Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
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amount of research work has been done by many Muslim and revisionist
historians to verify numerous problems related to the past of the Albanian
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Muslims. They attempted to overcome the extremely biased trend in the modern
within the parameters of the Stalinist ideology which emphasized only the
mythical image of medieval Albanians as the 'heroic Illyrian proletariat'. The
handful of Muslim scholars in the Communist Eastern Europe who resisted the
anti-Islamic and anti-Turkish propaganda were ostracized and often penalized.
religion did not allow them to support the native Macedonian people in
the struggle against the Turco-Islamic feudal tyranny . . . The masses
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Islamic
Studies
36:2,
(1997)
193
Albanians
cradle
of
The
were
the
annexed
medieval
'Macedonian',
medieval
Islamization
by
the
Serbian
kin
Serbian
an
of
Albanians
the Balkans. Some nationalist Albanian historians like Hasan Kalesi from
Kosovo and Selam Pulaha from Tirana described the medieval Islamization of
they could no longer endure". In 733 ah / 1332 ce, the Albanians from Zeta
(Montenegro) led by Dimitri Suma fought against the Serbian state and its
church until 737 ah / 1336 ce. The Serbs who are followers of the Orthodox
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invaded Drres (Dyrrachion). In February 21, 1272 ce, the fanatical Catholic
king Charles I d'Anjou occupied the Albanian shores of the Adriatic Sea and
proclaimed himself the king of Albania.4
Aydin, who were asked by the Byzantine Emperor Andronicos III for help to
restore the rule of Constantinople over the Balkans, came to know Albania in
737 ah / 1337 ce. A small contingent of Muslim crack troops sent by Umur Beg
to Macedonia smashed the Albanian invaders of Thessaly and Epiros. When the
Serbian 'empire' of Czar Dushan collapsed in 1355, the local Serb, Albanian,
Latin and Greek warlords partitioned Shqeptaria. The Norman-Gegian clan of
Balsha (Balsa) in the north, and the Toskian feudals from Thopia family in the
south, emerged as the most bellicose parties in 'Arberia'. The Balsha warlords
who overran the coastland between Durrs (Durazzio, Dyrrachion, Dyrrachium)
and Shkder (Skadar, Skodra) came into conflict with Trvtko, a Slavic ruler of
Bosnia and they antagonized the Serbian feudals of Zeta (Montenegro). As long
as Balshas confronted the Slavic feudals, the Thopias were supportive allies of
their northern kinsmen, but when the Balsha warlords established their own
tribal statelet from Avlona to Prizen, the threatened Thopias asked the Muslim
Turks for military assistance against them. Carlo Thopia of Durrs asked for
direct Turkish intervention in 787 ah / 1385 ce. The Muslim ghazis from the
Turkish frontier corps (udj) remained stationed near Yanina in the southern
Albania since 783 ah / 1381 ce as the 'rapid reaction forces' of the Byzantines.
The Emperor John V Cantacuzenos, whose daughter Theodora was married to
the sultan Orhan, recognized the Osmanli suzerainty over the ex-Byzantine
Balkan 'Romaioi'.5
of Savra on the bank of Vijose river on Sha'bn 12, 787 ah (Sept. 18, 1385).
After the crushing defeat of Balshas, the Albanian warring feudal families
acknowledged the power of the sultan Murad I over their fiefs. In 1387, Balsha
and Dukagjin clans recognized the Muslim rule over Albania. As the Muslim
sultan's vassals, the Albanian warlords participated in the military expeditions
aimed at the conquest of Serbia and Bosnia. Shihab al-DTn Shhln Pasha of
Kavala and Gjergi (George) Stratzimirovic of Shkder invaded Bosnia several
times but their raids were halted in 1388. However, one year later the Muslim
army of Murad I defeated the multi-ethnic Christian army led by the Serbian
prince Lazar in the first battle of Kosovo Polje in 791 ah / 1389 ce. The
Albanian Christian vassals of the sultan Bayezid I fought in the tragic battle of
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Islamic
Studies
Angora
The
36:2,
against
Albanian
Nicola
Zaccaria
the
(1997)
195
Turkoman
auxiliary
and
army
troops
Gjergj
Dukagjin
feudal clans of Shpata and Toccas fought for supremacy over the Toskas
(southern Albanians).
