135-472: Greek Muslims , also known as Grecophone Muslims , are Muslims of Greek ethnic origin whose adoption of Islam (and often the Turkish language and identity) dates to the period of Ottoman rule in the southern Balkans . They consist primarily of descendants of Ottoman-era converts to Islam from Greek Macedonia (e.g., Vallahades ), Crete ( Cretan Muslims ), and northeastern Anatolia (particularly in
270-1003: A monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran , the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God of Abraham (or Allah ) as it was revealed to Muhammad , the main Islamic prophet . Alongside the Quran, Muslims also believe in previous revelations , such as the Tawrat ( Torah ), the Zabur ( Psalms ), and the Injeel ( Gospel ). These earlier revelations are associated with Judaism and Christianity , which are regarded by Muslims as earlier versions of Islam. The majority of Muslims also follow
405-672: A Christian administration is demanded in Turkish Armenia, as in Lebanon. Today a version of religion-based legal pluralism resembling the millet system still persists in varying forms in some post-Ottoman countries like Iraq , Syria , Jordan , Lebanon , Israel , the Palestinian Authority , Egypt , and Greece (for religious minorities), which observe the principle of separate personal courts and/or laws for every recognized religious community and reserved seats in
540-555: A Muslim fell under their sharia -based law. Later, the perception of the millet concept was altered in the 19th century by the rise of nationalism within the Ottoman Empire. Although the Ottoman administration of non-Muslim subjects was not uniform until the 19th century and varied according to region and group, it is possible to identify some common patterns for earlier epochs. Christian and Jewish communities were granted
675-476: A Muslim is a person who has dedicated his worship exclusively to God, for just as we say in Arabic that something is ‘ salima ’ to a person, meaning that it became solely his own, so in the same way ‘ Islām ’ means making one's religion and faith God's alone. In several places in the Quran , the word muslim conveys a universal meaning, beyond the description of the followers of Muhammad , for example: "Abraham
810-622: A Turk." The equivalent in Serbian and other South Slavic languages is turčiti (imperfective) or poturčiti (perfective). Pontic Greek (called Ρωμαίικα / Roméika in the Pontus , not Ποντιακά / Pontiaká as it is in Greece ), is spoken by large communities of Pontic Greek Muslim origin, spread out near the southern Black Sea coast. Pontian Greek Muslims are found within Trabzon province in
945-430: A consequence of the separation by Church affiliation, as was required by 19th century Ottoman law. Syriac Catholics The Syriac Catholic community was recognized as its own millet in 1829. Chaldeans The Chaldean Catholic community was recognized as its own millet in 1844. Syriac Orthodox The Syriac Orthodox community in the Ottoman Empire was for long not recognized as its own millet , but part of
1080-803: A constitutional committee which, taken together, make up the Basic Laws of the Greek Orthodox Millet . Until the 19th century, there was a single Armenian millet which served all ethnic Armenians irrespective of whether they belonged to the Armenian Apostolic Church , the Armenian Catholic Church , or the Armenian Protestant Church (which was formed in the 19th century). Besides a religious role, this millet also played
1215-486: A disgrace. Until the Lebanese Civil War , their community was close-knit and entirely endogamous . However many of them left Lebanon during the 15 years of the war. Greek-speaking Muslims constitute 60% of Al Hamidiyah 's population. The percentage may be higher but is not conclusive because of hybrid relationship in families. The community is very much concerned with maintaining its culture. The knowledge of
1350-531: A large degree of autonomy. Tax collection, education, legal and religious affairs of these communities were administered by their own leaders. This enabled the Ottomans to rule over diverse peoples with "a minimum of resistance". The Jewish community, in particular, prospered under Ottoman rule, and its ranks were swelled with the arrival of Jews who were expelled from Spain. At the same time, non-Muslims were subject to several forms of discrimination and excluded from
1485-610: A person's private business in which the state should not interfere. However, all such proposals have been defeated. Greece recognizes only a Muslim minority, and no ethnic or national minorities, such as Turks , Pomaks , or Bulgarians . This is the result of several international treaties as the Convention Concerning the Exchange of Greek and Turkish Populations of 1923 and of the Treaty of Lausanne of 1924, when
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#17327866000291620-551: A person. Among Asharites , it is also seen as a sign of humility and the individual's longing to improve, because the creature has no assurance of their own state (of belief) until the end of life. The Qur'an describes many prophets and messengers within Judaism and Christianity , and their respective followers, as Muslim. Some of those that were mentioned are: Adam , Noah , Abraham , Ishmael , Jacob , Moses , and Jesus and his apostles are all considered to be Muslims in
1755-499: A person. Fellow Muslims can only accept the personal declaration of faith. Only the Khawārij developed an understanding of Muslim identity based mainly on the adherence to liturgical and legal norms. When asked about one's beliefs, it is recommended to say the Istit̲h̲nāʾ , for example, " in-sha'allah I am Muslim a believer" (so God will, I am Muslim), since only God knows the future of
1890-620: A political and cultural role. Namely, it bundled together all Armenian and some other groups, showcasing a shift from religious identity towards national identity. As a result of this, a type of hegemony emerged in which all groups that were under this millet had to conform to the norms imposed by the leader of the millet , who was appointed by the Sultan. This had a cultural, political, linguistic, and religious effect on all of these groups. Only later did separate Catholic millets emerge. Non-Armenians from churches which were theologically linked to
2025-790: A protector at the Porte in the person of the French ambassador. In this way the Roman Catholic millet was established at the start of the Tanzimat reforms. In a 1910 book William Ainger Wigram used the term melet in application to the Persian Sasanian Empire , arguing that the situation there was similar to the Ottoman millet system and no other term was readily available to describe it. Some other authors have also adopted this usage. The early Christians there formed
2160-554: A system based on the Ottoman millet , in which personal status is based on a person's belonging to a religious community. The state of Israel – on the basis of laws inherited from Ottoman times and retained both under British rule and by independent Israel – reserves the right to recognise some communities but not others. Thus, Orthodox Judaism is officially recognised in Israel, while Reform Rabbis and Conservative Rabbis are not recognised and cannot perform marriages. Israel recognised
