Muslims in Romania

3 4 Regional issues I S I M NEWSLETTER 3 / 9 9 Eastern Europe GEORGE GRIGORE Muslims in Romania Romanian principalities, once known as the ‘gates of b e y l i r b e y l i k of Rumelia. Dobrudja had been cessive emigrations, there are three Tartar have remained in Romania for a while, the Levant’, have a history of religious and ethnic di- under unceasing Ottoman domination until dialects in Dobrudja: the Crimean dialect or which makes these communities very unsta- versity. In Romania today, the Muslim population 1877 when, after the Russian-Romanian-Ot- the steppe dialect (in Tartar: k r i m or sol tili, ble. On the other hand, many Turks from traditionally lives together with the Romanian ma- toman War, Romania gained independence 70%), the Noghai dialect (in Tartar: n o g h a i Turkey have joined the old Turkish commu- jority (Christian-Orthodox) in an area called Dobrud- as a state, subsequently acknowledging Do- t i l i, 20%) and the seaside dialect (in Tartar: nity in Romania and consolidated it. There is ja, a territory bordered to the east by the Black Sea, brudja’s annexation by the Treaty of Berlin yaliboyi tili, 10%). also a small number of Romanians that have to the west and north by the Danube River and to the ( 1 8 7 8 ) . In order to accentuate the element of recently become Muslims, yet have not south by the Romanian-Bulgarian frontier. The first Muslims Ð a group of 10-12,000 Islam in Dobrudja, the Ottomans brought in formed a unified community. Anatolian Turkomans led by Sari Saltik Ð set- other populations from all over the Empire: The Muslim community from Dobrudja, tled down in Dobrudja in 1263-1264. The fa- Persians, Kurds, and Arabs. The latter, for in- Culture and education which is Sunni, Hanafitic rite, is composed of mous Arab traveller, Ibn Battutah (1334), stance, consisted in 150 Syrian families of Dobrudja is a place with lots of vestiges of two major ethnic groups: the Tartars and made the first documentary attestation of f e l l a h s who were brought to Dobrudja be- the Ottoman domination period, such as the Turks. Nowadays, Muslims from Dobrud- Tartars living in this area. According to the tween 1831-1833. All these populations mausoleums and tombs of some Muslim ja or from abroad live in all the important discovered traces, the first groups of Tartars, mingled with the Turks, being assimilated saints and Ottoman magistrates that can be Romanian cities, being structured in more as part of the empire of the Golden Horde, within a short period of time. found at Isaccea, Cernavoda and Babadag. or less stable communities. According to the seem to have settled here during the time of In Medgidia are the ruins of one of the old- official census of 1992, there were 29,533 the Tartar leader Noghai (1280-1310), who Turks, Tartars, Albanians and est Muslim schools (m e d r e s a) in the region. Turks and 24,649 Tartars registered, mean- ruled over the northern side of the Balkan G y p s i e s There are also some mosques, still in use, ing that the Turks as well as the Tartars rep- Peninsula up to Dobrudja. The name of At the beginning of the 20t h century, as a which are real masterpieces of architecture, resent each an approximate percentage of Noghai assumed by a part of Dobrudja Tar- result of the deterioration of the economical such as Esmahan Sultan Mosque in Man- 0.1% of Romania’s 22,760,449 inhabitants. tars must have its origins in the colonization conditions, Turkish and Tartar populations galia (constructed in 1590); Ghazi Ali Pasa of that time. migrated massively to Turkey, so that many Mosque in Babadag (constructed in 1522); Ottoman presence Sultan Bayezid I brought Tartars to the villages were left entirely abandoned. The and Hunkiar Mosque (constructed in 1870) The Muslim presence in Dobrudja is ex- area of Babadag. Later on, Sultan Mehmet I number of religious shelters can also demon- and Anadolkoy Mosque (constructed in plained by the fact that this territory was (1413-1421) colonized in Dobrudja both strate the decrease of the Muslim popula- 1860) in Constanta. During the Ottoman under the domination of the Ottoman Em- Tartars and Turkomans from Asia Minor. An- tion. Whereas in 1900 there were 260 times, education was mostly religious. In pire for almost five centuries. The Ottomans other stage of the colonization in Dobrudja mosques in Dobrudja, at the end of World Dobrudja, the oldest m e d r e s a was built in conquered Dobrudja in several stages. The is connected with the Sultan Bayezid II who War II there were only 151 left. The decrease Babadag in 1484, by the order of the Sultan first stage is represented by the conquest of invited Volga Tartars