During the First Turko-Italian War (812-820 ah/1415-1417 ce) against
the Venetians, who occupied the coastal Albania, the Osmanli state established
and supported his Serbian vassal Stephen Lazarevic against the Venetians in
Gegeria (the northern Albania). In 836 ah / 1432 ce there were no more than
800 Turkish settlers in Albania, they were mostly sipahis (knights), preaching
dervishes, and imams of mosques. Many of them were massacred by the Araniti
and Thopia Zenebissi clansmen who, incited by the papacy, Hungary, Venice
and king Alfonso V of Naples, rebelled against Ali Evrenos-zade, the Muslim
to join his bands which never exceeded more than 3,000 outlaws. In the
beginning of his crusade, coordinated with the Hungarians and Venetians, the
sandjakbegs of Ohrida and Berat were able to cope with the terrorist attacks, but
when he became a vassal of the pope of Rome Eugenius IV and the Aragonese
king of Naples Alfonso V,7 and the rebellious Araniti clan joined his bands in
the south, the tiny Muslim forces in Albania were in trouble. The Kastrioti and
other seditious feudals received annually 1400 golden ducats, weapons and
gunpowder from the popes Nicholas V, Calixtus III, Pius II and the king
Alfonso V.
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In 1571 ce, the Muslim troops controlled the whole of Albania from
Yanina to Durrs. The end of the Venetian occupation of Albania was the
beginning of the era of peace and prosperity for Albanians. Thirty Grand Vezirs
of Albanian origin wisely ruled in Istanbul. The Kprli family was the most
famous of them all. Peter Mazreku, a legate of the Pope of Rome, who was of
Albanian origin, investigated the rapid decline of Christianity in Albania, wrote
in his report that in 1624, an absolute majority of the Albanians were Muslims.
His account was verified in 1638 by Gregory Bardhi, archbishop of Tivar. The
Albanian nobility and townfolk from Kosovo were totally Islamized in the end
of the 17th century.8
III
The mass conversion of Albanians to Islam raises the question: what motivated
these anarchic and bellicose highlanders to give up their Christian lifestyle? The
Muslim historians are inclined to explain that the new faith permitted them to
live in dignity and freedom from the constantly crusading churches of the East
and the West. Certainly, Islam appeared to the Albanians as the powerful force
of the Osmanli Turks capable of liberating them from the feudal yoke of the
Orthodox Serbs and the Catholic Venetians. The new converts in Albania
obtained a broad range of new intellectual and religious power which made it
possible for them to assimilate all vital components of the Muslim multi-ethnic
culture enjoyed by the Turks, Arabs and other Islamized peoples in Asia and
Africa.9
The papal legate, Marino Bizzi, who visited Albania in 1610, wrote that
the spreading of Islam among the Albanians by "zealous hodjas and sincere
mullahs is lively and exuberant".10 Between 1620 and 1650, more than 300,000
Christian Albanians embraced Islam."
religio in post-Islamic Spain, Sicily and Kandia (Crete), where Muslims were
totally exterminated. On the contrary, the Muslim authorities in Egypt and Syria
did not expel the Copts, Maronites and Syriac Christians after the collapse of the
Christian states. However, many of the native Christians zealously collaborated
with the Latin crusaders.
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Islamic
single
order
The
Studies
36:2,
(1997)
197
to
most
powerful
agent
of
victorious scimitar of the Turks nor the decadence of the Christian churches but
the missionary zeal of the Sufi dervishes and wandering hodjas, who tirelessly
preached the words of the Qur'n long before the Osmanli military conquest of
the Balkans.12
In the nineth century, the Sicilian, Andalusian and Maghribi Muslim
the Slavic Croats, Slovenians, Serbs, and definitely the Illyrian Albanians,
accepted Islam in Muslim Spain, where they served as the 'Mute Guard' of the
Ummayad amirs. After the fall of the emirate of Bari in Apulia, and later, after
the collapse of the Islamic state in Sicily, many Italian Muslim migrants
preferred to settle in the pastoral land of Albania and Dalamatia than to return
to the Islamic North Africa which had been ravaged by petty Arab and Berber
In 979 AH / 1571 ce, the Albanian-origin sea-ghazi Ulj Ali from Algiers
recaptured the Montenegrin port Ulcinj from the Venetians and transformed it
into the navy base of Algerian Albanians and Moorish Africans. In Ulcinj, the
Sudanese Muslims from Bagrimi near Lake Chad intermarried with Albanians
and their dark-skinned descendants became the most numerous inhabitants in the
town until 1914, when the Serbs from Crnagora (Montenegro) massacred them.
