هذا التقرير متاح أيضًا بـ العربية
No Muslim minority in a European country has suffered as much as Muslims in Bulgaria. Although this Balkan country was under the rule of the Muslim Ottoman state for nearly five full centuries (1396-1878), it was under communist rule (1945-1989) which lasted no more than 45 years that Muslims endured the horrors of persecution, displacement and racism.
Even so, Muslims managed to assert themselves as a social force with a strong political and economic presence, helping them integrate and embed themselves within the Bulgarian fabric in one of the most difficult experiences on the map of Muslim communities in Europe.
Muslims in Bulgaria
Muslims in Bulgaria make up about 13.1 percent of the country’s total population of roughly 7 million, while other unofficial estimates suggest the real figure is closer to 25 percent of Bulgarians. They are divided into three groups: a majority of Turkish origin at 60 percent, followed by Bulgarian Muslims at 25 percent, then Roma Muslims from nomadic communities at 15 percent. They are concentrated in the border strip adjacent to the Yugoslav, Greek and Turkish borders, in addition to the eastern regions of Durovis and Salonika.
In this report from the “Muslims of Europe” file, we shed light on the history of Islam’s relationship with Bulgaria, the political and social presence of the country’s Muslim minority, and the burden of history that Bulgarian authorities have struggled with and for which Muslims have paid the price for decades, leading up to the most prominent challenges facing the future of the millions who belong to this Muslim community in the country.
Five centuries under Ottoman rule
Islam found its way into Bulgaria through the Ottoman state, which took control of the Balkans at the end of the 15th century and the beginning of the 16th century. The country, which administratively belongs to Eastern Europe, remained under Ottoman rule for a full 500 years, during which it expanded its geographic reach until it became a full principality, officially declared after Russian intervention and the signing of the Berlin Treaty in 1878, before becoming the Kingdom of Bulgaria in 1908.
In 1909, the new kingdom concluded the Treaty of Istanbul with the allies. After the Ottoman state withdrew from the region following the Balkan Wars (1912-1913) in which about 2.5 million Muslims were killed and another 1 million were forced to leave for Türkiye and Greece Bulgaria sided with the Germans in both World War I and World War II. But after defeat, it fell into the grip of the communists, who redrew the map of governance there, with the overthrow of everything Islamic as the foremost goal under the new rule.
The communists and the targeting of Muslims
As soon as the communists tightened their grip on power in Bulgaria with Russian help, they practiced every form of torture and abuse against all religious minorities, foremost among them the Muslim minority, as the country’s second-largest ethnic group. This drove hundreds of thousands of Muslims to flee to the mountains, paving the way for Bulgaria’s prince at the time, Ferdinand I (1861-1948), to crown himself tsar of the country for nearly 10 years, from 1908 to 1918.
Under Ferdinand, rule was Greek Orthodox in character, and Muslims were forced to change their Islamic names to Bulgarian European ones. This angered Türkiye at the time, but the support the tsar received from European capitals prevented him from yielding to Turkish pressure, causing successive waves of Muslim migration.
In his book “Muslims in Europe and America,” Dr. Ali bin al-Muntasir al-Kattani described what Muslims faced under communist control as the fiercest and ugliest chapter in the history of communist Europe. He noted that the racist campaign targeted the Islamic faith first and foremost: mosques were destroyed, Quranic schools were closed, Muslims were barred from practicing their religious rituals such as fasting and prayer, children’s circumcision was banned, the teaching of Turkish and the building of Islamic schools were prohibited even though Turkish was the primary language of Muslims at the time and the minority was prevented from celebrating its religious holidays.
After communist rule fell with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989, Muslims breathed a relative sigh of relief. Yet the communist legacy continued to gnaw at the bones of Bulgarian society, even as it was met with major challenges and a strong determination among Muslims to hold on, remain and practice their way of life no matter the pressure.
The demographic and sectarian map
Most Muslims in Bulgaria follow Sunni Islam, reinforced by the Ottoman presence over five full centuries and by the Muslim Turkish bloc that formed the first and largest nucleus of the Muslim community in this European country. This is in addition to a not insignificant segment of adherents to Twelver Shiism, such as the “Alfiyi sect,” spread across the cities of Razgrad, Sliven and Tutrakan in the areas west of the city of Ruse in the northeast.
The targeted campaigns experienced by Bulgaria’s Muslims had a negative impact on the level, scale and manifestations of religiosity in the country. Some chose to distance themselves from any religious rituals that might threaten their lives and place them in the crosshairs of communist persecution.
This fear persisted even after the fall of that regime and later became a way of life. A large percentage of Muslim Bulgarians consider themselves “nonreligious,” or in other words “secular,” as confirmed by a study conducted in 2011, which found that 48.6 percent of Muslims are religious, while 41 percent do not go to mosques, more than 59 percent do not pray at home or in mosques, and 43 percent drink alcohol.
Researcher: Muslims in Bulgaria are largely secular, as are most Muslims in Eastern European and Balkan countries
Even so, Muslims remain committed to Islamic traditions in circumcision and burial: 88 percent of the study sample circumcise their sons, while 96 percent bury their dead according to Islamic rites. In addition, the majority fast during Ramadan, and a not insignificant portion are committed to paying zakat on their wealth.
Evgenia Ivanova, a professor at New Bulgarian University, pointed out that Muslims in Bulgaria are largely secular, as is the case with most Muslims in Eastern European and Balkan countries. She noted that religion does not hold central importance for Muslim Bulgarians, citing a poll conducted by the US-based Pew Research Center, which found that only 7 percent perform the five daily prayers, 22 percent said they go to the mosque at least once a week, and 6 percent said they read the Quran at least once a week.
