Islam in Romania

Islam in Romania is followed by only 0.4 percent of the population, but has 700 years of tradition in Northern Dobruja, a region on the Black Sea coast which was part of the Ottoman Empire for almost five centuries (ca.

The Islamic presence in Northern Dobruja was expanded by Ottoman conquest and successive settling, but has been in steady decline since the late 19th century.

In Wallachia and Moldavia, the two Danubian Principalities, being at least nominally independent, managed to avoid considerable colonization during the era of Ottoman suzerainty and thus the Islamic presence there was always marginal.

Also linked to the Ottoman Empire, groups of Islamic colonists in other parts of present-day Romania were relocated by the Habsburg expansion or by various other political changes.

[7] Members provide funding for the religious institution, which is supplemented by state donations and subsidies, as well by assistance from international Islamic organizations.

[11] Around 1260, two Rûm Seljuq community leaders, the deposed Sultan Kaykaus II and the mystic Sari Saltik, were allowed to settle the region during the reign of Michael VIII Palaiologos, ruler of the Byzantine Empire.

[9][11] Researchers such as Franz Babinger and Gheorghe I. Brătianu endorse the view that Saltuk and his followers were in fact crypto-Shiite Alevis who were regarded as apostates by the dominant Sunni group of central Anatolia, and who sought refuge from persecution.

[5] In Ibn Battuta's time, the region was regarded as a westernmost possession of the Tatar Golden Horde, a khanate centered on the Eurasian Steppe.

[5] The grave of Sari Saltik, reportedly first erected into a monument by Sultan Bayezid, has since endured as a major shrine in Romanian Islam.

[11] The shrine, which has been described as a cenotaph, is one of many places where the Sheikh is supposed to be buried: a similar tradition is held by various local communities throughout the Balkans, who argue that his tomb is located in Kaliakra, Babaeski, Blagaj, Edirne, the Has District, Krujë, or Sveti Naum.

[12] The toponym Babadağ (Turkish for "Old Man's Mountain", later adapted into Romanian as Babadag) is a probable reference to Sari Saltik, and a Dobrujan Muslim account recorded by chronicler Evliya Çelebi in the late 15th century has it that the name surfaced soon after a Christian attack partly destroyed the tomb.

After 1417, when Ottoman domination over Wallachia first became effective, the towns of Turnu and Giurgiu were annexed as kazas, a rule enforced until the Treaty of Adrianople in 1829 (the status was briefly extended to Brăila in 1542).

At the other end of the social spectrum, Moldavia held a sizable population of Tatar slaves, who shared this status with all local Roma people (see Slavery in Romania).

[15] In one compromise version published in 1993, Romanian historian Mihai Maxim argues that, although these were unilateral acts, they were viewed as treaties by the Wallachian and Moldavian rulers.

According to one prominent interpretation, this would mean that the Principalities were regarded by the Ottomans as belonging to the Dâr al ahd' ("Abode of the Covenant"), a status granted to them in exchange for material gains.

[18] Instead, as it happened in several instances, Ottoman Sultans allowed their Tatar subjects to raid Moldavia or Wallachia as a means to punish the dissent of local Princes.

[20] By the 17th century, according to the notes of traveler Evliya Çelebi, Dobruja was also home to a distinct community of people of mixed Turkish and Wallachian heritage.

[9] Additionally, a part of the Dobrujan Roma community has traditionally adhered to Islam;[4][9] it is believed that it originated with groups of Romani people serving in the Ottoman Army during the 16th century,[4] and has probably incorporated various ethnic Turks who had not settled down in the cities or villages.

A small Turkish-speaking Muslim community resided on Ada Kaleh island in the Danube, south of the Banat, an Ottoman enclave and later part of Austria-Hungary, which was transferred to Romania in 1923.

At the end of the Second Balkan War in 1913, the Kingdom of Romania came to include Southern Dobruja, whose population was over 50% Turkish (the region was ceded to Bulgaria in 1940).

[25] As recorded after World War I, Romania had a population of 200,000 Muslims from a total of 7 million, the majority of which were Turks who lived in the two areas of Dobruja (as many as 178,000).

[5][7] The population of Ada Kaleh relocated to Anatolia shortly before the 1968 construction of the Iron Gates dam by a joint Yugoslav-Romanian venture, which resulted in the island being flooded.

[29] However, according to historian Zachary T. Irwin, the degree to which the Muslim community was repressed and dispersed was lower in Romania than in other countries of Eastern Europe, and the measures were less severe than, for instance, those taken against Romanian Roman Catholics and Protestants.

[30] The state sponsored an edition of the Qur'an, and top clerics such as Mufti Iacub Mehmet and Bucharest Imam Regep Sali, represented the community in the Great National Assembly during Nicolae Ceaușescu's years in office.

[35] The project was controversial, with former President Traian Băsescu warning of "an accelerated Islamization process" and every major candidate for Mayor of Bucharest expressing opposition or calling for a referendum.