2295-717: A while. In the nineteenth century the lower half of Kermenchik was populated with Christian Greeks from Turkey, whereas the upper remained Muslim. By the time of the 1944 deportation , the Muslims of Kermenchik had already been identified as Crimean Tatars, and were forcibly expelled to Central Asia together with the rest of Crimea's ethnic minorities. There are about 7,000 Greek-speaking Muslims living in Tripoli, Lebanon and about 8,000 in Al Hamidiyah , Syria . The majority of them are Muslims of Cretan origin. Records suggest that
2430-685: Is "Muslim". For most of the 20th century, the preferred spelling in English was "Moslem", but this has now fallen into disuse. That spelling and its pronunciation was opposed by many Muslims in English-speaking countries because it resembled the Arabic word aẓ-ẓālim ( الظَّالِم ), meaning "the oppressor". In the United States, the Associated Press instructed news outlets to switch to the spelling "Muslim" in 1991, making it
2565-640: Is attested in Ottoman administrative documents into the 19th century. Benjamin Braude has argued that before the Tanzimat reforms, the word millet in the sense of religious community denoted the Muslim religious community or the Christians outside of the Ottoman Empire. This view is supported by Donald Quataert . In contrast, Michael Ursinus writes that the word was used to refer to non-Muslim subjects of
2700-582: Is closely linked to Islamic rules on the treatment of non−Muslim minorities living under Islamic dominion ( dhimmi ). The Ottoman term specifically refers to the separate legal courts pertaining to personal law under which minorities were allowed to rule themselves (in cases not involving any Muslim) with fairly little interference from the Ottoman government . People were bound to their millets by their religious affiliations (or their confessional communities ), rather than their ethnic origins, according to
2835-422: Is no god [worthy of worship] except Allah, and Muhammad is the messenger of Allah." In Sunni Islam , the shahada has two parts: la ilaha illa'llah (there is no god but Allah ), and Muhammadun rasul Allah ( Muhammad is the messenger of God), which are sometimes referred to as the first shahada and the second shahada . The first statement of the shahada is also known as the tahlīl . In Shia Islam ,
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#17327866000292970-639: Is possible that they and also the Albanian Muslims were the ones who did not fully understand the Greek Language. Moreover, some Muslims served as interpreters in these transactions. Greek-speaking Muslims lived in cities, citadels, towns, and some villages close to fortified settlements in the Peleponnese , such as Patras , Rio , Tripolitsa , Koroni , Navarino , and Methoni . Evliya Chelebi has also mentioned in his Seyahatnâme that
3105-457: Is quick, and the Ottoman Empire did not keep extensive documentation on the religions of their individual subjects. The only requirements were knowing Turkish, saying you were Muslim, and possibly getting circumcised. Converts might also signal their conversion by wearing the brighter clothes favored by Muslims, rather than the drab garments of Christians and Jews in the empire. Greek has a specific verb, τουρκεύω ( tourkevo ), meaning "to become
3240-399: Is the active participle of the same verb of which islām is a verbal noun , based on the triliteral S-L-M "to be whole, intact". A female adherent is a muslima ( Arabic : مسلمة ) (also transliterated as "Muslimah" ). The plural form in Arabic is muslimūn ( مسلمون ) or muslimīn ( مسلمين ), and its feminine equivalent is muslimāt ( مسلمات ). The ordinary word in English
3375-585: The Shahada in front of Muslim witnesses, one of the Five Pillars of Islam , a declaration of faith and trust that professes that there is only one God ( Allah ) and that Muhammad is God's messenger. It is a set statement normally recited in Arabic: ašhadu ʾan-lā ʾilāha ʾillā-llāhu wa ʾašhadu ʾanna muħammadan rasūlu-llāh ( أشهد أن لا إله إلا الله وأشهد أن محمداً رسول الله ) "I testify that there
3510-709: The Americas . Additionally, in subdivided geographical regions, the figure stands at: 91% of the Middle East–North Africa , 90% of Central Asia , 65% of the Caucasus , 42% of Southeast Asia , 32% of South Asia , and 42% of sub-Saharan Africa . While, there are several Islamic schools and branches , as well as non-denominational Muslims , the two largest denominations are Sunni Islam (75–90% of all Muslims) and Shia Islam (10–20% of all Muslims). By sheer numbers, South Asia accounts for
3645-675: The Archbishopric of Ohrid , autonomous Orthodox Churches under the tutelage of the Ecumenical Patriarch, were taken over by the Greek Phanariots during the 18th century, in 1766 and 1767 respectively. By the 19th century the Orthodox Christian millet was dominated by Greeks, which were worried of Bulgarian and Romanian autocephalism. Over the course of 1860–1862, a series of laws were produced by
3780-763: The Armenian millet under the Armenian Patriarch. This meant that the Syriac Orthodox were subject to the hegemony of the Armenians linguistically, culturally, politically, and religiously. During the Tanzimat reforms (1839–78), the Syriac Orthodox were granted independent status with the recognition of their own millet in 1873. Under the millet system the Jews were organized as a community on
3915-654: The British Foreign Secretary , Lord Salisbury on 13 April 1878. It is no longer possible for the Armenians and the Turks to live together. Only a Christian administration can provide the equality, justice and the freedom of conscience. A Christian administration should replace the Muslim administration. Armenia (Eastern Anatolia) and Kilikya, are the regions where the Christian administration should be founded... The Turkish Armenians want this... That is,
4050-938: The Church of the East (later known as the Nestorian Church after the Nestorian schism ). The Church of the East's leader, the Catholicos or Patriarch of the East , was responsible to the Persian king for the Christians within the Empire. This system of maintaining the Christians as a protected religious community continued after the Islamic conquest of the Sassanids, and the community of Nestorian Christians flourished and
4185-723: The Dodecanese islands were governed by Italy during the Greek-Turkish population exchange, and so these populations were exempt. However, many migrated after the Paris Peace Treaties in 1947 . In the Middle Ages the Greek population of Crimea traditionally adhered to Eastern Orthodox Christianity , even despite undergoing linguistic assimilation by the local Crimean Tatars . In 1777–1778, when Catherine
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4320-475: The Druze and Baháʼí as separate communities, which the Ottomans and British had not – due mainly to political considerations. Also, the state of Israel reserves the right to determine to which community a person belongs, and officially register him or her accordingly – even when the person concerned objects to being part of a religious community (e.g., staunch atheists of Jewish origin are registered as members of
4455-401: The Five Pillars of Islam : the declaration of faith ( shahadah ), daily prayers ( salah ), almsgiving ( zakat ), fasting during the month of Ramadan ( sawm ), and the pilgrimage to Mecca ( hajj ) at least once in a lifetime. The majority of theological traditions of Islam accept that works do not determine if someone is a Muslim or not. God alone would know about the belief of
4590-557: The Foreign Ministry , as if they represented foreign nations, but after 1878 it was through the Justice Ministry . Historian Johann Strauss wrote that the term "seems to be so essential for the understanding of the Ottoman system and especially the status of non-Muslims". Other authors interpret the millet system as one form of non-territorial autonomy and consider it as such a potentially universal solution to
