- Greek Muslims
Infobox Ethnic group
group = Greek Muslims
caption = "Young Greeks at the Mosque" (Jean Léon Gérôme , oil on canvas, 1865); this oil painting portrays GreekMuslims at prayer in amosque ).
population = "Unknown"
regions =Turkey ·Cyprus ·Syria ·Lebanon ·Greece
languages = Greek (Pontic, Cretan, Cypriot)· Turkish
religions =Islam
related = otherGreeks · TurksGreek Muslims, also known as Greek-speaking Muslims, are
Muslim s of Greek ethnic origin, and are found primarily inTurkey ,Cyprus , andGreece , although migrations toLebanon andSyria have been reported [Barbour, S., "Language and Nationalism in Europe",Oxford University Press , 2000, ISBN 0-19-823671-9] . The vast majority of the autochthonous Muslim minority in Greece (including the Greek-speaking Muslims), most of whom are fluent in Turkish, espouse a Turkish national identity. Historically,Greek Orthodoxy has been associated with being "Rum" (روم) and Islam with being "Turk" (Τούρκος), despite ethnic or linguistic references.Most Greek-speaking Muslims in Greece left for Turkey during the 1920s population exchanges under the
Treaty of Lausanne (sometimes in return for Turkish-speaking Christians), with the exception of the Muslims in Thrace, who are officially recognized as a minority. The largest community of Greek-speaking Muslims in today's Greece is amongDodecanese Muslims who were spared from the population exchange due to Italian rule over the islands.In Turkey
In Turkey, where most Greek-speaking Muslims liveFact|date=March 2008, there are various groups of Greek-speaking Muslims, some autochthonous, some from parts of present-day Greece and Cyprus who migrated to Turkey under the population exchanges or immigration.
Pontic Greek Muslims
Muslims of Pontic Greek origins, speakers of the
Pontic language (named Ρωμαίικα "Roméika", not Ποντιακά "Pontiaká" as it is inGreece ), which is spoken by some people inTonya ,Maçka ,Sürmene ,Çaykara , andDernekpazarı districts of Trabzon. Due to mass migration from the region, high linguistic assimilation to Turkish, and the fact that the language has no official status, the total number of the speakers may be guessed; roughly 50,000 - 75,000 peopleFact|date=March 2008.Ömer Asan estimated the number of people of Pontian Greek descent in Turkey at about 300,000 in 1996. According to Heath W. Lowry's [ Professor. Department of Near Eastern Studies. Princeton University] great work about Ottoman tax books [ [http://www.e-bogazici.com/pinfo.asp?pid=224 Trabzon Şehrinin İslamlaşması ve Türkleşmesi 1461–1583] ISBN 975-518-116-4] ("Tahrir Defteri") with Halil İnalcık it is claimed that most Turks of Trabzon city are of Greek origin. The community is usually considered deeply religiousSunni Muslim s ofHanafi madh'hab .Sufi orders such asQadiri andNaqshbandi have a great impact. It is sometimes claimed in Greece that some of the Greek Muslims of Pontus are in fact crypto-Christians. [For example, see http://www.megarevma.net/SecretChristians.htm.] According to the CIA factbook, these people are about one million in numbers and they call their dialect 'Rum'. The Pontic issue is currently the second most important problem in Turkey, after the Kurdish one, and there is an ongoing campaign to eradigate this dialect from the younger generations.Cretan Muslims
Cretan Turks ("Τουρκοκρητικοί") orCretan Muslims ("Girit Müslümanları") cover Muslims who arrived in Turkey after or slightly before the start of the Greek rule inCrete in 1908 and especially in the framework of the 1923 agreement for the Exchange of Greek and Turkish Populations and have settled on the coastline stretching from theÇanakkale toİskenderun . Today, only elderly women may be found to be fluent inCretan Greek and only estimates can be made regarding their number. They often name the language as Cretan ("Kritika" ("Κρητικά") or "Giritçe") instead of Greek. The Cretan Turks are Sunni (Hanafi) with a highly influentialBektashi minority that helped shape the folk Islam andreligious tolerance of the entire community. Significant numbers of Cretan Muslims also settled in Libya especially in the east side cities like soosa and benghazi, where they are distinguishable by their Greek surnames. Many of the older members of tis community still speak Cretan Greek in their homes.Epirote Muslims
