Islam in the Balkans
Religion and Society between Europe and the Arab World
H. T. Norris
Hurst & Company, London
1993
The tragic events that began to unfold in the former Yugoslavia at the beginning of the 1990s have drawn the world’s attention to the history and rich culture of the Muslim communities of Bosnia especially, but also of Albania, Kosovo and Macedonia — the historic heartland of Muslim Europe. Here H. T. Norris breaks new ground by focusing on their religious and intellectual links with the Arab world, Persia and Central Asia, whereas the few previous publications on the subject have been mostly concerned with the more obvious links between the Balkan Muslims and the Turks. Norris illustrates from a wide range of sources the many channels through which the Arabs and Persians were linked with Balkan peoples, especially after the Ottoman conquest, in their art, architecture, literature and religion — direct contacts were also forged through Ṣūfīsm. From the earliest times, also, many Balkan Muslim soldiers and bureaucrats, as well as scholars and poets, made an impact on the wider Islamic world, the most prominent being Mohammed Ali, the founder of modern Egypt.
The resurgence of Muslim identity in Bosnia-Hercegovina and Kosovo has of course much to do with the aggressive nature of Serbian nationalism. But it is also a legacy of the region’s relations over many centuries with the Arab countries and Persia, now given a new meaning in the wake of Serbian attempts to ‘cleanse’ Sarajevo and other cities of their Muslim inhabitants.
As the wider world has become aware, for the first time in several generations, of the phenomenon of Muslim Europe, many people of all persuasions now want to know and understand more about it, and the forces which have been tearing ancient communities apart and threatening a wider conflagration. Up till now, the sources available to them have been largely concerned with power politics, economics and demography. H. T. Norris’s cultural investigation, the fruit of many years’ research, corrects this imbalance.
For a note on the author, see back flap
£27.50
Until his retirement in 1991, Harry Thirlwall Norris, born in 1926, was professor of Arabic and Islamic Studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London.
Within the field of Islamic studies he has conducted research on the history of the Moors, Tuareg and Berbers of North Africa — resulting in the publication of seven books — and the history of the Muslim communities of Eastern Europe. He has made extensive travels throughout the Balkans.
Printed in Hong Kong
A 19th-century map printed in Arabic in Malta, showing Ottoman territories in the Balkans. It will be observed that the ‘Albanian territories’ (Arnā’ūṭ) extend beyond Albania deep into Macedonia and the borders include Salonica. Epirus is also deemed to be part of Arnaut territory. Some of the place-names do not follow the standard Ottoman spellings.
CONTENTS
Acknowledgements page vii
Note on Transcription xiii
Glossary xiv
Introduction 1
Chapters
1. The Arabs, the Slavs, the Hungarian Saracens and the Arnauts 10
The Arabs enter Balkan history 10
Middle Eastern beliefs among the Slavs 14
The Arab threat to Byzantium 19
Arabs and Bulgarians at the beginning of the tenth century 20
Dubrovnik and the Arab East 24
Pecheneg and Khwarizmian Muslims in medieval Hungary 26
Al-Idrīsī (548/1154) describes the Yugoslav coast, Albania and the Macedonian interior 31
The Arnauts 33
Balkan regions, the 'Chanson de Roland’ and medieval Arabic folk epics 37
2. Oriental influences on Islamic and non-Islamic life and literature in Bosnia, in Macedonia and among the Albanians 43
The Bogomil and Christian background 43
Islam and the Balkan city 49
Mosque, tekke and library 54
Arabic and Persian scholarship 58
Early Islamic poets in Albania 61
Islamic popular literature 64
Early nineteenth-century poets 73
3. Ṣūfī movements and orders in the Balkans and their historical links with the Ṣūfīsm of Central Asia 82
The Baktāshīyya 89
Non-Shī‘īte Ṣūfī orders in the Balkans 100
ix
x
The Qādiriyya 105
The Mawlawiyya 109
The Khalwatiyya 111
The Naqshabandiyya 112
The Malāmiyya 115
Shaykh al-Ṭā’ifa al-Bayrāmiyya 119
The origins of the Baktāshīyya in Albania 123
When were the first tekkes built in the heart of Albania? 127
Krujë 129
4. Muslim heroes of the Bulgars, the Tatars of the Dobrudja, the Albanians and the Bosnians 138
Oriental legends about the Arabian and Central Asian ancestry of the Bulgars and Arnauts 139
The folk epic, religious mission, miracles and many tombs of Sari Saltik 146
Krujë, Sari Saltik and Gjerg Elez Alia in Albania and Bosnia 155
5. Albanian Ṣūfī poets of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and their impact on contemporary Albanian thought 161
The writings of Naim Frashëri 162
Naim Frashëri’s poem on Skanderbeg 166
Naim Frashëri’s Baktāshī works 169
The historical background to Naim's ‘Qerbelaja’ 174
The tekkes of Iraq 176
The epic of Fudūlī and his influences on later Albanian literature 178
‘Qerbelaja’ 182
Twentieth-century Ṣūfī poets of Kosovo 188
The Baktāshī legacy in the verse of Baba ‘Alī Tomori 190
The neo-mysticism of Hamid Gjylbegaj 192
6. Balkan Muslims in the history of the Maghrib, Egypt and Syria and the influence of the Arab East in the courtly life of ‘Alī Pasha of Tepelenë 196
Albanians and Bosnians in Algeria and Tunisia 201
Albanians in Egypt 208
Albanians and the Cairene Baktāshī tekkes 211
The history of Shaykh Muḥammad Luṭfī Bābā and Shaykh Aḥmad Sirrī Bābā 218
xi
al-Häjj ‘Umar Luṭfī Bashārīzī 227
‘Alī Pasha of Tepelenë 231
The Albanians in Syria 244
7. Bridges and barriers of Islamic faith and culture within Balkan Muslim and non-Muslim societies 253
The battle of Kosovo and the Serb crusade against Islam 257
Syncretic movements and religious bridge-building in the late Middle Ages 263
Romanian monasteries and mosques and links with the Arab East 268
Islam in Kosovo 271
The Future 277
Select Bibliography 281
Appendix: The Serbian view of Islam in the 1980s 295
Index of Terms 299
Index of Places 300
Index of Persons and Nationalities 302