4725-581: The French Revolution had extended to the Ottoman Empire during the 19th century. Each millet became increasingly independent with the establishment of its own schools, churches, hospitals and other facilities. These activities effectively moved the Christian population outside the framework of the Ottoman political system. The Ottoman millet system (citizenship) began to degrade with increasing identification of religious creed with ethnic nationality. The interaction of ideas of French revolution with
4860-556: The Haliacmon of western Macedonia were known collectively as Vallahades ; they had probably converted to Islam en masse in the late 1700s. The Vallahades retained much of their Greek culture and language. This is in contrast with most Greek converts to Islam from Greek Macedonia , other parts of Macedonia, and elsewhere in the southern Balkans, who generally adopted the Turkish language and identity and thoroughly assimilated into
4995-587: The Hanafi school and are renowned for producing many Quranic teachers. Sufi orders such as Qadiri and Naqshbandi have a great impact. The term "Cretan Muslims" ( Turkish : Girit Müslümanları ) or "Cretan Turks" ( Greek : Τουρκοκρητικοί ; Turkish : Girit Türkleri ) refers to Greek-speaking Muslims who arrived in Turkey after or slightly before the start of the Greek rule in Crete in 1908, and especially in
5130-500: The Karamanlides ). Due to the historical role of the millet system, religion and not ethnicity or language was the main factor used during the exchange of populations. All Muslims who departed Greece were seen as "Turks," whereas all Orthodox people leaving Turkey were considered "Greeks," again regardless of their ethnicity or language. An exception was made for the native Muslim Pomaks and Western Thrace Turks living east of
5265-463: The Ottoman Empire , a millet ( Turkish: [millet] ; Ottoman Turkish : ملت ) was an independent court of law pertaining to "personal law" under which a confessional community (a group abiding by the laws of Muslim sharia , Christian canon law , or Jewish halakha ) was allowed to rule itself under its own laws. Despite frequently being referred to as a " system ", before
5400-614: The Pindus mountain region. The Greek-speaking Muslim populations who were a majority in Ioannina and Paramythia, with sizable numbers residing in Parga and possibly Preveza, "shared the same route of identity construction, with no evident differentiation between them and their Albanian-speaking cohabitants." Hoca Sadeddin Efendi , a Greek-speaking Muslim from Ioannina in the 18th century, was
5535-416: The Pontus alone. Over the years, heavy emigration from the Trabzon region to other parts of Turkey, to places such as Istanbul , Sakarya , Zonguldak , Bursa and Adapazarı , has occurred. Emigration out of Turkey has also occurred, such as to Germany as guest workers during the 1960s. In Turkey, Pontic Greek Muslim communities are sometimes called Rum . However, as with Yunan (Turkish for "Greek") or
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5670-405: The Tawrat ( Torah ) to the prophets and messengers amongst the Children of Israel , the Zabur ( Psalms ) to David and the Injil ( Gospel ) to Jesus, who are all considered important Muslim prophets . The most populous Muslim-majority country is Indonesia, home to 12.7% of the world's Muslims, followed by Pakistan (11.0%), Bangladesh (9.2%), Nigeria (5.3%) and Egypt (4.9%). About 20% of
5805-428: The kaza of Elassona lived in six villages such as Stefanovouno , Lofos , Galanovrysi and Domeniko , as well as the town itself and belonged to the Vallahades group. Evliya Chelebi , who visited the area in 1660s, also mentioned in his Seyahâtnâme that they spoke Greek. In the 8th volume of his Seyahâtnâme he mentions that many Muslims of Thessaly were converts of Greek origin. In particular, he writes that
5940-422: The millet concept (excepting the Armenian case, until the modern era). The millets had a great deal of power – they set their own laws and collected and distributed their own taxes. All that was required was loyalty to the Empire. When a member of one millet committed a crime against a member of another, the law of the injured party applied, but the ruling Islamic majority being paramount, any dispute involving
6075-406: The millet system created a strain of thought (a new form of personal identification) which made nationality synonymous with religion under the Ottoman flag. It was impossible to hold the system or prevent Clash of Civilizations when the Armenian national liberation movement expressed itself within the Armenian church. Patriarch Nerses Varjabedyan expressed his position on Ottoman Armenians to
6210-454: The " Regulation of the Armenian Nation " (Turkish: Nizâmnâme−i Millet−i Ermeniyân ): a constitution for the Armenian Orthodox Gregorian nation ( millet ) of that time. This document was drawn up by Armenian intelligentsia, which sought to curb the powers of the Armenian Patriarch and nobility. It created an Armenian National Assembly. These two reforms, which were theoretically perfect examples of social change by law, caused serious stress on
6345-427: The 1856 Imperial Reform edict, the Armenian Protestant Millet was the first millet to have a constitution sanctioned by the government, which was based on the principle of representative and lay control. Debate for a constitution among the Gregorian Armenians would be influenced by the Protestant Armenians'. The Armenian Gregorian Millet received a constitution on March 29, 1863, after several years of tensions within
6480-454: The 19th century, the millets had a great deal of power – they set their own laws and collected and distributed their own taxes. The Tanzimat reforms aimed to encourage Ottomanism among the subject nations and stop the rise of secessionist nationalist movements. within the Ottoman Empire. The reforms tried to integrate non-Muslims and non-Turks more thoroughly into the Ottoman society with new laws and regulations, but failed. In 1856, during
6615-519: The Americas (5.2 million or 0.6%), Australia (714,000 or 1.9%) and parts of Europe (44 million or 6%). A Pew Center study in 2016 found that Muslims have the highest number of adherents under the age of 15 (34% of the total Muslim population) of any major religion, while only 7% are aged 60+ (the smallest percentage of any major religion). According to the same study, Muslims have the highest fertility rates (3.1) of any major religious group. The study also found that Muslims (tied with Hindus ) have
6750-403: The Anatolian section of Istanbul, especially the districts from Erenköy to Kartal , which had previously been populated by wealthy Orthodox Greeks. Although the majority of the Epirote Muslim population was of Albanian origins, Grecophone Muslim communities existed in the towns of Souli , Margariti (both majority-Muslim), Ioannina , Preveza , Louros , Paramythia , Konitsa , and elsewhere in
6885-409: The Armenian Church (by virtue of being non-Chalcedonians ) were under the authority of the Armenian Patriarchate, although they maintained a separate hierarchy with their own Patriarchs; these groups included the Syriac Orthodox and the Copts . Armenian Catholics and Armenian Protestants in 1850 (with British backing) separated from the Armenian Gregorian Millet to become their own millets. After
