 Cretan Muslims in their traditional costume; 19th-20th century | |
| Total population | |
|---|---|
| est. 450,000 (1971 estimate)[1] | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
 Turkey | 200,000 (1971)[1] |
 Egypt | 100,000 (1971)[1] |
 Libya | 100,000 (1971)[1] |
| Other countries (Lebanon, Syria etc.) | 50,000 (1971)[1] |
| Languages | |
| Cretan Greek, Turkish, Arabic | |
| Religion | |
| Sunni Islam | |
| Part of a series of articles on |
| Turkish people |
|---|
 |
The Cretan Muslims or Cretan Turks[2][3] (Greek: Τουρκοκρητικοί or Τουρκοκρήτες, Tourkokritikí or Tourkokrítes; Turkish: Giritli, Girit Türkleri, or Giritli Türkler; Arabic: أتراك كريت) were the Muslim inhabitants of the island of Crete. Their descendants settled principally in Turkey, the Dodecanese Islands under Italian administration (part of Greece since 1947), Syria (notably in the village of Al-Hamidiyah), Lebanon, Palestine, Libya, and Egypt, as well as in the larger Turkish diaspora.
Cretan Muslims were descendants of ethnic Greeks who had converted to Islam after the Ottoman conquest of Crete in the seventeenth century.[3][4][5][6] They identified as Greek Muslims, and were referred to as "Turks" by some Christian Greeks due to their religion; not their ethnic background.[3] Many Cretan Greeks had converted to Islam in the wake of the Ottoman conquest of Crete.[7] This high rate of local conversions to Islam was similar to that in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Albania, parts of western North Macedonia, and Bulgaria;[8] perhaps even a uniquely high rate of conversions rather than immigrants.[9] The Greek Muslims of Crete continued to speak Cretan Greek.[10] European travellers' accounts note that the "Turks" of Crete were mostly not of Turkic origin, but were Cretan converts from Orthodoxy.[11][12]
Sectarian violence during the 19th century caused many Muslims to leave Crete, especially during the Cretan Revolt (1897–1898),[13] and after Crete's unilateral declaration of union with Greece in 1908.[14]: 87 Finally, after the Greco-Turkish War of 1919–1922 and the Turkish War of Independence, the remaining Muslims of Crete were compulsorily exchanged for the Greek Christians of Anatolia under the terms of the Treaty of Lausanne (1923).
At all periods, most Cretan Muslims were Greek-speaking,[15] using the Cretan Greek dialect, but the language of administration and the prestige language for the Muslim urban upper classes was Ottoman Turkish. In the folk tradition, however, Cretan Greek was used to express Muslims' "Islamic—often Bektashi—sensibility".[15] Today, the highest number of the Turkocretan descendants can be found in Ayvalık.[16] Those who left Crete in the late 19th and early 20th centuries settled largely along Turkey's Aegean and Mediterranean coast. Alongside Ayvalık and Cunda Island, they settled in İzmir, Çukurova, Bodrum, Side, Mudanya, Adana and Mersin.[17]
- ^ a b c d e Rippin, Andrew (2008). World Islam: Critical Concepts in Islamic Studies. Routledge. p. 77. ISBN 978-0-415-45653-1.
- ^ Şenışık, Pınar (2018). Migration and Material World of the Cretan Muslims: A Profile From Rethymno Through the Liquidation of Property Documents in the Early Twentieth Century. Isis Press. ISBN 978-975-428-612-0.
- ^ a b c Morrow, John Andrew (2019). Finding W. D. Fard: Unveiling the Identity of the Founder of the Nation of Islam. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. p. 28. ISBN 978-1-5275-2489-7.
The island in question [Crete] was home to Cretan Muslims, descendants of ethnic Greeks who had converted to Islam after the Ottoman conquest in the seventeenth century. Although the language of administration and prestige was Ottoman Turkish, Cretan Muslims used Greek to express their Bektashi Islamic sentiment. After all, Islam in Crete was profoundly influenced by the Bektahi Sufi Order. Although they identified as Greek Muslims, Christian Greeks described them as Turkocretans since they had "betrayed" the Greek Orthodox Church. Some Cretan Muslims reportedly described themselves as "Turco-Romnoi," which means "European Turks," treating the term "Turk" as synonymous with "Muslim," or "Turkish Greeks," namely, Muslim Greeks or Greek Muslims.
