Muslim Roma

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Muslim Roma or Muslim Gypsies are Romani people who adopted Islam. Roma have usually adopted the predominant religion of the host country. Islam among Roma is historically associated with life of Roma within the Ottoman Empire. Correspondingly, significant cultural minorities of Muslim Roma are found in Turkey, Albania, Egypt and Southern Europe (which was the Ottoman Rumelia). Because of the relative ease of migration in modern times, Muslim Roma may be found in other parts of the world as well.

After the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in the parts where Islam is no longer a dominant religion Muslim Roma have found themselves under double discrimination, both on ethnic (Antiziganism) and religious (Islamophobia) grounds.[1]

Muslim Roma throughout Southern Europe call themselves Horahane Roma ("Turkish Roma", also spelled as Khorakhane, Xoraxane, Kharokane, Xoraxai, etc.) and are colloquially referred to as Turkish Roma or Turkish Gypsies in the host countries.

By mid-1990s estimates, Muslim Roma in Bulgaria constituted about 40% of Roma in Bulgaria.[2] A very small muslim Roma group exist in the Dobruja region of Romania.[3]

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ Peter G. Danchin, Elizabeth A. Cole (Eds.) (2002) "Protecting the Human Rights of Religious Minorities in Eastern Europe", ISBN 0231124759
  2. ^ Gerd Nonneman, Tim Niblock, Bogdan Szajkowski (Eds.) (1996) "Muslim Communities in the New Europe", ISBN 0863721923
  3. ^ Ana Oprişan, George Grigore, "The Muslim Gypsies in Romania", in International Institute for the Study of Islam in the Modern World (ISIM) Newsletter 8, September 2001, p.32; retrieved June 2, 2007

[edit] Further reading

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