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#17327866000297020-455: The Armenian community between Loussavorial and Khavarials and with the Porte . Assyrian or Eastern Syriacs Assyrians are referred to as 'Asuri' in the Turkish vernacular. Assyrians split by Christian sect were thus treated as separate ethnic groups for the Ottoman government. The Church of the East largely identifies as Assyrian, but the liturgical language is called Syriac, hence multiple 'millets' for Syriac speaking Assyrians arose as
7155-411: The Armenians; the Eastern Orthodox perceived American Protestants, who had over 100 missionaries established in Anatolia by World War I , as weakening their own teaching. These religious activities, subsidized by the governments of western nations, were not devoid of political goals, such in the case of candlestick wars of 1847, which eventually led in 1854 to the Crimean War . Tension began among
7290-466: The Aromanians and Megleno-Romanians), and Bulgarians (Bulgar). The Ecumenical Patriarch was recognized as the highest religious and political leader ( millet-bashi , or ethnarch ) of all Eastern Orthodox subjects of the Sultan, though in certain periods some major powers, such as Russia (under the 1774 Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca ), or Britain claimed the rights of protection over the Ottoman Empire's Orthodox subjects. The Serbian Patriarchate of Peć and
7425-406: The Balkans, overrunning the Catholic populations of Albania, Bosnia, Croatia, and Hungary. The Melkite Catholics gained their autonomy as a religious community in 1848 by Sultan Abdulmecid . Bruce Masters claims that Melkite Catholics insisted that they had a millet of their own, that would grant them "sense of distinctiveness". In the Orient, the 16th century saw the Maronites of Lebanon,
7560-413: The Bilu, a group of young Russian Jews who were pioneers in the Zionist movement, proposed negotiating with the Sultan to allow a millet like settlement which would allow them greater independence in Palestine. After the Fall of Constantinople , the only Latin Catholic group in the Sultan's domain were the Genoese who lived in the Byzantine capital. Over the next decades, Turkish armies pushed into
7695-441: The Catholic and Orthodox monks in Palestine with France channeling resources to increase its influence in the region from 1840. Repairs to shrines were important for the sects as they were linked to the possession of keys to the shrines. Notes were given by the protectorates, including the French, to the Ottoman capital about the governor; he was condemned as he had to defend the Church of the Holy Sepulchre by placing soldiers inside
7830-461: The English traveler and writer Sir John Gardner Wilkinson described the state of enslaved Greeks who had converted to Islam in Egypt: White Slaves — In Egypt there are white slaves and slaves of colour. [...] There are [for example] some Greeks who were taken in the War of Independence. [...] In Egypt, the officers of rank are for the most part enfranchised slaves. I have seen in the bazars of Cairo Greek slaves who had been torn from their country, at
7965-490: The English word "Greek," this term 'is associated in Turkey to be with Greece and/or Christianity, and many Pontic Greek Muslims refuse such identification. The endonym for Pontic Greek is Romeyka , while Rumca and/or Rumcika are Turkish exonyms for all Greek dialects spoken in Turkey. Both are derived from ρωμαίικα , literally " Roman ", referring to the Byzantines . Modern-day Greeks call their language ελληνικά ( Hellenika ), meaning Greek, an appellation that replaced
8100-419: The Great of Russia conquered the peninsula from the Ottoman Empire , the local Orthodox population was forcibly deported and settled north of the Azov Sea . In order to avoid deportation, some Greeks chose to convert to Islam. Crimean Tatar -speaking Muslims of the village of Kermenchik (renamed to Vysokoye [ ru ] in 1945) kept their Greek identity and were practicing Christianity in secret for
8235-410: The Greek embassy because of their religious affiliation. The community members would be regarded with indifference and even hostility, and would be denied visas and opportunities to improve their Greek through trips to Greece. In the Middle Ages , after the Seljuq victory over the Byzantine Emperor Romanus IV , many Byzantine Greeks were taken as slaves to Central Asia. The most famous among them
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#17327866000298370-437: The Greek language, which they call Romeïka and have become completely assimilated into the Turkish Muslim mainstream as Turks. Greek-speaking Muslims lived in Thessaly, mostly centered in and around cities such as Larissa , Trikala , Karditsa , Almyros , and Volos . Grecophone Muslim communities existed in the towns and certain villages of Elassona , Tyrnovos , and Almyros. According to Lampros Koutsonikas , Muslims in
8505-399: The Greek language. Often, members of the Muslim Cretan community are unaware that the language they speak is Greek. Frequently, they refer to their native tongue as Cretan ( Kritika Κρητικά or Giritçe ) instead of Greek. Cretan Greek Muslims are Sunnis of the Hanafi school , with a highly influential Bektashi minority who helped shape the folk Islam and religious tolerance of
8640-408: The Jewish religious community, a practice derived ultimately from the fact that the millet ultimately designated a person's ethnicity more than a person's beliefs). Israeli secularists such as Shulamit Aloni and Uri Avnery often protested and called for abolition of this Ottoman remnant, and its replacement by a system modeled on that of the United States where religious affiliation is considered
8775-417: The Latins of Palestine, and most of the Greek islands, which once held Latin Catholic communities, come under Turkish rule. Papal response to the loss of these communities was initially a call to the crusade, but the response from the European Catholic monarchs was weak: French interest, moreover, lay in an alliance with the Turks against the Habsburgs . Furthermore, the Catholics of the Ottoman world received
8910-429: The Muslim community of the millet system , which was closely linked to Islamic religious rules. At that time, people were bound to their millets by their religious affiliations (or their confessional communities ), rather than by their ethnic origins. Muslim communities prospered under the Ottoman Empire, and as Ottoman law did not recognize such notions as ethnicity , Muslims of all ethnic backgrounds enjoyed precisely
9045-481: The Muslims of Tyrnovos were converts, and that he could not understand the sect to which the of Muslims of Domokos belonged, claiming they were mixed with "infidels" and thus relieved of paying the haraç tax . Moreover, Chelebi does not mention at all the 12 so-called Konyar Turkish villages that are mentioned in the 18th-century Menâkıbnâme of Turahan Bey , such as Lygaria , Fallani, Itea, Gonnoi , Krokio and Rodia , which were referenced by Ottoman registrars in
9180-547: The Ottoman Empire do not define the Muslims as being in a millet . The Ottoman Turkish version of the Ottoman Constitution of 1876 uses the word " millet ", as do the Arabic and Persian versions; despite this, at the time the usage of the Arabic word " milla " was declining in favour of the word " ummah ". The Armenian, Greek, and Jewish residents did not use the word " millet " and instead described themselves as "nations" ( French : nation , Armenian: ազգ (azg), Greek: Έθνος (ethnos), and Ladino: nasyon ). The lack of use of
