90–100% | |
70–90% | |
50–70% | Bosnia and Herzegovina |
30–40% | North Macedonia |
10–20% | |
5–10% | |
4–5% | |
2–4% | |
1–2% | |
< 1% |
| Islam by country |
|---|
 |
 Islamportal |
Islam in Hungary dates back to at least the 10th century. The influence of Sunni Islam was especially pronounced in the 16th century during the Ottoman period in Hungary.
In the old form of the Hungarian language, Muslims were called Böszörmény, cognates with Turkish Bozulmamış, which in turn descends from Arabic : مسلم, Muslim, a term preserved as both a family name, and as that of the town Hajdúböszörmény. [2]
The first Islamic author to speak of this Muslim community was Yaqut al-Hamawi (575-626 AH/1179-1229 CE), he writes about a famous Hungarian student who studied in Aleppo, according to the student there were 30 Muslim villages in Hungary. [3] Yaqut writes in his famous geographical dictionary, "Mu'ajam al-Buldan", [4] about his meeting with a Hungarian Muslim youth in Syria who was studying Islam there and brought some details of the history and life of their people in Hungary.
The Spaniard Muslim traveler Abu Hamid al Garnati wrote of two types of Muslims in Hungary, the first being the Böszörmény of the Carpathian Basin and Volga Bulgars (Khwarezmians). He reported that Géza II of Hungary expressed a great fondness of Muslims. [5]
In the 11th century, St. Ladislaus and later Coloman passed laws against the non-Christians (Synod of Szabolcs). These laws subdued Islam by coercing Muslims to eat pork, go to Church, intermarry, and to forbid them from celebrating Friday. Some of Coloman's laws include: [6]
§ 46 If someone catches Ismaelites in fasting or eating or on keeping away from pork or in ritual washing or in other false practices these Ismaelites have to be sent to the king and whoever sued them shall receive a share from their properties.
§ 47 We command all Ismaelite villages to build a church and finance it. After the church is built the half village should move and settle elsewhere in order to become similar to us in living together and also in Christ and in Church (i.e. become similar in faith).
§ 48 Ismaelites should not marry their daughters to their nation but only to our nation.
§ 49 If an Ismaelite has guest, or he invites someone to his house to eat, he and his guests should all eat only pork.
László (Saint Ladislaus) passed the following law: [7]
§ 9 on the merchants called Ismaelites, if becomes evident from them then after their baptism they return their old laws based on circumcision they should leave their homes but if they prove innocent they should stay.
These laws discriminated severely against the small minority.
Muslims in Hungary were reported to have often worked in the field of trade and finance. Hungarian royal coins from between the 12 and 13th centuries were found to have Arabic inscriptions (whilst this does not directly imply a connection with Islam, Arabic-speaking populations were predominantly Muslim). Káliz Road, named after the Khalyzians, was a trade route between Szeged and the Danube used for the transport of salt from Transylvania. A ring with an Arabic inscription was found in the grave of Béla II of Hungary. Jenő Szűcs states that prior to the Mongol invasion, "the country was pretty much strewn with military and merchant colonies of Muslim religious groups". [5]
The Turks entered Hungary after the Battle of Mohács in 1526. From 1541, they started to control the central part directly and organized five eyalets: Budin, Kanije, Eğri, Varat (Oradea), and Temeşvar.
In the 16th century, during the Ottoman rule, numerous Muslim personalities were born in Hungary. Among them, the most important were the Ottoman Grand Vizier, Kanijeli Siyavuş Pasha (from Nagykanizsa) who held the function three times between 1582 and 1593, the Ottoman historian İbrahim Peçevi (Ibrahim of Pécs), and the famous Mevlevian dervish Pecsevi Árifi Ahmed Dede, also a Turk native of Pécs. Most Islamic studies in Hungary were taught according to the Hanafi madhhab, or Hanafi school of thought, of Sunni Islam.
Turkish rule in the Hungarian lands ended definitively in 1718, with the signing of the Treaty of Passarowitz. [8] The Ottoman period left behind a legacy of Turkish architecture such as mosques, türbes, and public baths (hamams), as well as changes in the local cuisine, such as the popularization of coffeehouses and the introduction of paprika, an essential spice in Hungarian dishes.
