Islam in Bulgaria

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Banya Bashi mosque, built in 1576 by the great Ottoman architect Sinan, is the only functioning mosque that remains of 500 years of Ottoman domination in Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria

Bulgaria´s largest Tumbul Mosque in Shumen is the second largest Mosque on whole Balkan peninsula, too

The Muslim population of Bulgaria, including Turks, Muslim Bulgarians, Pomaks, Roma, and Crimean Tatars, lives mainly in northeastern Bulgaria and in the Rhodope Mountains. According to the 2001 Census, the total number of Muslims in the country stood at 966,978, corresponding to 12.2% of the population. According to the criterion of ethnic group they were divided into the following groups:

• Turks - 713,000;
• Bulgarians - 131,000;
• Roma - 103,000;
• Others - 20,000;

Most of the Bulgarian Muslims are Sunni Muslims as Sunni Islam was the form of Islam promoted by the Ottoman Turks during their five-century rule of Bulgaria (see History of Bulgaria). Shi'a sects such as the Alians, Kizilbashi and the Bektashi also are present, however. About 80,000 Shi'a Muslims live mainly in the Razgrad, Sliven and Tutrakan (northeast of Rousse) regions. They are mainly descendants of Bulgarians who converted to Islam to avoid Ottoman persecution but chose a Shi'a sect because of its greater tolerance toward different national and religious customs. For example, Kuzulbashi Bulgarians could maintain the Orthodox customs of communion, confession, and honoring saints. This integration of Orthodox customs into Islam gave rise to a type of syncretism found only in Bulgaria.

As of 1987, Muslims in Bulgaria had 1,267 mosques served by 533 khodzhai, or religious community leaders. The Muslim hierarchy was headed by one chief mufti and eight regional muftis, interpreters of Muslim law, all of whom served five-year terms. The largest mosque in Bulgaria was the Tumbul Mosque in Shumen, built in 1744.

Bulgarian Muslims were subject to particular persecution in the later years of the Todor Zhivkov regime. This was partly because the Orthodox Church traditionally considered them foreigners, even if they were ethnically Bulgarian. The Bulgarian communist regimes declared traditional Muslim beliefs to be diametrically opposed to communist and Bulgarian beliefs. This justified repression of Muslim beliefs and consolidation of Muslim into the larger society as part of the class and ideological struggle.

Like the practitioners of the other faiths, Muslims in Bulgaria enjoyed greater religious freedom after the fall of the Zhivkov regime (1989). New mosques were built in many cities and villages; one village built a new church and a new mosque side by side. Some villages organized Qur'an study courses for young people (study of the Qur'an had been completely forbidden under Zhivkov). Muslims also began publishing their own newspaper, Musulmani, in both Bulgarian and Turkish.

[edit] See also

• Islam by country
• Bulgarian Muslims
• Pomaks
• Turks in Bulgaria

[edit] References

• This article contains material from the Library of Congress Country Studies, which are United States government publications in the public domain.