Blatant racism
Although Muslims represent a fundamental part of Bulgaria’s social fabric — accounting, according to some estimates, for as much as 25 percent of the total population — blatant racism and hatred dominate the official discourse directed at this minority. Many have warned of the danger this poses, given that it could increase rates of Islamic extremism as a possible reaction to this exclusionary policy.
Year after year since the formal fall of communism 40 years ago, hatred of Muslims has become one of the components of official Bulgarian politics. Nothing illustrates this more clearly than the statements made by Zvezdomir Andronov, leader of the Bulgarian “National Union” — one of the ruling coalition’s allies — on April 22, 2019, during a televised talk show, when he said: “Gypsies, Turks, Armenians and Jews are guests in Bulgaria, and if they are good guests, they can live here in peace.”
The remarks revealed how the Bulgarian elite view minorities: as guests rather than partners in the homeland, as history and geography would suggest they should be.
Blatant racism and hatred dominate the official discourse directed at the Muslim minority, which makes up as much as 25 percent
Ismail Yaqoub, 82, a teacher in Bulgaria, says he was forced to leave his country in 1984 after the Communist Party passed the “Revival Process” law, which compelled Muslims there to change their Turkish and Islamic names to Bulgarian ones. His own name became Elianov Yakubov. He added in his interview with Al-Araby Al-Jadeed that he used to fear speaking Turkish even when meeting his brothers, lest he be punished.
Mohammed Kahraman, 66, who was born in the Bulgarian city of Kardzhali and has lived in Türkiye since the late 1980s, refuses to return to Bulgaria. He says he does not feel safe there and that his life is periodically under threat. He noted that the central clock in his hometown of Kardzhali plays every 60 minutes a racist anthem known as the “Anthem of Saving Bulgaria from the Ottomans,” which he sees as a warning message to the city’s Turkish-majority residents.
Political and social presence
Bulgaria’s Muslims did not surrender to the systematic campaigns of abuse and displacement. They succeeded in holding out and getting through that critical phase in the country’s history. Over time, they managed to establish an internal political presence and become a force to be reckoned with on Bulgaria’s political map, given their weight and the influence of their voting bloc.
The beginning came in 1990, when the Movement for Rights and Freedoms was founded at the start of democratic opening. The movement, with its liberal orientation, was established primarily to represent the interests of the Muslim Turkish minority, then expanded its activity to include other minorities as well. It aims to contribute to the unity of the Bulgarian people on the basis of equality and citizenship, away from religious and ideological backgrounds that reinforce division.
The identity crisis is the most prominent challenge facing the Muslim community in Bulgaria, as it suffers from sectarian heterogeneity, being divided between Sunnis and Shiites
Over time, the movement expanded until it became a political party with a broad popular base, making it the third-largest political party represented in the Bulgarian parliament. It also has relative representation in the ruling authority, after coming to represent all Bulgarians and oppose manifestations of nationalist chauvinism.
There are also many Islamic bodies that serve Muslim interests and attend to their religious and social affairs, most notably the Dar al-Ifta, the Supreme Islamic Council and the Foundation for the Development of Culture, in addition to Quran memorization schools attached to mosques and a number of imam training institutes affiliated with Al-Azhar.
The burden of history and the dilemmas of identity
The central crisis facing Bulgaria’s Muslims lies in the burden of history that dominates the nationalist current, which does not hesitate from time to time to raise its voice in warning against what it calls the “green tide” coming from Türkiye. It accuses the Muslim minority of being an extension of the Ottoman state seeking to restore its former glory, and therefore argues that this tide must be resisted by every possible means.
In this regard, Karim al-Majri, a researcher specializing in Balkan affairs, notes in a study published by the Al Jazeera Center for Studies that this discourse has been growing in some Balkan states such as Hungary, Serbia and Croatia, and that it has found receptive ears among radical political parties in those countries, negatively affecting the reality of Muslims.
The study based its main introduction on this shocking statement by opposition leader and head of the Rule, Law, Justice party (RZS), Yane Yanev, on March 5, 2009, as reported by the country’s official news agency, when he said: “Bulgaria, which belongs to the European Union, appears in some of its regions and villages to be in urgent need of a second liberation from Ottoman rule,” vowing to pressure Bulgaria’s coalition government to halt Islamic expansion.
In response, Bulgaria’s designated Prime Minister Marin Raykov said on March 23, 2013: “Muslims are an inseparable part of the Bulgarian nation, regardless of their racial and ethnic affiliation, and they must be given every guarantee that no one will be allowed to exploit the wounds of the past that have caused them pain for so long,” lending a measure of relative balance despite the growing influence of nationalists at the expense of Muslims.
The identity crisis is the most prominent challenge facing the Muslim community in Bulgaria, as it suffers from sectarian heterogeneity, being divided between Sunnis and Shiites, in addition to social distinctions stemming from its oscillation between the countryside and the cities, even though the majority live in rural and border areas In the same context, the Muslim minority there is not economically homogeneous either, according to the study.
While one segment though not a large one lives a comfortable life in areas with fertile agricultural land and strong economic conditions, as in the Dobruja region known for its abundant wheat production, another segment suffers from agricultural poverty, as in the Rhodope region, while residents of the north depend on tobacco production.
All of this unfolds in the absence of a unified vision among the various currents and sects, which has naturally been reflected in the strength and weight of Muslims in Bulgaria.