www.encyclopaedia.us/wiki/Bogomils
Detailed presentation of the V(B)ogomils sect in the Balkans

(3) http://www.serbianna.com/columns/savich/006.shtml
The Bosnian-Muslims SS history in WW2.

(4) http://counterterror.typepad.com/the_counterterrorism_blog/2005/08/jihadists_find_.html
Information sources on the Jihadi Balkan links

(5) https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/bk.html
Data from the CIA factbook

(6) http://www.serbianna.com/columns/gordon/004.shtml
An articulate documentary on the subject

(7) http://files.osa.ceu.hu/holdings/300/8/3/text/3-13-10.shtml
An archive paper on the Albanian population growth

(8) www.pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/PNADC982.pdf
A report by USAID on Wahabbi in Sanjak

(9) www.meaindia.nic.in/foreignrelation/macedonia.pdf
Assessment of the country by an Indian institute

(10) www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Ottoman_Albania
History of Ottoman Albania

(11) http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/routledg/cnap/1999/00000027/00000001/art0000 Muslim minority in Bulgaria