The Black Albanians of Ulcinj spoke Arabic and "their women have always
covered and still cover their faces and refuse to give up that custom".13
IV
According to the popular legend of the eastern European Muslims, Baba Sari
Saltik was the first apostle of Islam in the Balkans, who converted in 1261 ce,
in Dobruja (Moldavia), several hundred Pecheneg Vlach and Bulgar noblemen.
The famous Ibn Batttah visited his tomb {turbe) in Babadag, a border town
between the Turkic-controlled Bessarab and the Byzantine Bulgaria. Baba Sari
Saltik travelled to Bosnia and Albania where he established his tekkes or Sufi
lodges under the facade of Christian hermitages. His disciples, disguised as the
Catholic or Orthodox monks, preached Islam to the Albanians and Bosnians who
were well known to the crusading popes of Rome as the heretical 'Babuns' and
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Isl
'Theophiles'. Evliya Chelebi, the famous Turkish traveller and chronicler, who
visited Albanian sandjaks in the seventeenth century, identified the legendary
preacher Baba Sari Saltik as Muhammad BukhrT, a disciple of Shaykh Ahmad
Yasavi from Khorasan (d. 1137 ce). According to Chelebi and the local Muslim
legends, he came from Turkestan with forty Turkoman murzas as a beg of the
Tatar emir Nogay. Other oral traditions identified him with a Tatar aga of Berke
(Barakah) Khan, the Muslim ruler of the Golden Horde. He converted to Islam
many Poles, Lithuanians, Hungarians, Vlachs, Kumans, Pechengs, Bulgars and
Germans. Later he preached Islam in Albania and Bosnia. Like the Christian
saints in the Serbian and Greek legends, Baba Sari Saltik healed the sick, killed
dragons and worked miracles. Baba Sari Saltik is also declared a dede or pir by
the Albanian and Bosnian Bektashis. According to one of the numerous legends,
Sari Saltik killed 'Sviatiy Nicola' (the Western Santa Claus) and in his robes he
converted to Islam thousands of Russians and Prussians in the Baltic port of
Danzig (Gdansk). He also converted to Islam the prince of Georgia.14
A large number of rural Albanians were converted to Islam by the Sufi
preachers of Naqshbandiyyah and Qdiriyyah orders, mostly disciples of Shaykh
'Abd Allah al-Ihl and Shaykh Shams al-Dm al-BukharT.
The spread of Islam brought to the almost illiterate Albania the Arabic
script in which the great works of Shqeptari 'Al-Jamiado' literature had been
written.16
The Albanian Muslim militia defended Algiers and Tunis against the
Christian pirates, the Knights of Malta, and the Spanish armadas of Charles V
and Philip II. Famous beylerbeys of Algiers, Ulj Ali, and Khayr-al-DIn
Barbarossa who defeated the Spaniards in Tunis (1569 ce) were of Albanian
origin. In Damascus, the Albanian Sufi shaykhs and scholars established their
own Sufi order, Sa'diyyah, so called because it was founded in 1335 by Sa'd al
DTn al-JibawT. This order had tekkes in every Albanian city. One of the best
known Albanian shaykh of Sa'diyyah order was Baba Suleiman Adzidzi from
Gjakova.
The curve of conversion of the medieval Albanians to Islam evaluated
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Islamic
Studies
36:2,
(1
997)
199
in
the
scholarly
efforts
medieval
to
reduce
Arnavut-ili
and
culture of the Albanians were donated to the state libraries by the Bushati
Muslim noblemen who were the administrators of Shkder. Kara Mahmud
Osmanli sultans and 'ulama' took personal responsibility to carry on da 'wah and
preserve the Islamic way of life in Albania. They built whole new cities such as
Kore, Tirana, Elbasan, Ak-Hisar (Kriije) and Telepen and promoted the
urbanization of small villges and towns like Kavaj, Uskiib (Skopje), and Peqin.
A significant role in the Islamization of the ancient realm of Albania
and Macedonia was played by the members of the Osmanli lite of power who
were of Shqeptari-origin.
