Islamization of Albania
[1] Albania differs from other regions in the Balkans such as Bulgaria and Bosnia in that until the 1500s, Islam remained confined to members of the co-opted aristocracy and sparse military outpost settlements of Yuruks.
[4] The first conversions to Islam by some of the Albanian Christian elite allowed them to retain some previous political and economic privileges, and to join the emerging class of timar or estate holders of the sipahis in the new Ottoman system.
[5][4] Among some of these aristocratic figures were George Kastrioti (Skanderbeg) who while in the service of the Ottomans was a convert to Islam and later reverted to Christianity during the late 15th century during the northern Albanian uprising he initiated.
[1] Skanderbeg received military assistance from the Kingdom of Naples that sent in 1452 Ramon d’Ortafà who was appointed as viceroy of Albania and tasked with maintaining Catholicism among the local population from the spread of Islam.
[6] During the conflicts between Skanderbeg and Ottomans the various battles and raiding pushed Sultan Mehmet II to construct the fortress of Elbasan (1466) in the lowlands to counter resistance coming from the mountain strongholds.
[21] In the north, the spread of Islam was slower due to resistance from the Roman Catholic Church and the mountainous terrain which contributed to the curbing of Muslim influence in the 16th century.
However the assistance did not come, and when the rebellion was crushed in 1596, Ottoman repression and heavy pressures to convert to Islam were implemented to punish the rebels.
[28] Conversion among Catholics in communities of Northern Albania involved males outwardly embracing Islam, often to avoid payment of taxes and other social pressures which in the Ottoman system targeted men while females of the household remained Christian.
[31] Sharing the faith of Ottoman authorities allowed northern Albanians to become allies and equals in the imperial system and gain security against neighbouring Orthodox Slavs.
[34][35] The conversion to Islam of most of central Albania has thus been attributed in large part to the role its geography played in the socio-political and economic fortunes of the region.
[38][39] Differences between Christian Albanians of central Albania and archbishops of Ohrid led to conversions to Bektashi Islam that made an appeal to all while insisting little on ritual observance.
[55][56][57] Other conversions such as those in the region of Labëria occurred due to ecclesiastical matters when for example during a famine the local bishop refused to grant a break in the fast to consume milk with threats of hell.
[58] Conversion to Islam also was undertaken for economic reasons which offered a way out of heavy taxation such as the jizya or poll tax and other difficult Ottoman measures imposed on Christians while opening up opportunities such as wealth accumulation and so on.
[26][43][35][58] Additionally the reliance of the bishoprics of Durrës and southern Albania upon the declining Archbishopric of Ohrid, due in part to simony weakened the ability of Orthodox Albanians in resisting conversion to Islam.
[43][35] Crypto-Christianity also occurred in certain instances throughout Albania in regions such as Shpat amongst populations that had recently converted from Christian Catholicism and Orthodoxy to Islam.
[24][25][26][54][61] Gorë, a borderland region straddling contemporary north-eastern Albania and southern Kosovo, had a Slavic Orthodox population which converted to Islam during the latter half of the eighteenth century due to the abolition of the Serbian Patriarchate of Peć (1766) and subsequent unstable ecclesiastical structures.
[66] The existence of that class as pashas and beys during that period, having military employment as soldiers and mercenaries while also able to join the Muslim clergy played an increasingly important role in Ottoman political and economic life that became an attractive career option for many Albanians.
[26] Sunni Islam was promoted and protected by Ottoman governors and feudal society that resulted in support and spread of dervish Sufi orders considered more orthodox in the Balkans region.
[43][67][78][79] Sufi dervishes from places afar like Khorasan and Anatolia arrived, proselytized, gained disciples and in time a network of tekkes was established that became centres of Sufism in regions such as Skrapar and Devoll.
[67] Of the Bektashi order by the early 20th century, Albanians formed a sizable amount of its dervishes outside the Balkans, even at the tekke of Sufi saint Haji Bektash in Anatolia and in Egypt.
[83] Apart from Elbasan founded (1466) around a fortress, towns and cities in Albania underwent change as they adopted Ottoman architectural and cultural elements.
[18][85] Some settlements with the construction of buildings related to religion, education and social purposes like mosques, madrassas, imarets and so on by the Ottoman Muslim Albanian elite became new urban centres like Korçë, Tiranë and Kavajë.
[85] Meanwhile, older urban centres such as Berat attained mosques, hamams (Ottoman bathhouses), madrasas (Muslim religious schools), coffee houses, tekes and became known for poets, artists and scholarly pursuits.
[89][90] The ethnic demonym Shqiptarë, derived from Latin connoting clear speech and verbal understanding gradually replaced Arbëresh/Arbënesh amongst Albanian speakers between the late 17th and early 18th centuries.
[93][94] Prominent in those discussions were written exchanges in newspaper articles and books between novelist Ismail Kadare of Gjirokastër and literary critic Rexhep Qosja, an Albanian from the former Yugoslavia in the mid-2000s.
[99] Following trends dating back from the communist regime, the post-communist Albanian political establishment continues to approach Islam as the faith of the Ottoman "invader".
[102] The official religious Christian and Muslim establishments and their clergy hold diverging views of the Ottoman period and conversion of Islam by Albanians.
Both Catholic and the Orthodox clergy interpret the Ottoman era as a repressive one that contained anti-Christian discrimination and violence,[103] while Islam is viewed as foreign challenging Albanian tradition and cohesion.
[104] Christian identities in Albania have been forged on being in a minority position, at times with experiences of discrimination they have had historically in relation to the Muslim majority.
[107][96][108] He maintained that though recognised within the millet system as Muslims only, the partial Islamisation of the population halted the assimilation process occurring through churches and the influence of landlords of the Greeks, Latins and Slavs.
