ISTANBUL :üNIVERSITESI

EDEBiYAT FAKÜLTESI

Türkiyat Araştırma Merkezi

BEŞiNCi -- MiLLETLER- ARASI -

<-TÜRKOLOJi- KONGRESİ ·Istanbul, 23-28 Eylüi ·1985

. Tebliğler

lll. TÜR/( TARIHi . · - cilt J

EDEBİY AT F AKÜLTESİ BASIMEv! . İSTANBUL - 1985

SOME NOTICES ABOUT THE OLD_EST MUSLIM SETTLEMENTS .IN SOUTH-EASTERN EUROPE

İsmail BALIÇ

Tiıe subject matter of this paper is not new. Several scholars have researched the traces of the Muslims in the Danube region and _the Bal­kans in the early ıniddleages; some within the framework of research of the· nati?nal history, ot)lers when stUdying the effects of the völker­wanderung, . and again· oth-ers in their studies of byzantine and ancient Arabic chronicles, travel books· and folklqric texts. Some of the most distinguished in this field are: J osef. Marquart, ıstvan K:niezsa, Ladislaus Makkai, Janos Karacsony, Akdes Nimet Kurat, Konstantin Jirece~. Geza Felıer, ·Iv~n Maiuranic, Gyula Moravcsik, Zeki Validi ".;rogan, Petür Mu­ta:fCiev, Veselin Besevliev, Paul Wittek, ~ayyib Okiç, Julius Germanus, Gyi;)rffy . György and many <?thers. · ·

If I deal with this subject matter today, it is for a very concrete reason: of Iate, the thesis is being given prominence that-the Islam has, at all times, been an alien religious and cultural world to the peoples of south-e_ast .murope; that i ts esta:blishment iıi this region was pnly pos­sible as res:ult pf the centuries of Ottoman foreign dominatioıi and· oc­casional. use of force. This thesis sametimes serves to justify occasional repress~ve measures a·gainst Muslims by some governments or lçıcal aut-

. horities in this region .for whatever reason.. It is also the ideological basis drawn upon by the ~ulgarian authoriÜes. for the policy they have been pursuing for some years now of requiring the M~slim population to change their personal and family names. ·

The encounter of the Hungarians, the Romanians and the Balkan Slavs ~th 'the Islam dates to the period of gradual Christianization. Groups or individuals belonging to these peoples professed the Islam as early as in the 8th century. Troops Öf MuSlim Turks served un~er Hun­garian kings. Arab pirates repeatedly struck at Adriatic shores in what is Jugoslavia today, establishing in the wş.ke of these raids partly close Fe~ations with the ş. a q a l.i b a, the Slavs. They can ·be ·traced way back in Moorish-Spanish history. In balmatia, the national dramatised dance

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.of 'more8ka/ (Moresk dance) is a reDlinder of their influecne. In the Iate

.12th century, the inhabitants of the Narenta valley in Hercegovina had princes with Ara:b names recorded in ancient chronicles: Melekdole (Arab. malik= king and Lat.-Ital. doge = duke), Zolcyn (corrupted form of the Arabic J;?u'l-'ayn =the oneeyed) and Dama,ld (probably corrupted form of şamad = the prince L '

Shortly before the second world war, in the village of Potooi near Mostar·, Hercegovina, an Arabic silver coin dating from tlıe time of the caliph Marwiin Il (744-750) was found, an indication ·of these ancient contacts1 • Unfortunately so far no systeı:p.atic examination of the finding . place has been carried out.