to settle in the south- has remained in process up to the present Bayezid II. After 1878, the Romanian State the strategic points of Inisala and Isaccea b y ern Basarabia (Budjak) and northern Do- day, the number of functional mosques reorganized the educational system in Do- the Sultan Bayezid I (1389-1402). After a brudja. During several stages, Anatolian coming down to about 80. The number of brudja, secularized it and introduced the short re-conquest of these territories by the Turks were colonized in Dobrudja. During Muslim graveyards has also decreased from Romanian language in schools. The theo- v o i v o d e of Wallachia, Mircea the Old, most the 17t h and 18t h centuries, the Crimean Tar- 300 to 108, which are still in use. logical seminary in Medgidia, which had of Dobrudja was conquered by the Sultan tars continually migrated to Dobrudja. This Apart from the Turks and the Tartars, been moved from Babadag in 1903, was Mehmet I between 1419-1420. This marks migration grew to a considerable size at the other Muslim ethnic groups can also be abolished in 1965. School education in Tar- the second stage in the process of settling time the Crimea was annexed by the Rus- found in Romania, such as the Albanians tar and Turkish was gradually eliminated Ottoman power in the region. The third and sians in 1783, after the Russian-Turkish War. who emigrated in great number after World after 1959, and the study of these languages last stage is represented by the conquest of After the Crimean Tartar emigrants had es- War I from many regions of the Balkan became optional. After the fall of the com- the fortresses Chilia and Cetatea Alba by the tablished themselves in Basarabia, as a first Peninsula. According to certain studies, munist regime in Romania in 1989, the Turk- Sultan Bayezid II (1481-1512) in 1484. As a stage of the emigration process, they then there are approximately 3,000 Muslim Alba- ish language was reintroduced as study lan- result, Dobrudja became a constituent of crossed the Danube and settled down in nians in Romania. They are fully integrated guage for both Turkish and Tartar ethnic the Ottoman Empire, belonging to the great Dobrudja in 1812. As a result of these suc- into the Tartar-Turkish community, not only groups in the schools with Tartar and Turk- by means of marriage, but also through the ish pupils. Furthermore, in 1993 the Muslim bonds of custom and tradition and by the theological and pedagogic secondary school sharing of mosques and graveyards. This ‘Mustafa Kemal Atatürk’ opened its doors, makes it very difficult to establish their continuing the tradition of old seminary. ♦ exact number. A fact that is worth mention- ing is that the first translation of the Koran to modern Albanian (written with Latin let- ters), entitled K o r a n i (K e n d i m i n i) was pub- lished by Ilo Mitko Qafezezi Ð an Albanian Dr George Grigore is professor at the Arabic from Romania Ð in 1921 in Ploiesti. Department of the University of Bucharest and Another Muslim group in Romania is com- research fellow at the Center for Arab Studies, prised of Muslim gypsies living in Dobrudja. Bucharest, Romania. E-mail: [email protected] These are local gypsies who converted to Islam during the Ottoman domination, or There are two monthly publications, issued in Muslim gypsies who emigrated from other Constanta, worthy of mention: H a k s e s (in Romanian parts of the Ottoman Empire. Some of them and Turkish) and K a r a d e n i z (‘The Black Sea’; in seem to have mixed with the vagrant Anato- Romanian, Turkish and Tartar). In addition, the lian Turks who were present in Dobrudja, Kriterion publishing house in Bucharest has been becoming an ethnic group now called ‘Turk printing books in Turkish and Tartar languages since gypsies’. Their number is not exactly known 1980. In the High Institutions of the State, there are as they generally declare themselves Turks two deputies in Parliament representing two political in the census. organizations of the Turkish-Tartar community in After 1989, new Muslim ethnic groups ap- Romania, namely the Democrat Union of the Turkish peared in important cities of Romania such Muslim Tartars in Romania and the Democrat Union as Bucharest, Iasi, Cluj, and Timisoara. Such of the Turks in Romania. groups are the Arabs (who came mostly from the countries of the Arab Mashriq like R e f e r e n c e s Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine); the Ð Ekrem Mehmet Ali, 1995, Din istoria turcilor Iranians; the Kurds (who came from north- d o b r o g e n i, Bucuresti, Editura Kriterion; ern Iraq and south-eastern Turkey), etc.

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