The narrative travel books and reports written by the Christian voyagers
and spies in the late Middle Ages authenticate the advanced process of
Islamization and urbanization of the Albanian pastoral society. Marino Sanuto,
Osmanli year books (sanames), tax registers (tahrirs) of the Albanian vilayets,
religious directives of 'ulama' and muftis and registers of the qadt courts
(sidjils). Most of the medieval Turkish documents are located in the archives of
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(Divan-i Humayun and the Chancery of Grand Vezir (Bab-i Asalfi) were sold
as a waste paper for recycling to the Bulgarian paper-mills. Hundreds of
documents signed by the Osmanli sultans comprising priceless medieval ahti
names, fermans, berats, hatt-i humayuns, personal epistles written by veziers,
governors, and agas, 'ulama' directives, registers of fiefs (timar defterleri) from
Albanian and other European sandjaks, perished in the annus terribilis of 1924.
Fortunately, in 1929 P.Dorev, a Bulgarian orientalist and then in 1936
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Islamic
Studies
36:2,
(1997)
201
Suffay
in
Vienna
(1913-1918).
abou
Vene
Historiam
from
the
Slavorum
sandjak
Meridional
reports
on
VI
significant
curriculum
in
the
part
vitae
of
of
turcica.
George
psychological
'Skanderbeg'
papacy,
was
Venice
war
tribal
and
the
Am
Kastri
agains
leader
king
of
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Kastrioti was rewarded by the pope with a large sum of money and political
who massacred the Muslim settlers in Slavonia, Banat and Srijem. Kastrioti
failed to unite the Christian tribal chieftains of Albania and Epiros against the
victorious Turks, who defeated a great pan-Christian coalition in the battle of
defender of Europe against the most powerful Asiatic state which "opposed
historical development and progress".
There are many realistic and allegorical portraits of Kastrioti in various
museums and castles of Europe.30 There are also several 16th century woodcuts,
book illustrations and drawings which present Skanderbeg 'the King of Albania'
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Islamic
Studies
fighting
biblical
36:2,
'against
king
of
(1997)
the
203
Persians'
Judea
wh
(vide.
knight
in
crusader's
mantle.
against
huge
the
Osmanli
number
refuted
the
of
the
myth
Caliphate.
medieval
of
Lat
coercive
'R. Marmallaku, Albania and the Albanians (London: Routlege & Kegan Paul, 1975); I.
Kocollari, Arvanitet (Tirana: Albin, 1994); S. Pollo and A. Puto, History of Albania from its
Origins to the Present Days, tr. C. Wiesman and G. Hole (London: Routlege & Kegan Paul, 1981).
2N. Limanovski, Islamizatzya e etnichkite promeni vo Makedonya (Skopje: Makedonska Kinga,
1993), p. 417.
3H. Kalesi, "Das trkische Vordringen auf dem Balkan und die Islamisierung Faktoren fur
der Erhaltung der ethinsche und nationalen Existenz des albanischen Volkes" in G. Stadmller,
Sdosten Europa unter dem Halbmond, zum 65. Geburtstag gewidmet, ed. P. Bart) and H. Glassi
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6H. Inalcik, "Arnawutluk", in ISlam Ansiklopedisi (Istanbul: Milli Egitim, 1940), vol. 1,
pp. 582-586.
7C. Marinesco, "Alphonse V, roi d'Aragon et de Naples, et l'Albanie de Scanderbeg" in
Melanges de l'ecole Roumanie en France (Paris: 1923), pp. 34-56; J. Radonic, "Djordj Kastrioti
Skanderbeg i Arbaniya u XV vyeku", SAN no. 35 (1942), pp. 20-21; F. Pall, "Skanderbeg et lanco
Hunedoara" in Revue des tudes sud-est europens, vol. 6 (1968), pp. 10-14.
"E. Rossi, "Saggio sul dominio turco e l'introduzione dell' islam in Albania" in Revista
d'Albania, 1942, fsc. 4; N. Borgia, l monaci basiliani d'Italia in Albania. Appunti di storia
missionaria, secoli XVI-XVIII, (Rome, 1935), vol. I, pp. 34-67.
"S. Skendi, 'Religion in Albania during the Ottoman Rule' in Sdostforschungen, vol. 15,
(1956), pp. 311-327.