At the end of the ·late völkerwanderung of the Turk .tribes in the lOth to 12th century, quietly and unrelated to any mis.siop.ary policy Is­lamic communities formed in the Danube region. Their actors were Eurasion nomad horsemen of Turkish extraction: Pecheiıegs, Kumans, Chwalise (Kalize), O~e or Uze, Khabars and ancient Bulgars. They were· joined by individual Arab merchants and scholars, -travel]ers and adventur.ers. Varied fortune~ of peoples and individuals amalgameted into this Islamic-Christian coexistence. The settlements were laid in Hun­gary, Walachia and Moldavia, Serbia, Dobrudja, Syrmia and parts of Bosnia. ·

Yaqflt <Jlr.ljarruıtwi (1179 -1229), author of the famous dictionary «Mıı/djam al-bulilim»J deseribes in his work an ~ncounter with Muslim students from Hungary · in Hale b, Syria. From these young students of Islamic theology in Syria he gleaned some interesting details of the life of Hungarian Muslims of that time. Thus he learnt that a short time ' before, the Hungarian king forbade Muslims to surround their settle­ments with walls, evidently becaıise he feared their increasing strength.

~e Muslims in Hungary were not part of .the state people. However they settled in the P~onian p~ain at the same time as the ·Magyars.

Although ~e majority of the Muslims were soldiers, the Muslim element played a different role in. the social life of the state at various times. King Ladislaus' law of the year 1092 mentions them as' m,erchants. The Golde:n Burl of 1222 provided that no Muslim or Jew was to serve at court. Up to that time, individiıal Muslims had acted as minters aıi4 . . .

ı Muhamed Ha.dzijahic ·and Niyaz ~uk.ric: Islam i Muslimani u Bosni i Herce­govinin (The Islam and the Musllms in Bosnia and Hercegovina). Sarajevo (1977), p. 21 . .

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inoney;changers for the court, and there had been periods in which pro­duction an~ sale of salt, · and the customs system, was in Muslim hands. .

FJ::om the 10th to the middle of the 13th century, the Mu~li~s in Hungary formed çompact communities which played a considerable role 'in the s ta te . . In Syrmia al one there existed some thirty Muslim vi.llages between 1080 and 1250 . . There is eVidence of Muslim settlers in Macva, N orthserbia and in tlie eastern parts of Bosnia. I smaelites repeateldy · took part ·in warlike enterprises around Belgrade. Geographical names such as Kozara, Kozarac, K-ales-ije (District of Zvornik}; KalesiCi (District of SrebTenica), Kulize (District of Pribo.j) ete. remind one of the former life ari.d work of ·the Chazars (Kazars) and Chwalise respec­tively.

The Arab author of travel books and theologian Abu lj.amid al-Gar­ndtı (1080 - 1169), who at about 1150, heıd a }.ıigh. ministry within the Islamic community in Hungary, divides the followers ·of the _Islam in the Hungarian kingdam intô two groups: Maghrebians (Occidentals) and .Chwarizmi.ans. According to research·by the C~ech Orientalist Ivan Hrbek, the former were mostly called Ismaelites (ismaelitae, izmaelitfik). The

. latter were Galled «Bezzerminae» (böszörmeny) or «Saracens». Ethni­cally the majority of the Maghrebians were Pechenegs. Already in the Abbasid Empire, the term «Maghrebian» designated Turkish mercenaries: Hrbek suspected this to be in keeping with a · popular traclition which SOI!lehow b~gs the origins of the Pechenegs in connection with the West .

. . It 'is ~emarkable that in the Kumano~o region (Serbia) the Muslims . were called «Latins» (Latini) right up to recent ~imes. The name «Ku­manovo». harks bı;ı.ck to the nearest relations ôf the Pechenegs, the Ku­mans. Anather name commonly usedin the Northserbian region for the followers of Islam - Kozari .: is reminiscent of the Khazars, the great trlbe to which the q:ı.walisians belonged .

. In 1233, an edict of .King Adrew II (1205- 1235) determined that all subjects who profe~sed the Islamic faith ~ere to be barred from the civil service. Furthermore, they were ordered to wear special clothes . or a badge to make themselves easily distinguishab~e. Piessure reached its peak under Oharles Robert of Anjou (1301- 1345) : Muslims had to · ıeave .

· Hungary or be·baptized.