In the 19th century, after the collapse of the revolution of 1848-9, more than 6,000 emigrated Poles and Hungarians followed General Józef Bem (Murat Paşa) into Turkish exile. Among them were such Hungarian officers such as Richard Guyon (Kurşid Paşa), György Kmety (Ismail Paşa) and Maximilian Stein (Ferhad Paşa). These personalities were afterwards raised to the post of General.[ citation needed ]
Guyon is described in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography as "the first Christian to obtain the rank of pasha and a Turkish military command without being obliged to change his religion", a sign of modernizing meritocracy under the 19th-century Ottomans.[ citation needed ]
The council of Újbuda has given permission for the Muslim community in Hungary to build the first Islamic centre in Budapest.[ when? ] The new Islamic centre will hold a library containing 50,000 volumes. [9] [10]
In 2013, the Hungarian Islamic Council requested for the Grand Mufti of Bosnia and Herzegovina Husein Kavazović to also become Grand Mufti of Hungary. [11]
Hungary's new "Law on the Right to Freedom of Conscience and Religion, and on Churches, Religions and Religious Communities" was enacted 12 July 2011 and recognizes only 14 religious groups. Islam is not included in this list and Muslims have to apply to get official recognition under the new law. Under the law, only 14 of 358 registered churches and religious associations will be granted legal recognition, while others will have to reapply for legal registration after two-thirds approval in parliament. [12]
On 27 February 2012, Hungary's parliament amended the country's controversial law on religious organizations by expanding the list of officially recognized organizations to include the Hungarian Islamic Council. [13]
According to the 2011 Hungarian census, there were 5,579 Muslims in Hungary, making up only about 0.057% of the total population. Of these, 4,097 (73.4%) declared themselves as Hungarian, while 2,369 (42.5%) as Arab by ethnicity. [14] In Hungary people can declare more than one ethnicity (which explains why the sum of these percentages is greater than 100%), [15] Data from 2011 does not show the Turkish population (which was 1,565 in the 2001 census). [16] However, the majority of Muslims in Hungary are of Arab or Turkish origin. [17] Moreover, there is also a growing number of ethnic Hungarian converts to Islam. [17]
The actual number of Muslims in Hungary is likely to be above 5,579 Muslims. Following the war in Syria, an important influx of asylum seekers arrived in 2014, 2015 and 2016 where more than 200,000 asylum applications were filed in Hungary. [18] However, from 2017 and onwards, Hungarian authorities have registered less than few hundred applications. [19]
Pécs is the fifth largest city in Hungary, on the slopes of the Mecsek mountains in the country's southwest, close to the border with Croatia. It is the administrative and economic centre of Baranya County, and the seat of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Pécs.
The Bektashi Order or Bektashism is an Islamic Sufi mystic order originating in the 13th-century Ottoman Empire. It is named after the saint Haji Bektash Veli. The Bektashian community is currently led by Baba Mondi, their eighth Bektashi Dedebaba and headquartered in Tirana, Albania. Collectively, adherents of Bektashism, are called Bektashians or simply Bektashis.
Türbe refers to a Muslim mausoleum, tomb or grave often in the Turkish-speaking areas and for the mausolea of Ottoman sultans, nobles and notables. A typical türbe is located in the grounds of a mosque or complex, often endowed by the deceased. However, some are more closely integrated into surrounding buildings.
Nevşehir is a city in the Central Anatolia Region of Turkey. It is the seat of Nevşehir Province and Nevşehir District. Its population is 123,882 (2022). It is 290 km (180 mi) from the capital Ankara and lies within the historical region of Cappadocia.
The large Fatih Mosque is an Ottoman mosque off Fevzi Paşa Caddesi in the Fatih district of Istanbul, Turkey. The original mosque was constructed between 1463 and 1470 on the site of the Church of the Holy Apostles. Seriously damaged in the 1766 earthquake, it was rebuilt in 1771 to a different design. It is named after the Ottoman sultan Mehmed the Conqueror, known in Turkish as Fatih Sultan Mehmed, who conquered Constantinople in 1453.
There are an estimated 20,000 Muslims in the Czech Republic, representing 0.2% of the country's population. The growing Turkish community form the largest Muslim population in the country.
Gül Baba, also known as Jafer, was an Ottoman Bektashi dervish poet and companion of Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent who took part in a number of campaigns in Europe from the reign of Mehmed II onwards.
In 2010, there were an estimated 5,900 Muslims in Slovakia representing fewer than 0.1% of the country's population. As of October 2023, Slovakia is the only EU member state that does not have a mosque.