9315-499: The Ottoman Empire even before that time. The term was used inconsistently prior to the 19th century. The systematic use of millet as designation for non-Muslim Ottoman communities dates from the reign of Sultan Mahmud II ( r. 1808–1839 ) in the early 19th century, when official documentation came to reiterate that non-Muslim subjects were organized into three officially sanctioned millets : Greek Orthodox , Armenian , and Jewish . The bureaucrats of this era asserted that
9450-563: The Ottoman Empire, despite being Muslim, mainly kept to themselves and maintained their separate identity, even having their own courts, in which they would tolerate no outside influence. The Orthodox Christians were included in the Rum Millet ( millet-i Rûm ) or the " Roman nation ", and enjoyed a certain autonomy. It was named after Roman ("Byzantine") subjects of the Ottoman Empire, but Orthodox Greeks , Bulgarians , Albanians , Georgians , Arabs , Aromanians , Megleno-Romanians , Romanians , and Serbs were all considered part of
9585-421: The Ottoman Empire. Norman Stillman explains that the prosperity of medieval Jews was closely tied to that of their Muslim governors. Stillman notes that during the time between the 9th and 13th centuries when Jewish culture blossomed, "medieval Islamic civilization was at its apogee". Given their rampant persecution in medieval Europe, many Jews looked favorably upon millet . In the late 19th century such groups as
9720-552: The Ottoman political and administrative structure. The Ottoman System lost important domestic powers under the Capitulations of the Ottoman Empire . Many foreigners resident in the Empire were not subject to its laws, but rather those of their homelands. In addition, European powers became formal Protectors of certain groups in the empire: Russia of Eastern Orthodox groups, France of Roman Catholics, and Great Britain of Jews and other groups. Russia and Britain competed for
9855-458: The Ottoman ruling elite. Armenians formed three millets under the Ottoman rule. A wide array of other groups such as Catholics , Karaites , and Samaritans was also represented. The large number of Circassians in the Ottoman Empire was mainly due to the Crimean War . During the war and following years, many Circassians fled the conquest of their homeland by Russia . Circassians in
9990-630: The Ottoman ruling elite. According to Todor Simovski's assessment (1972), 13,753 Muslim Greeks lived in Greek Macedonia in 1912. In the 20th century, the Vallahades were considered by other Greeks to have become Turkish and were not exempt from the 1922–1923 population exchange between Greece and Turkey . The Vallahades were resettled in western Asia Minor, in such towns as Kumburgaz, Büyükçekmece , and Çatalca or in villages like Honaz near Denizli. Many Vallahades still continue to speak
10125-417: The Ottomans took Christian boys from their families and later converted them to Islam with the aim of selecting and training the ablest of them for leading positions in Ottoman society. Devşirme was not, however, the only means of conversion of Greek Christians. Many male and female orphans voluntarily converted to Islam in order to be adopted or to serve near Turkish families. Another benefit converts received
10260-554: The Qur'an. The Qur'an states that these men were Muslims because they submitted to God, preached His message and upheld His values, which included praying, charity, fasting and pilgrimage. Thus, in Surah 3:52 of the Qur'an, Jesus' disciples tell him, "We believe in God; and you be our witness that we are Muslims ( wa-shahad be anna muslimūn )." In Islamic belief, before the Qur'an, God had given
10395-537: The River Nestos in East Macedonia and Thrace , Northern Greece , who are officially recognized as a religious minority by the Greek government. In Turkey, where most Greek-speaking Muslims live, there are various groups of Grecophone Muslims, some autochthonous, some from parts of present-day Greece and Cyprus who migrated to Turkey under the population exchanges or immigration. Dhimmi were subject to
10530-429: The Sultan. During the 19th century rise of nationalism in the Ottoman Empire , as a result of the Tanzimat reforms (1839–76), the term was used for legally protected ethno-linguistic minority groups , similar to the way other countries use the word nation . During this era, the status of these groups, their relation to the central government, and their self-governance, were codified into constitutions , elevating
10665-514: The Tanzimat era, Sultan Abdulmejid I enacted the Hatt-ı Hümayun (modern Turkish Islahat Fermânı ; "Firman of the Reforms"), which proclaimed freedom of religion and civil equality of all religious communities. It further granted the authorities in each millet greater privileges and self-governing powers, but also required oaths of allegiance to the Sultan. In March 1863, the Sultan enacted
10800-540: The basis of religion, alongside the other millets ( e.g. Eastern Orthodox millet , Armenian millet , etc.). They were the most geographically spread group within the empire. Ottoman Jews enjoyed privileges similar to Christians in the Ottoman Empire. In the framework of the millet they had a considerable amount of administrative autonomy and were represented by the Hakham Bashi ( Turkish : Hahambaşı حاخامباشی), who held broad powers to enact, judge, and enforce
10935-402: The central government and to keep their power in check. Many clerics in the millet system pushed back against these reforms as they believed it was meant to weaken the millets and the power these clerics had built for themselves. These millets , refusing to give up any autonomy, slowed down the attempted reforms and their impact on the equality of religious communities. Before the turn of
11070-693: The close association of Greece and Greeks with Orthodox Christianity and their perceived status as a historic, military threat to the Turkish Republic , very few are likely to call themselves Greek Muslims . In Greece, Greek-speaking Muslims are not usually considered as forming part of the Greek nation. In the late Ottoman period, particularly after the Greco-Turkish War (1897) , several communities of Greek Muslims from Crete and southern Greece were also relocated to Libya , Lebanon , and Syria , where, in towns like al-Hamidiyah , some of
11205-582: The community left Crete between 1866 and 1897, on the outbreak of the last Cretan uprising against the Ottoman Empire, which ended the Greco-Turkish War of 1897 . Sultan Abdul Hamid II provided Cretan Muslim families who fled the island with refuge on the Levantine coast. The new settlement was named Hamidiye after the sultan. Many Grecophone Muslims of Lebanon somewhat managed to preserve their Cretan Muslim identity and Greek language Unlike neighbouring communities, they are monogamous and consider divorce
11340-521: The context of the 1923 agreement for the Exchange of Greek and Turkish Populations . Prior to their resettlement in Turkey, deteriorating communal relations between Cretan Greek Christians and Cretan Greek Muslims drove the latter to identify with Ottoman and later Turkish identity. Cretan Muslims have largely settled on the coastline, stretching from the Çanakkale to İskenderun . Significant numbers were resettled in other Ottoman-controlled areas around
