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Banya Bashi mosque,
built in
1576 by the great
Ottoman architect
Sinan, is the only
functioning mosque that
remains of 500 years of
Ottoman domination in
Sofia, the capital of
Bulgaria |
General
Mufti's Office of Bulgaria
The
Muslim population of
Bulgaria, including
Turks,
Muslim Bulgarians,
Pomaks,
Roma, and
Crimean Tatars, lives
mainly in northeastern
Bulgaria and in the
Rhodope Mountains.
According to the 2001
Census, the total number of
Muslims in the country stood
at 966,978, corresponding to
12.2% of the population.
According to the criterion
of ethnic group they were
divided into the following
groups:
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Most of the
Bulgarian Muslims are
Sunni Muslims as Sunni
Islam was the form of Islam
promoted by the
Ottoman Turks during their
five-century rule of Bulgaria (see
History of Bulgaria). Shi'a
sects such as the
Alians,
Kizilbashi and the
Bektashi also are present,
however. About 80,000 Shi'a Muslims
live mainly in the
Razgrad,
Sliven and
Tutrakan (northeast of
Rousse) regions. They are mainly
descendants of Bulgarians who
converted to Islam to avoid Ottoman
persecution but chose a Shi'a sect
because of its greater tolerance
toward different national and
religious customs. For example,
Kuzulbashi Bulgarians could maintain
the
Orthodox customs of communion,
confession, and honoring saints.
This integration of Orthodox customs
into Islam gave rise to a type of
syncretism found only in Bulgaria.
The largest mosque
in Bulgaria was the
Tumbul Mosque in
Shumen, built in
1744.
Like the
practitioners of other beliefs
including
Orthodox Christians, Muslims
suffered under the restriction of
religious freedom by the
marxist-leninist
Todor Zhivkov regime which
favoured
atheism and suppressed religious
communities. The Bulgarian communist
regimes declared traditional Muslim
beliefs to be diametrically opposed
to secular communist ideology.
After the breakdown
of communism, Muslims in Bulgaria
again enjoyed greater religious
freedom. Some villages organized
Qur'an study courses for young
people (study of the Qur'an had been
completely forbidden under Zhivkov).
Muslims also began publishing their
own newspaper, Musulmani, in both
Bulgarian and
Turkish.
Muslims in Bulgaria
in accordance to their ethnic groups
-
Turks (612,818)
-
Bulgarian
Gypsies (112,495)
-
Millets (77,712)
-
Pomaks (71,978)
-
Balkan Gypsies
(23,298)
-
Bulgarians
(18,623)
-
Crimean Tatars
(5,800)
-
Arabs (4,710)
-
Ahmadi Muslims
(40,000)
-
Eastern
Bulgarian Gypsies (2,456)
-
Vlach Gypsies
(1,463)
-
Macedonians
(1,020)
-
Albanians (876)
-
Circassians
(512)
-
Kurds (190)
Source :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_in_Bulgaria |