İbrahim Peçevi or Peçuyli İbrahim Efendi or (in Bosnian)Ibrahim Alajbegović Pečevija (1572–1650) was an Ottoman Bosnian historian-chronicler of the Ottoman Empire.
Ottoman Hungary encompassed those parts of the Kingdom of Hungary which were under the rule of the Ottoman Empire from the occupation of Buda in 1541 for more than 150 years, until the liberation of the area under Habsburg leadership (1686–1699). The territory was incorporated into the empire, under the name Macaristan. For most of its duration, Ottoman Hungary covered Southern Transdanubia and almost the entire region of the Great Hungarian Plain.
The Battle of Keresztes took place on 24–26 October 1596. It was fought between a combined Habsburg-Transylvanian force and the Ottoman Empire near the village of Mezőkeresztes in modern-day northern Hungary. The Ottomans routed the Habsburg-led army but due to their own losses were unable to exploit their victory.
Böszörmény, also Izmaelita or Hysmaelita ("Ishmaelites") or Szerecsen ("Saracens"), is a name for the Muslims who lived in the Kingdom of Hungary in the 10–13th centuries. Some of the Böszörmény probably joined the federation of the seven Magyar tribes during the 9th century, and later smaller groups of Muslims arrived in the Carpathian Basin. They were engaged in trading but some of them were employed as mercenaries by the kings of Hungary. Their rights were gradually restricted from the 11th century on, and they were coerced to accept baptism following the establishment of the Christian Kingdom of Hungary. They "disappeared" by the end of the 13th century.
The Arabati Baba Tekḱe is a tekḱe located in Tetovo, North Macedonia. The tekke was originally built in 1538 around the türbe of Sersem Ali Baba, an Ottoman dervish. In 1799, a waqf provided by Recep Paşa established the current grounds of the tekke. The finest surviving Bektashi lodge in Europe, the sprawling complex features flowered lawns, prayer rooms, dining halls, lodgings and a great marble fountain inside a wooden pavilion.
The Turks in Hungary, also referred to as Turkish Hungarians and Hungarian Turks, refers to ethnic Turks living in Hungary. The Turkish people first began to migrate predominantly from Anatolia during the Ottoman rule of Hungary (1541-1699). A second wave of Ottoman-Turkish migration occurred in the late 19th century when relations between the Ottoman Empire and the Austro-Hungarian Empire improved; most of these immigrants settled in Budapest. Moreover, there has also been a recent migration of Turks from the Republic of Turkey, as well as other post-Ottoman states.
The Downtown Candlemas Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary, formerly known as the Mosque of Pasha Qasim is a Roman Catholic church in Pécs, Hungary, which was a mosque in the 16–17th century due to the Ottoman conquest. It is one of the symbols of the city, located in the downtown, on the main square. The current building, a hundred steps in length and in width, was built by Pasha Qasim the Victorious between 1543 and 1546. The mosque was converted into a church in 1702, after Habsburg-Hungarian troops reconquered the city. The minaret was destroyed by the Jesuits in 1766. One of the largest Ottoman constructions remaining in Hungary, the building still retains many Turkish architectural characteristics.
Muftiship of Novi Sad is one of the four muftiships of the Islamic Community in Serbia. Muftiship is including territory of the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina and its seat is in Novi Sad. Administrator of the muftiship is mufti Fadil Murati.
Gül Baba's tomb (türbe) in Budapest, Hungary, is the northernmost Islamic pilgrimage site in the world. The mausoleum is located in the district of Rózsadomb on Mecset (mosque) Street, a short but steep walk from Margaret Bridge.
The Yakovalı Hasan Paşa Mosque is an early 17th-century mosque in Pécs, southern Hungary. It was constructed when the region was part of the Turkish Ottoman Empire, together with the main mosque of Pécs, the Mosque of Pasha Qasim. It was named after the local government official who commissioned the mosque, Yakovalı Hasan Paşa, or Hasan Pasha of Yakova. It is thus one of the oldest mosques existing in Hungary today, and is considered to be the most intact mosque to have survived from the Ottoman era. The mosque is still active as a Muslim place of worship, and also houses a small exhibition centre for Turkish handicraft and historical artifacts documenting Hungary's Ottoman past.
Ibrahim Pasha Mosque is an Ottoman-era mosque on the Aegean island of Rhodes, Greece. It is the oldest out of the seven mosques inside the old walled city of Rhodes, and the only one open to worship today, serving the Turkish-Muslim community of Rhodes.
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