11475-778: The cultural practices common to Muslims and historically Islamic people. The early forms of Muslim culture, from the Rashidun Caliphate to early Umayyad period, were predominantly Arab , Byzantine , Persian and Levantine . With the rapid expansion of the Arab Islamic empires , Muslim culture has influenced and assimilated much from the Indonesian , Pakistani ( Punjabi , Pashtun , Baloch Kashmiri , Sindhi ), Hindustani , Bengali , Nigerian , Egyptian , Persian , Turkic , Caucasian , Malay , Somali , Berber , and Moro cultures. Millet system In
11610-532: The eastern Mediterranean by the Ottomans following the establishment of the autonomous Cretan State in 1898. Most ended up in coastal Syria and Lebanon, particularly the town of Al-Hamidiyah , in Syria, (named after the Ottoman sultan who settled them there), and Tripoli in Lebanon, where many continue to speak Greek as their mother tongue. Others were resettled in Ottoman Tripolitania , especially in
11745-531: The eastern cities like Susa and Benghazi , where they are distinguishable by their Greek surnames. Many of the older members of this last community still speak Cretan Greek in their homes. A small community of Cretan Greek Muslims still resides in Greece in the Dodecanese islands of Rhodes and Kos . These communities were formed prior to the area becoming part of Greece in 1948, when their ancestors migrated there from Crete, and their members are integrated into
11880-475: The eighteenth century. Subsequently, the millet system was justified through numerous foundation myths linking it back to the time of Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror (r. 1451–81), although it is now understood that no such system existed in the fifteenth century. Heads of millets, or milletbaşı ( Ethnarch ), usually had absolute secular and ecclesiastical power over their communities, being answerable only to
12015-495: The entire community. Muslims from the region of Epirus , known collectively as Yanyalılar (singular Yanyalı , meaning "person from Ioannina ") in Turkish and Τουρκογιαννιώτες Turkoyanyótes in Greek (singular Τουρκογιαννιώτης Turkoyanyótis , meaning "Turk from Ioannina") arrived in Turkey in two waves of migration, in 1912 and after 1923. After the exchange of populations, Grecophone Epirote Muslims resettled themselves in
12150-403: The first translator of Aristotle into Turkish. Some Grecophone Muslims of Ioannina composed literature for their community in the Greek language, such as poems, using the Arabic alphabet. The community now is fully integrated into Turkish culture. Last, the Muslims from Epirus that were of mainly Albanian origin are described as Cham Albanians instead. The Greek-speaking Muslims who lived in
12285-516: The first two centuries following the Ottoman conquest of the region. Taking high military and religious posts in the empire, their elite were integrated into the ruling class of imperial society. The converted population accepted Ottoman identity, but in many instances people retained their local, native languages. In 1914, according to the official estimations of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, about 190,000 Greek Muslims were counted in
12420-414: The following areas: Today these Greek-speaking Muslims regard themselves and identify as Turks. Nonetheless, a great many have retained knowledge of and/or are fluent in Greek, which continues to be a mother tongue for even young Pontic Muslims. Men are usually bilingual in Turkish and Pontic Greek, while many women are monolingual Pontic Greek speakers. Many Pontic natives were converted to Islam during
12555-487: The genetics of Turkish Cypriots has shown strong genetic ties with their fellow Orthodox Greek Cypriots . Despite not having a majority Muslim population at any time during the Ottoman period, some Aegean Islands such as Chios , Lesbos , Kos , Rhodes , Lemnos and Tenedos , and on Kastellorizo contained a sizable Muslim population of Greek origin. Before the Greek Revolution , there were also Muslims on
12690-555: The heavier tax, jizya , versus the Muslim zakat . Other major taxes were the Defter and İspençe and the more severe Haraç , whereby a document was issued which stated that "the holder of this certificate is able to keep his head on the shoulders since he paid the Haraç tax for this year..." All these taxes were waived if the person converted to Islam. Greek non-Muslims were also subjected to practices like Devşirme (blood tax), in which
12825-517: The island of Euboea , but there were no Muslims in the Cyclades and Sporades island groups. Evliya Chelebi mentions that there were 100 Muslim houses on the island of Aegina in 1660s. On most islands, Muslims were only living in and around the main centers of the islands. Today, about 5,000–5,500 Greek-speaking Muslims (called Turks of the Dodecanese ) live on Kos and Rhodes. This is because
12960-622: The island's population of 120,000. They were classified as being either Turkish or "neo-Muslim." The latter were of Greek origin, Islamised but speaking Greek, and similar in character to the local Christians. The last of such groups was reported to arrive at Antalya in 1936. These communities are thought to have abandoned Greek in the course of integration. During the 1950s, there were still four Greek speaking Muslim settlements in Cyprus: Lapithiou, Platanissos, Ayios Simeon and Galinoporni that identified themselves as Turks. A 2017 study on
13095-498: The language of all Muslims in Morea was Urumşa , which is demotic Greek . In particular, he mentions that the wives of Muslims in the castle of Gördüs were non-Muslims. He says that the peoples of Gastouni speak Urumşa, but that they were devout and friendly nonetheless. He explicitly states that the Muslims of Longanikos were converted Greeks, or ahıryan . In 1878 the Muslim inhabitants of Cyprus constituted about one-third of
13230-522: The largest portion (31%) of the global Muslim population. By country, Indonesia is the largest in the Muslim world , holding around 12% of all Muslims worldwide; outside of the Muslim-majority countries, India and China are home to the largest (11%) and second-largest (2%) Muslim populations, respectively. Due to high Muslim population growth , Islam is the fastest-growing religion in
13365-464: The last quarter of the 19th century, "Greek is also generally spoken by the Turkish inhabitants, and appears to be the common language between Turks and Christians." Research on purchases of property and goods registered in the notarial archive of Agathagellos Ioannidis between 1882 and 1898, right after the annexation, concludes that the overwhelming majority of Thessalian Muslims who became Greek citizens were able to speak and write Greek. An interpreter
13500-497: The laws among the Jews in the Ottoman Empire and often sat on the Sultan's divan . The Jewish millet received a constitution in 1865. The Jews, like the other millet communities of the Ottoman Empire, were still considered "People of the book" and protected by the Sharia Law of Islam. However, while the Jews were not viewed in the eyes of the law as equals of Muslims, they were still treated relatively well at points during
13635-522: The local Muslim population as Turks today. Some Grecophone Muslims of Crete composed literature for their community in the Greek language, such as songs, but wrote it in the Arabic alphabet. although little of it has been studied. Today, in various settlements along the Aegean coast, elderly Grecophone Cretan Muslims are still conversant in Cretan Greek . Many in the younger generations are fluent in
