The Torbeši (Macedonian: Торбеши) are a Macedonian-speaking Muslim ethnoreligious group in North Macedonia and Albania.

[13] The regions inhabited by these Macedonian-speaking Muslims are Debarska Župa, Dolni Drimkol, Reka, and Golo Brdo (in Albania).

Some link it to an old Slavic tribe Torbeachei, whereas other theories have suggested a derivation from the Persian torbekes meaning person with a bag.

According to one theory, the Torbeši were a group of public servants in the Ottoman Empire tasked to carry bags (Turkish: torba oglanlari).

[15] The most common explanation in North Macedonia of the origin of the term is that the Torbeš sold their faith for a bag (torba in Macedonian) of goods from the Ottomans.

[22][23] The Torbeši are largely the descendants of Orthodox Christian Slavs from the region of Macedonia who were converted to Islam during the centuries when the Ottoman Empire ruled the Balkans.

[24] The various Sufi orders (like the Khalwati, Rifa'is and Qadiris) all played a role in the conversion of the Slavic and Paulician population.

Torbešija is an ethnographic region in the Marko's River Valley south of Skopje, today within Studeničani Municipality.

During that time, he notes the existence of a Torbeš population in Gollobordë, on the Macedonian-Albanian border, specifically in the villages of Vërnicë, Trebisht Lladomericë, Gjinovec, Klenjë, Lejçan, Lubalesh, Ostren i Madh and Ostren i Vogël, Okshtun, Pasinkë, Radovesh, Sebisht, Sërpetovë, Stebleve, Tuçep, Tërbaç.

[30][7] Along with other Balkan Muslims following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, Torbeš were helped by the Turkish government to settle in Turkey.

The historian Ivo Banac estimates that in the old Kingdom of Yugoslavia, before World War II, the Torbeš population stood at around 27,000.

In municipalities containing the largest concentrations of Torbeš villages,[7] the 2021 census results were as follows for individuals who participated in the census: The oldest Macedonian newspaper Nova Makedonija was first published in 1944 in Gorno Vranovci, a village that was inhabited by Torbeši at the time.

[47][37] Led by member of parliament Fiat Canoski, “organizations of Macedonians of Islamic religion… declared themselves as Torbeshi”.