Greek Muslims

This article is about Muslims of Greek ethnic origin who today live mainly in Turkey, Albania, Libya, Syria and Lebanon, and notable Greek Muslims of the past and present. For the multi-ethnic Muslim minority in Thrace, see Muslim minority of Greece.

Greek Muslims
Ελλήνες μουσουλμάνοι
Greek woman in hijab, Turkey, 1710
Regions with significant populations
Languages
Turkish, Greek (Pontic Greek, Cretan Greek, Cypriot Greek, Cappadocian Greek), Georgian, Russian, Arabic
Related ethnic groups
Other Greeks, Turks

Greek Muslims, also known as Grecophone Muslims,[1][2][3][4][5][6] 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 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.[1] Because of their gradual Turkification, as well as 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.[7]

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 the older generation continue to speak Greek.[8] Historically, Greek Orthodoxy has been associated with being Romios (i.e., Greek) and Islam with being Turkish, despite ethnicity or language.[9]

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 the Karamanlides).[10] 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.[10] 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.[10] An exception was made for the native Muslim Pomaks and Western Thrace Turks living east of the River Nestos in East Macedonia and Thrace, Northern Greece, who are officially recognized as a religious minority by the Greek government.[11]

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.

  1. ^ a b Mackridge, Peter (1987). "Greek-speaking Moslems of north-east Turkey: prolegomena to a study of the Ophitic sub-dialect of Pontic." Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies. 11. (1): 117.
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference Philliou was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference Baltsiotis was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ Cite error: The named reference Koukoudis was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  5. ^ Cite error: The named reference Beckingham was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  6. ^ Cite error: The named reference Werner was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  7. ^ Mackridge, Peter (2010). Language and national identity in Greece, 1766–1976. Oxford University Press. p. 65. "Greek-speaking Muslims have not usually been considered as belonging to the Greek nation. Some communities of Greek-speaking Muslims lived in Macedonia. Muslims, most of them native speakers of Greek, formed a slight majority of the population of Crete in the early nineteenth century. The vast majority of these were descended from Christians who had voluntarily converted to Islam in the period following the Ottoman conquest of the island in 1669."
  8. ^ Barbour, S., Language and Nationalism in Europe, Oxford University Press, 2000, ISBN 0-19-823671-9
  9. ^ Hodgson, Marshall (2009). The Venture of Islam, Volume 3: The Gunpower Empires and Modern Times. University of Chicago Press. Chicago. pp. 262–263. "Islam, to be sure, remained, but chiefly as woven into the character of the Turkish folk. On this level, even Kemal, unbeliever as he was, was loyal to the Muslim community as such. Kemal would not let a Muslim-born girl be married to an infidel. Especially in the early years (as was illustrated in the transfer of populations with Greece) being a Turk was still defined more by religion than by language: Greek-speaking Muslims were Turks (and indeed they wrote their Greek with the Turkish letters) and Turkish-speaking Christians were Greeks (they wrote their Turkish with Greek letters). Though language was the ultimate criterion of the community, the folk-religion was so important that it might outweigh even language in determining basic cultural allegiance, within a local context."
  10. ^ a b c Poulton, Hugh (2000). "The Muslim experience in the Balkan states, 1919‐1991." Nationalities Papers. 28. (1): 46. "In these exchanges, due to the influence of the millet system (see below), religion not ethnicity or language was the key factor, with all the Muslims expelled from Greece seen as "Turks," and all the Orthodox people expelled from Turkey seen as "Greeks" regardless of mother tongue or ethnicity."
  11. ^ See Hugh Poulton, 'The Balkans: minorities and states in conflict', Minority Rights Publications, 1991.