'""Relatione della visita fatta da me, Marino Bizzi, Arcivescoro d'Antivari, nelle parti della
Turchia, Antivari, Albania, e Servia, alla Santita di Nostro Signore Paolo Quinto", Roma:
Bibliotheca Barberina, 1610, MS No. LXIII, 13, passim. (Croatian translation of Marino Bizzi's
report, vide: F. Racki, 'Izvjestaj Barskoga Nadbiskupa Marino Bizzi o svoyem putovanyu god. 1610
po Arbanskoy i Staroy Srbyi' in Starine (Zagreb, 1888), vol. 20, pp. 12-29.
"Voyages de Pietro Della Valle, Rouen: R. Machuel, 1745, vol. I, p. 37. See also Notize
universali dello stato di Albania de Monsignore Vincenzo Zmaievich, arcivescoro di Antivari
esaminate nelle Congregationi Generali de Propaganda Fide di tt Debr. 1703-1712, Feb. 1704,
Bibliotheca Barberina, Rome, MS. No. L. 126.
I2P. Bartl, Die Albanischen Muslime zur Zeit der naktionalen Unbhngigkeitsbewegung
(Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassovitz, 1968), pp. 16-26.
I3A. Lopasic, "A Negro Community in Yugoslavia", Man, vol. 58, (1958), p. 171. See also
D. Petrovii, "Crni u Ulcinju", in Etnologski Preglad (1972), vol. 10, pp. 31-36.
vol. 15 (1982), pp. 216-225. See also F.W. Hasluck, Christianity and Islam under the Sultans
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1929), vol. 2, p. 577.
"A. Stojanovski, I. Eren, "Kretovskata nahija voXVI vijek", GlasnikNacionalnogoInstitua
u Skopje, vol. 15 (1971), no. 1, pp. 60-92.
". KaleSi, "Albanska Aljamiado knizevnost", Prilozi za Orientalnog Filologji, no. 17
(1966-67), (Sarajevo: 1967-67), pp. 49-61.
I7S. Rizaj, "The Islamization of the Albanians during the XVth and XVIth Centuries", Studia
"G. E. Lohja, "Islamic Manuscripts in Albania", Gazi Husrev Beg, vol. 1, no. 3 (1994),
pp. 23-24.
"'H. Inalcik, Hiri 835 tarihli Siiret-i Defter-i Sanak-i Arvanid (Ankara: T.T.K, 1988).
2,S. Pulaha, Defteri i Regjistrimi t sanxhakut t Shkodrs i Vitit 1485 (Tirana: TU, 1974).
l'Albanie du XVIe au XIXe siede", in Studia Albanica, vol. 3 (1966), pp. 187-198; Idem, Le
Cadastre de l'an 1485 du Sandjak de Shkoder (Tirana: 1974); Idem. Lufta Shqiptaro-Turke ne
Shekullin XV. Burime Osmane (Tirana: Universiteti Shttror i tirans, 1968).
23E. Celebi, Ptepis, trans, and ed. S. Dimitrov, BAN (Sofia: Institut za Balkanstika),
pp. 223-56.
24J. Reychman, "Archiva tureckie i ich znaczenie dia nauki europejskiej" in Archeion, no. 34,
(1961), Warsaw, pp. 123-135. See also A. Sacerdoteanu, "ArhiveledeStatdin Peninsula Balcanica"
in Balcania, no. 4 (1941), pp. 440-444.
25M. Kiel, Ottoman Architecture in Albania (1385-1912) (Istanbul: Research Centre for
Islamic History, Art and Culture, 1410/1990).
2"S. Magno, Annali Veneti e del Mondo, vol. IV, Bibliotheca Correr, Venice, MS, Cicogna,
3529-3533.
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Islamic
27B.
Studies
36:2,
Dzurdzev,
(1997)
205
Filipovi,
Hadzib
of several Kastrioti portraits. Ferid Hudhri in his Albania and Albanians in World Art published in
Athens, Greece by Christos Giovants (1990) declared Bellini and Rembrandt as the supervisors of
World (London: Hurst, 1993) and T. Winnifrith, Perspectives on Albania (London: Macmillan,
1992).
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E.Durham,"Albani sintheshop",19 ,
watercolur,RoyalAnthroplgicalInstiue,Lond
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Islamic
Studies
36:2,
(1997)
207
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