Despite . all these measures, . the Islam succeeded to survive in the lands of the St. Steph.en's Crown right in to the · 14th century. Thomas

. -

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Arnold of ·the London University sets its end at 1341. According to the Croatian scholar A. Bazala, there were stili Ismaelites living. in the Croatian ethnic regio~ .

. ·From time to time the ı;ıoutheastern wing of the Balkan peninsula - - Bulgaria and Macedonia - was washed ·by waves of Islanı:ic an~ Israelite

propaganda2 • In the 9th century, the Jews has a stroiıg spiritual centre at Saloniki. In the same period, in the Vardar valley above Saloniki; the Byzantine Emperor Theophile II (829-842) had settled· a significant u.nj.t of Turkish soldiers who wep.t down in history under the napıe of Var­dariots3.. These foreign legionaires were originally Muslims, later were absorbed into 'Christianity. Names of some Bulgarian princes mentioned in documents of that period have an Islamic ring, e.g. Umar, Kurt, Ehac, Kardam, Om,urtag, Malamir (Arab. al-amir?), Murtagon, ete. Pope Nicholas I (858-867) advised the Bulgarians of his time not to keep the books t~ey had been given. by the Saracenes in ~heir houses·· any longer but to commit them to· the flames.

. The document containing t4is advice has been preserved in the Va­tican archives under the title «R:esponse Nicolae I Papae ad comrulta Bul­garorum.». The Arabs occupied Athens for ~ short perio~ •. frpm 896 to 9.024

• • . . . Latest research revealed that 'unknown religious phenomenon' which,

in the lOth century, brought forth biblical names5 in the Romanian Carpathian region and the Macedonian part of the Bulgariaİı Empire destroyed by Basilios II, w.as in fact the Islam. It could ·in no v/ay have beei:ı the antiscriptural Manichaeism0 • That the Pechenegs, and some of the Kumans who took over from the Pechenegs in Trnassylvania, were followers of the Islamic faith is also explicitly confirmed by an ancient author, Nikon1 • ·

In the 9th century, the Turkish ancestors of the Slav Bulgarians extended thei_ı;- rule to a part of Hungary, to S~n:iia and ·a~o to the

. 2 ~anjo Racki: Bogwnill i patareni (The Bogumils and the Patarens). Belgrade 1931, p . . 350/1.

3 cf. R. . Janin: Les Turcs Vardarios in Echos d'Orient 29/1930, p. 437-449. 4 Kennth M. S~tton: On the Raids of the Moslems in the Aegean. in the ıiİnth

and tenth centuries and their· alleged Occupation of Athens. American Journal · of Archaelogy 58/1954, p. 311.-219. ·

5 Alexander Rande, Der Balkan- Schlüsselraum der Weltgeschichte. Von Dırake zu Byzani. Graz-Salzburg-Wien 1949, p. 290.

. . 6 Ibid., p. 290. .

7 Hugo v. Kutschera, Die Chasarn. Historische Studie. Wien 1909, p. 112.

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region ·between Maroch ~nd Da,.nupe, as well as to Transylvania. The ruling Bıilg.arian strata there probably retained their Turkish character langer than their ethnic brethren in Bulgaria8 •

Several ancient Arab authors report the presence of Islam among the Volga-Bnlgarians. There were times when the Muslims held -impor­tant ·stroiıghoids there. Masrüifi relates a battle near the town of Idil .at a~out 944 in which ~istian and Muslim soliliers fought side by side against pagaı;ı Russians. The Danube:.Bulgars were said to have entered th~ir prayer houses ~ the ~xact designation of which has unfortunately not been handed down ·to us - beltless but with their -heads covered in Muslim fashion. Their king Krum (805- 815), pro~ably iİıfluenced by the Islamic aleohal :ı;>rohibition, had all the vi,nes in -his state destrqyed9 • In . the. ~my of. th.e Danubian prince Glad von Widdin, Kuman troops, partly · fallawers of the Islam, fciught against the Hungarians together withBul­garian and Walachian troops'~·

· News about Muslimsin the Dobrudja is fouıid in the writings of the ancient Ara b author A.:bu/l-Fid.a (die d 1331).