Muslims from the region of Epirus, known collectively as "Yanyalılar" ("Yanyalı" in singular, meaning "person from
Ioannina ") in Turkish and Τουρκογιαννιώτες "Turkoyanyótes" in Greek (Τουρκογιαννιώτης "Turkoyanyótis" in singular, meaning "Turk" fromIoannina "), who had arrived in Turkey in two waves of migration in 1912 and after 1923. Although majority of the Epirote Muslim population was of Albanian origin, Greek Muslim communities existed in the towns ofSouli [ [http://www.paramythia.gr/enpage2.html Municipality of Paramythia, Thesprotia] . "Paramythia.gr"] ,Margariti (both majority-Muslim) [ [http://books.google.com/books?id=y1NsAAAAIAAJ&dq=greeks+margariti Historical Abstracts: Bibliography of the World's Historical Literature] . Published 1955] [ [http://books.google.com/books?id=7c0GAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA678&dq=margariti+mohammedan Handbook for Travellers in Greece] by Amy Frances Yule and John Murray. Published 1884. J. Murray; p. 678] ,Ioannina ,Preveza ,Louros ,Paramythia , andKonitsa . [ [http://books.google.com/books?id=cmIcAAAAMAAJ&q=greek-mohammedans&dq=greek-mohammedans&lr=&pgis=1 Das Staatsarchiv] by Institut für auswärtige Politik (Germany), Berlin (Germany) Institut für ausländisches öffentliches Recht und Völkerrecht, Germany Auswärtiges Amt Today. Published 1904. Akademische Verlagsgesellschaft m.b.h.; p.31] Hoca Es'ad Efendi, a Greek-speaking Muslim from Ioannina who lived in the eighteenth century, was the first translator ofAristotle into Turkish. [ [http://books.google.com/books?id=RjGidYC9pUYC&pg=PA56&dq=greek-speaking-muslim&lr=&sig=ACfU3U3W5feidLaUDXiTTSqpw3NwMHUgRQ Dimitris Tziovas, Greece and the Balkans: Identities, Perceptions and Cultural Encounters since the Enlightenment] by Dēmētrēs Tziovas. Published 2003. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.; p.56] The community now is fully integrated into Turkish culture.Macedonian Muslims
Muslims living in
Haliacmon valley ofCentral Macedonia were Greek-speaking. [ [http://books.google.com/books?id=zOkEAAAAMAAJ&q=Vallahades&dq=Vallahades&pgis=1 Jubilee Congress of the Folk-lore Society] by Folklore Society (Great Britain). Published 1930; p.140] They were known collectively as "Vallahades ". They arrived in Turkey after 1923 and became gradually assimilated into Turkish Muslim mainstream. According to Todor Simovski's assessment (1972), in 1912 inAegean Macedonia there were 13,753 Muslim Greeks. [ [http://books.google.com/books?id=8_zeaeTOz6YC&pg=PA85&dq=muslim-greeks+macedonia&lr=&sig=ACfU3U1V_kpw_mBVBLVBR64xuBjBHHTpgA Who are the Macedonians?] by Hugh Poulton. Published 2000, Indiana University Press; p. 85]Morean Muslims
Cypriote Muslims
In 1878 the Muslim inhabitants of
Cyprus (constituting about 1/3 of the island's population, which then numbered 40,000 inhabitants) were classified as being either Turkish or "neo-Muslim." The latter were of Greek origin, Islamised but speaking Greek, and similar in character to the local Christians. Many of the Cypriote Greek Muslims continued to practise Christianity secretlyFact|date=September 2008. Unlike Turkish Muslims, they were less likely to display Muslim fanaticism. [ [http://books.google.com/books?id=AfAIAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA148&dq=greek-muslims+cyprus The Contemporary Review] by A.Strahan. Published 1878; p. 148] The last of such groups was reported to arrive atAntalya in 1936. These communities are thought to have abandoned Greek in the course of integration. [Peter Alford Andrews, "Ethnic Groups in the Republic of Turkey", Dr. Ludwig Reichert Verlag, 1989, ISBN 3-89500-297-6]Crimea
In the Middle Ages the Greek population of