- ^ Psaradaki, Eleni (30 August 2021). "Oral Memories and the Cretan Identity Of Cretan Turks in Bodrum, Turkey" (PDF). Stratejik ve Sosyal Araştırmalar Dergisi Türk-Yunan İlişkileri Özel Sayısı, C. 5. pp. 41–54.
With the term "Cretan Turks" we refer to the descendants of Islamized Cretans during the occupation of the island of Crete by the Turks in 1669. A large number of Cretans (as it also happened generally in Greece) became Muslims in order to avoid the socioeconomic hardships of the Ottoman Occupation of Crete.
- ^ Beckingham, C. F. (1 April 1956). "The Cypriot Turks". Journal of the Royal Central Asian Society. 43 (2): 126–130. doi:10.1080/03068375608731569. ISSN 0035-8789.
The Cretan "Turks" were not ethnically Turkish, or even Anatolian at all. They were Cretans whose ancestors had accepted Islam at some time after the Turkish conquest of the island in the middle of the seventeenth century.
- ^ Hyland, Tim (18 May 2020). "Uğur Z. Peçe Uncovers a Forgotten Part of the History of Crete". Lehigh University. Retrieved 17 April 2023.
the people known as the Cretan Turks—a Muslim people of Greek descent—ended up relocating, permanently, to Anatolia, Syria, Egypt, Libya and the Balkans [...] Though the island was home to both Christians and Muslims, both groups were of Greek origin.
- ^ Leonidas Kallivretakis, "A Century of Revolutions: The Cretan Question between European and Near Eastern Politics", p. 13f in Paschalis Kitromilides, Eleftherios Venizelos: The Trials of Statesmanship, Edinburgh University Press, 2009, ISBN 0748633642
- ^ Malise Ruthven, Azim Nanji, Historical Atlas of Islam, ISBN 0674013859, p. 118
- ^ Greene, Molly (2000). A Shared World: Christians and Muslims in the early modern Mediterranean. London: Princeton University Press. p. 39ff, passim. ISBN 978-0-691-00898-1.
- ^ Demetres Tziovas, Greece and the Balkans: Identities, Perceptions and Cultural Encounters Since the Enlightenment; William Yale, The Near East: A modern history Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1958)
- ^ Barbara J. Hayden, The Settlement History of the Vrokastro Area and Related Studies, vol. 2 of Reports on the Vrokastro Area, Eastern Crete, p. 299
- ^ Balta, E., & Ölmez, M. (2011). Between religion and language: Turkish-speaking Christians, Jews and Greek-speaking Muslims and Catholics in the Ottoman Empire. Istanbul: Eren.
- ^ Henry Noel Brailsford (full text[permanent dead link]), an eyewitness of the immediate aftermath, uses the term "wholesale massacre" to describe the events of 1897 in Crete.
- ^ Smith, Michael Llewellyn (1998). Ionian Vision: Greece in Asia Minor, 1919–1922. Hurst. ISBN 978-1-85065-368-4.
Quote, p. 87: "In the eve of the Occupation of İzmir by the Greek army in 1922, there was in the city a colony of Turcocretans who had left Crete around the time that the island was united with the Greek Kingdom."
Quote, p. 88: "Some effort was made by Greece prior to the war to win Turcocretans to the idea of Greek government in Anatolia. The Greek Prime Minister Venizelos dispatched an obscure Cretan politician by the name of Makrakis to İzmir in the early months of 1919, and his mission is qualified a "success", although the Greek mission set up İzmir, "presenting a naive picture of the incorrigible Turks", is cited as describing "the various [Turkish] organizations which includes the worst elements among Turcocretans and the Laz people (...) as disastrous and inexpedient" in the same source." - ^ a b Cite error: The named reference
williamswas invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ gazeteistanbul (21 February 2017). "Anneanne dili "Giritçe"". Gazete İstanbul (in Turkish). Retrieved 3 November 2020.
- ^ Tuncay Ercan Sepetcioglu (January 2021). "Cretan Turks at the End of the 19th Century: Migration and Settlement (19. Yüzyılda Girit Türkleri: Göç ve Yerleşim)" – via ResearchGate.