In 1262, Michae.l VIII settled Anatolian Turks in· Dobrudja when they, with rlzzadln Kaykii:wus had asked. for asylum in Byzatium. Howe­ver niost of these settlers returned to Anatolia in 130711•

The rule rcuius ·regio, .eius religio', elevated to the coristitutional prin­ciple with the peace of Augsburg of 1555, 'seems to have come into full

. effect in the Balkans; each change in the power poİitical conditions brought about a change in the religion of the peoples. Hungary seems to have resisted this rule for an unwarranted long time, as Muslim ethnic commU:Uities managed· to survive there up to the end ~f the i3th cen-tury. ·

ı . . .

The Bulgarians were christianized only after th~ heavy defeat inflic~ ted upon them by the Byzantine emperor Michael İli in 863, when - under the. terms of the peace treaty- the Bulgarian ruler· Boris I Michael BuZ~ ·

8 ıstvan Kniezsa, Ungarns Völkerschaften im XI. Jahrhundert. (witl_ı map supple'ment). Budapest 1938 (Osteuropaische Bibliothe~. published by · E. Lı.İkinich, No. 16), p. 105. · ·

9 Randa, loc. cit., 284. 10 On . the Kumans and Pechenegs who at that time professed .Islam faith, see

my work «Der ~lam im mittelalterlichen Ungarn» in «Sü'dostforschı.ingen» (Munich) XXIII, 1965. , . .

ll Encyclopaedia of Islam, .2nd ed., vol. ı, p. 1305.

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garski (853- 888) had to commit himself to be baptized togethe.r with · liis people. Resistance against such baptism cost the lives of 52 Bojars

(magnates) and numerous ordinary people.

As to the religious propaganda and missionary activities both for the Christians and the Muslims, this was carried out by outsiders:· for example the activities of the two «Slav Apostles» of Greek origin Cyrill and Methodius, and the two Arab scholars Mu./:ıarmmad and l;Iamid aı­Öarnliti who preached the Islam in Hungary in the 12th c~ntury.

Arourrd the middle of the 9th century, Islamized Pechenegs, a war­like people partly in .the service of the Hungarian kings and mostly cal­led «lsmaelites» and «Agarenes» made their appearance in the ~alka.nS. The raids and pillages perpetrated by these Pechenegs in 1048/49 are · . mentioned not ·without bitterness .in the ancient .serbian and Bı,ılgarian chronicles1

'·.

The Balkans first came face to face with the Arab Islamic world when the Arab army commander Maslamz invaded the territories of the Byzantine Empire in Thrace (717/8). This .invasion brought the 4J'abs up to the gates of Edirne and Salonilri. They beleaguered Istanbul and founded a mosque- the Arap camii of. today:·

Arnold sees in .... the early pres en ce of Muslims in the medieval Dan:ube regl.on one of the causes for the .rapid expansion of the Islam in the Bal­·kan: .region in 'the 15tıi and 16th C?ntury. ·

LITERATURE

Szekely, György: Les Contacts entre·Hongrois et Musulmans aux 9e-12e ' siecles.

In.: The Muslim East. Studies in honour of Julius Germanus, Budapest 197 4, p. 53-7 4. .

Karacsonyi, Janos : Kik voltak s mikor jöttek hazılııkba a bös~rmen-. yek vagy izmaelitak? Budapest 1913.

Rasonyi, Laszl6 : · Tarihte Türklük, Ankara 1971, VII, 418 p.

Kafesoğlu! İbrahim : Bulgarlar~n kökeni, Ankara 1985, IX, 56 p.

Rasonyi, Laszlo : Türk Devletinin Batıdaki varisieri ve İlk Müslüman Türkler, Ankara 1983, XIX, 240 p.

12 M. Hadzijahic, loc. cit., p. 24/25.