13770-469: The lowest average levels of education with an average of 5.6 years of schooling, though both groups have made the largest gains in educational attainment in recent decades among major religions. About 36% of all Muslims have no formal schooling, and Muslims have the lowest average levels of higher education of any major religious group, with only 8% having graduate and post-graduate degrees. Muslim culture or Islamic culture are terms used to describe
13905-512: The majority, while 25.9% of the world's Muslim population lived in countries where Muslims are in the minority. A Pew Center study in 2010 found that 3% of the world's Muslims population live in non-Muslim-majority developed countries . India's Muslim population is the world's largest Muslim-minority population in the world (11% of the world's Muslim population). Followed by Ethiopia (28 million), China (22 million), Russia (16 million) and Tanzania (13 million). Sizable minorities are also found in
14040-507: The millet system was a tradition dating back to the reign of Sultan Mehmed I ( r. 1413–1421 ). Many historians have accepted this claim and assumed that a millet system of this form existed since early Ottoman times. Recent scholarship has cast doubt on this idea, showing that it was rather a later political innovation, which was introduced in the rhetorical garb of an ancient tradition. The Ottoman state used religion rather than ethnicity to define each millet , and people who study
14175-585: The modern issues of ethnic and religious diversity. According to Taner Akçam , the Ottoman state was "... based on the principle of heterogeneity and difference rather than homogeneity and sameness, [which] functioned in an opposite way to modern nation-states." The term millet , which originates from the Arabic milla , had three basic meanings in Ottoman Turkish: religion, religious community and nation. The first sense derives from Quranic usage and
14310-665: The most common spelling thereafter. The last major newspaper in the United Kingdom to use the spelling "Moslem" was the Daily Mail , which switched to "Muslim" in 2004. The word Mosalman or Mussulman ( Persian : مسلمان , romanized : mosalmân , alternatively musalmān ) is a common equivalent for Muslim used in Central and South Asia . In English it was sometimes spelled Mussulman and has become archaic in usage; however, cognates of this word remain
14445-419: The nineteenth century the organization of what are now retrospectively called millets in the Ottoman Empire was not at all systematic. Rather, non-Muslims were simply given a significant degree of autonomy within their own community, without an overarching structure for the millet as a whole. The notion of distinct millets corresponding to different religious communities within the empire would not emerge until
14580-545: The old millet categories were used for the exchange between Greece and Turkey of the Greek Orthodox population in Turkey and Moslems in Greece. The categories were also used to establish the protection of the two remaining recognized minorities, the "Muslims of Western Thrace" (Turks, Pomaks, and Roms) and the "Greek Orthodox of Istanbul". In 1924, upon the League of Nations ' demand, a bilateral Bulgarian-Greek agreement
14715-427: The older generation continue to speak Greek. Historically, Greek Orthodoxy has been associated with being Romios (i.e., Greek ) and Islam with being Turkish , despite ethnicity or language. Most Greek-speaking Muslims in Greece left for Turkey during the 1920s population exchanges under the Convention Concerning the Exchange of Greek and Turkish Populations (in return for Turkish-speaking Christians such as
14850-522: The parliament. Some legal systems which developed outside the Ottoman Empire, such as those in India , Iran , Pakistan , and Bangladesh , display similar characteristics. In Egypt for instance, the application of family law – including marriage, divorce, alimony , child custody, inheritance, and burial – is based on an individual's religious beliefs. In the practice of family law, the State recognizes only
14985-480: The population in the Middle East identify as either Sunni or Shi'a, a significant number of Muslims identify as non-denominational . With about 1.8 billion followers (2015), almost a quarter of earth's population , Islam is the second-largest and the fastest-growing religion in the world , primarily due to the young age and high fertility rate of Muslims, with Muslims having a rate of (3.1) compared to
15120-440: The power of the laity at the expense of clergy. The word millet comes from the Arabic word millah (ملة) and literally means "nation". Abdulaziz Sachedina regards the millet system as an example of pre-modern religious pluralism , as the state recognized multiple different religious groups in exchange for some control over religious identification and the enforcement of orthodoxy. Notably, Ethnarchs principally conversed with
15255-608: The previous term Romeiika in the early 19th century. In Turkey, standard modern Greek is called Yunanca ; ancient Greek is called either Eski Yunanca or Grekçe . According to Heath W. Lowry's seminal work on Ottoman tax books ( Tahrir Defteri , with co-author Halil İnalcık), most "Turks" in Trebizond and the Pontic Alps region in northeastern Anatolia are of Pontic Greek origin. Pontian Greek Muslims are known in Turkey for their conservative adherence to Sunni Islam of
15390-554: The regions of Trabzon , Gümüşhane , Sivas , Erzincan , Erzurum , and Kars ). Despite their ethnic Greek origin, the contemporary Grecophone Muslims of Turkey have been steadily assimilated into the Turkish-speaking Muslim population. Sizable numbers of Grecophone Muslims, not merely the elders but even young people, have retained knowledge of their respective Greek dialects , such as Cretan and Pontic Greek . Because of their gradual Turkification , as well as
15525-536: The same millet despite their differences in ethnicity and language and despite the fact that the religious hierarchy was dominated by the Greeks. Nevertheless, ethnonyms never disappeared and some form of ethnic identity was preserved as evident from a Sultan's Firman from 1680, that lists the ethnic groups in the Balkans as follows: Greeks ( Rum ), Albanians ( Arnaut ), Serbs ( Sirf ), "Vlachs" ( Eflak , referring to
15660-576: The same rights and privileges. During the Greek War of Independence , Ottoman Egyptian troops under the leadership of Ibrahim Pasha of Egypt ravaged the island of Crete and the Greek countryside of the Morea , where Muslim Egyptian soldiers enslaved vast numbers of Christian Greek children and women. Ibrahim arranged for the enslaved Greek children to be forcefully converted to Islam en masse . The enslaved Greeks were subsequently transferred to Egypt , where they were sold. Several decades later in 1843,
15795-402: The shahada also has a third part, a phrase concerning Ali , the first Shia Imam and the fourth Rashid caliph of Sunni Islam : وعليٌ وليُّ الله ( wa ʿalīyyun walīyyu-llāh ), which translates to "Ali is the wali of God". In Quranist Islam , the shahada is the testimony that there is no god but Allah ( la ilaha illa'llah ). The religious practices of Muslims are enumerated in
15930-424: The spoken Greek language is remarkably good and their contact with their historical homeland has been possible by means of satellite television and relatives. They are also known to be monogamous. Today, Grecophone Hamidiyah residents identify themselves as Cretan Muslims, while some others as Cretan Turks. By 1988, many Grecophone Muslims from both Lebanon and Syria had reported being subject to discrimination by