Crimea traditionally adhered toEastern Orthodox Christianity , even despite undergoing linguistic assimilation by the localCrimean Tatars . In 1777–1778, whenCatherine the Great of Russia conquered the peninsula from theOttoman Empire , the local Orthodox population was forcibly deported and settled north of theAzov Sea . In order to avoid deportation, some Greeks chose to convert to Islam. Crimean Tatar-speaking Muslims of the village of Kermenchik (renamed to Vysokoe in 1945) kept their Greek identity and were practising Christianity in secret for a whileFact|date=September 2008. In the nineteenth century the lower half of Kermenchik was populated with Christian Greeks from Turkey, whereas the upper remained Muslim. By the time of theStalin ist deportation of 1944, the Muslims of Kermenchik had already been identified as Crimean Tatars, and were forcibly expelled toCentral Asia together with the rest of Crimea's ethnic minorities. [ [http://www.krimoved.ru/region1.html The Russian World: Kermenchik - Crimea's Lonely Spot?] by I.Kovalenko]Lebanon and Syria
There are about 7,000 Greeks living in
Tripoli ,Lebanon and about 3,000 inAl Hamidiyah ,Syria . [http://webs.uvigo.es/ssl/actas2002/05/08.%20Roula%20Tsokalidou.pdf Greek-Speaking Enclaves of Lebanon and Syria] by Roula Tsokalidou. Proceedings "II Simposio Internacional Bilingüismo". Retrieved4 December ,2006 ] The majority of them are Muslims of Cretan origin. Records suggest that the community left Crete between 1866 and 1897, on the outbreak of the last Cretan uprising against the Ottoman empire, which ended the Greco-Turkish War of 1897. SultanAbdul Hamid II provided Cretan Muslim families who fled the island with refuge on theLevant ine coast. The new settlement was named Hamidiye after the sultan.Many Greek Muslims of Lebanon somewhat managed to preserve their identity and language. Unlike neighbouring communities, they are monogamous and consider
divorce a disgrace. Until theLebanese Civil War , their community was close-knit and entirely endogamous. However many of them left Lebanon during the 15 years of the war.Greek Muslims constitute 60% of
Al Hamidiyah 's population. The community is very much concerned with maintaining its culture. The knowledge of the spoken Greek language is remarkably good and their contact with their historical homeland has been possible by means of satellite television and relatives. They are also known to be monogamous.By 1988, many Greek Muslims from both
Lebanon andSyria had reported being subject to discrimination by the Greek embassy because of their religious affiliation. The community members would be regarded with indifference and even hostility, and would be denied visas and opportunities to improve their Greek through trips to Greece.Population
According to the
Columbia Encyclopedia , Greek is spoken by approximately, 600,000 people in Turkey [http://www.bartleby.com/65/gr/Greeklan.html] , out of whom an estimated 5,000 are members of the remnants of Greek Orthodox community of Istanbul [According to figures presented by Prof. Vyron Kotzamanis to a conference of unions and federations representing the ethnic Greeks of Istanbul. [http://www.hri.org/news/greek/apeen/2006/06-07-02.apeen.html#03 "Ethnic Greeks of Istanbul convene"] , "Athens News Agency", 2 July 2006.] . Some Greek sources give the following numbers: Pontic Greek Muslims over 300,000, Cretan Muslims 200,000 - 300,000, Cypriot Muslims (in Turkey) 150,000, Vallahades 50,000. [ [http://www.e-telescope.gr/gr/cat02/art02_060626.htm "Εθνική συνείδηση και μειονότητες στην Τουρκία"] (National consciousness and minorities in Turkey), by Yorgos Stamikos, 26th June 2006.]See also
*
Greek language
*Hamshenis
*Bulgarian Muslims
*Macedonian Muslims
*Pomaks
*Bosniaks References
External links
* [http://www.greekmuslims.com www.GreekMuslims.com]
* [http://www.karalahana.com Karalahana.com]
* [http://lahana.org/index.php?topic=74.0 Trebizond Greek: A language without a tongue]
* [http://www.ocena.info Radio Ocena]
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