16065-533: The standard term for "Muslim" in various other European languages. Until at least the mid-1960s, many English-language writers used the term Mohammedans or Mahometans . Although such terms were not necessarily intended to be pejorative , Muslims argue that the terms are offensive because they allegedly imply that Muslims worship Muhammad rather than God. Other obsolete terms include Muslimite and Muslimist . In Medieval Europe, Muslims were commonly called Saracens . The Muslim philologist Ibn al-Anbari said:
16200-463: The teachings and practices attributed to Muhammad ( sunnah ) as recorded in traditional accounts ( hadith ). With an estimated population of almost 1.9 billion followers as of 2020 year estimation, Muslims comprise around 25% of the world's total population. In descending order, the percentage of people who identify as Muslims on each continental landmass stands at: 45% of Africa , 25% of Asia and Oceania collectively, 6% of Europe , and 1% of
16335-514: The temple because of the "candlestick wars", eliminating the change of keys. Successive Ottoman governments had issued edicts granting primacy of access to different Christian groups which vied for control of Jerusalem's holy sites. Under the original design, the multi-faced structure of the millet system was unified under the House of Osman . The rise of nationalism in Europe under the influence of
16470-548: The three " heavenly religions ": Islam, Christianity, and Judaism. Muslim families are subject to the Personal Status Law , which draws on Sharia . Christian families are subject to canon law , and Jewish families are subject to Jewish law . In cases of family law disputes involving a marriage between a Christian woman and a Muslim man, the courts apply the Personal Status Law. Israel, too, keeps
16605-497: The time it was about to obtain its liberty; I have seen them afterwards holding nearly all the most important civil and military grades; and one might be almost tempted to think that their servitude was not a misfortune, if one could forget the grief of their parents on seeing them carried off, at a time when they hoped to bequeath to them a religion free from persecution, and a regenerated country. A great many Greeks and Slavs became Muslims to avoid these hardships. Conversion to Islam
16740-769: The villages of Elassona. Artillery captain William Martin Leake wrote in his Travels in Northern Greece (1835) that he spoke with the Bektashi Sheikh and the Vezir of Trikala in Greek. In fact, he specifically states that the Sheikh used the word "ἄνθρωπος" to define men, and he quotes the Vezir as saying, καί έγώ εϊμαι προφήτης στά Ιωάννινα. . British Consul-General John Elijah Blunt observed in
16875-788: The word " millet " among the Christian and Jewish minorities reflected in versions of the Ottoman Constitution in their respective languages: The French version of the Ottoman Constitution used the word " communauté " in the place of " millet ", and so the others used words modeled after or based on the French: հասարակութիւն ( hasarakut'iwn ) in Armenian, общност/община ( obstina ) in Bulgarian, κοινότης ( koinotēs ) in Greek, and komunita in Judaeo-Spanish. The millet system
17010-432: The world average of (2.5). According to the same study, religious switching has no impact on Muslim population, since the number of people who embrace Islam and those who leave Islam are roughly equal. As of 2010, 49 countries countries in the world had Muslim majorities, in which Muslims comprised more than 50% of the population. In 2010, 74.1% of the world's Muslim population lived in countries where Muslims are in
17145-463: The world's Muslims live in the Middle East and North Africa. Non-majority India contains 10.9% of the world's Muslims. Arab Muslims form the largest ethnic group among Muslims in the world, followed by Bengalis , and Punjabis . Over 75–90% of Muslims are Sunni . The second and third largest sects, Shia and Ahmadiyya , make up 10–20%, and 1% respectively. While the majority of
17280-521: The world. Muslims have experienced persecution of varying severity, especially in China, India, some parts of Africa, and Southeast Asia. The word muslim ( Arabic : مسلم , IPA: [ˈmʊslɪm] ; English: / ˈ m ʌ z l ɪ m / , / ˈ m ʊ z l ɪ m / , / ˈ m ʊ s l ɪ m / ( MUZZ -lim, MUUZ -lim, MUUSS -lim ) or moslem / ˈ m ɒ z l ə m / , / ˈ m ɒ s l ə m / ( MOZ -ləm, MOSS -ləm ) )
17415-460: The yearly books of 1506, 1521. and 1570. This indicates that the Muslims of Thessaly are indeed mostly of convert origin. There were also some Muslims of Vlach descent assimilated into these communities, such as those in the village of Argyropouli . After the Convention of Constantinople in 1881 , these Muslims started emigrating to areas that are still under Turkish administration including to
17550-822: Was Al-Khazini , a Byzantine Greek slave taken to Merv , then in the Khorasan province of Persia but now in Turkmenistan , who was later freed and became a famous Muslim scientist . "Al-Khazini (who lived in the 12th century), a slave of the Seljuk Turks, but of Byzantine origin, probably one of the spoils of the victory of the Seljuks over the Christian emperor of Constantinople, Romanus IV Diogenes." Muslim Muslims ( Arabic : المسلمون , romanized : al-Muslimūn , lit. 'submitters [to God ]') are people who adhere to Islam ,
17685-452: Was able to send missionaries far past the Empire's borders, reaching as far as China and India . In 1839 and 1856, reforms were attempted with the goal of creating equality between the religious communities of the Ottoman Empire. In the course of these reforms, new millets emerged, notably for Eastern Catholic and Protestant Christian communities. The heads of each millet and clerics in them were also to have their internal rule reviewed by
17820-479: Was better legal protection. The Ottoman Empire had two separate court systems, Islamic and non-Islamic, with the decisions of the former superseding those of the latter. Because non-Muslims were forbidden in the Islamic court, they could not defend their cases and were doomed to lose every time. Conversion also yielded greater employment prospects and possibilities of advancement in the Ottoman government bureaucracy and military. Subsequently, these people became part of
17955-540: Was needed only in 15% of transactions, half of which involved women, which might indicate that most Thessalian Muslim women were monolingual and possibly illiterate. However, a sizable population of Circassians and Tatars were settled in Thessaly in the second half of the 19th century, in the towns of Yenişehir (Larissa), Velestino, Ermiye (Almyros), and villages of Balabanlı ( Asimochori ) and Loksada in Karditsa. It
18090-413: Was not a Jew, nor a Christian, but he was a true Muslim [مُّسۡلِمࣰا], and he was not a polytheist." -- Quran 3:67 "Then when Jesus perceived their disbelief he said, 'Who will be my helpers of God.' The disciples said 'We will be the helpers of God; we believe in God and bear witness that we are Muslims [مُسۡلِمُونَ].'" -- Quran 3:52 To become a Muslim and to convert to Islam, it is essential to utter
18225-601: Was signed, known as the Politis–Kalfov Protocol , recognizing the " Greek Slavophones " as Bulgarians and guaranteeing their protection. On 2 February 1925, the Greek parliament, claiming pressure from the Kingdom of Yugoslavia , which threatened to renounce the Greek–Serbian Alliance of 1913 , refused to ratify the agreement; the refusal lasted until 10 June 1925. Under the 1927 Mollov-Kafantaris Agreement ,
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