ISLAMIZATION OF ALBANIANS IN THE MIDDLE AGES: THE PRIMARY SOURCES AND THE

PREDICAMENT OF THE MODERN HISTORIOGRAPHY

Author(s): ATAULLAH BOGDAN KOPAŃSKI
Source: Islamic Studies, Vol. 36, No. 2/3, Special Issue: ISLAM IN THE BALKANS
(Summer/Autumn 1997), pp. 191-208
Published by: Islamic Research Institute, International Islamic University, Islamabad
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/23076194 .
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Islamic Studies 36:2, 3 (1997)

ISLAMIZATION OF ALBANIANS IN THE MIDDLE AGES:

THE PRIMARY SOURCES AND THE PREDICAMENT OF
THE MODERN HISTORIOGRAPHY

ATAULLAH BOGDAN KOPAÑSK1

Land of Albania! Let me bend my eyes

On thee, thou rugged nurse of savage men!

The cross descends, thy minarets arise. . .

(Lord Byron, Childe Harold's Pilgrimage)

So tear down minarets and mosques

and light up the Serbian candles. . .
(Petar Petrovic-Njegos II, Serbian monk and ruler of Montenegro, 1830-1850).

Fling to the sky our battle cry

where the black clouds of war will toss
victorious Crescent of Islam
over the cross!
With armor clash
and bow string twang
with saber slash

and shield clang

we come, the Ghazis come!
The Prophet's Law, the sultan's order

we guard Arnaut-ili border

Allahu Akbar! Allahu Akbar!
(The battle song of Albanian Janissaries)

I
For a number of reasons the Islamization of Albanians in the Middle Ages is
still one of the least known events in the history of the European Muslims. Since
the fall of the Communist rule in Albania, Yugoslavia and Bulgaria, a significant
amount of research work has been done by many Muslim and revisionist
historians to verify numerous problems related to the past of the Albanian

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 ataullah Bogdan kopañski/lslamization of Albanians in the Middle Ages

Muslims. They attempted to overcome the extremely biased trend in the modern

Communist and
Christian nationalist historiography of Albania, Serbia,
Macedonia, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, Russia and Greece related to the
history of the Osmanli state and Islamic civilization in the Balkans. Such an
effort seems well timed since the Christian, nationalist and Marxist
historiographies of the last hundred years have generally portrayed the Osmanli
centuries as some kind of 'Dark Ages' of the 'enslaved' Balkan nations.

The sophisticated culture, literature and art of Islam were ignored by

the generality of historians who hardly even tried to conceal their anti-Muslim
bias. Their ferociously anti-Islamic and anti-Turkish attitude not only obscured
and distorted the amazing process of mass conversion of entire Christian
communities to Islam, but also provided an intellectual prop for the ultra
nationalist policy of ethnic and religious cleansing in Bosnia, Hum
(Herzegovina), Albania, Bulgaria and Greece. For against the backdrop of the
history of the Balkans, as generally portrayed, what appeared as a kind of
historical exoneration and an act of retaliation for the 'betrayal' of Christianity
in the Middle Ages.
The policy of destroying Islamic culture and way of life in Albania after
the World War II is the primary reason why the history of medieval Islam in
this land has not been properly studied. And when it was studied, it was studied
within the parameters of the Stalinist ideology which emphasized only the
mythical image of medieval Albanians as the 'heroic Illyrian proletariat'. The
handful of Muslim scholars in the Communist Eastern Europe who resisted the
anti-Islamic and anti-Turkish propaganda were ostracized and often penalized.
Albanian nationalist historians like Ramadan Marmallaku, Kristo Frashëri
Skender Anamali, Stefanaq Polio, Skender Rizaj and Arben Puto in their books
deliberately emphasized ad nauseam only 'the Turkish savagery' and the 'heroic'
Christian resistance against the Osmanli state in Albania.1
Niazi Limanovski, a Macedonian teacher of history wrote in his
controversial book The Islamization and the Ethnic Problems of Macedonia
(1993) that:

the long influence and pressure of Islam on the spiritual life of

Macedonians suffocated their national conscience and their new Muslim
religion did not allow them to support the native Macedonian people in
the struggle against the Turco-Islamic feudal tyranny . . . The masses
of Islamized Macedonians alienated from the Macedonian nation by the
Turkish religion lost their Macedonian language and ethnic character
and they are known in the science (sic!) as Turcized or Albanized
Macedonians. They are lost forever for the Slavonic nation.2

II
In post-Yugoslav Macedonia, the absolute majority of Albanians (Shqeptarët) are
Muslims. A tiny community of Slavic-speaking Muslims of Macedonia or the
so-called Torbeshi are descendants of the Islamized medieval Slavic tribes of

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Islamic Studies 36:2, 3 (1997) 193

Timocani, Obodrici, Vainici, Velegezici, Drugovici and Sagudiaci, who invaded

the Byzantine provinces of Thessaly, Epiros, Macedonia and Lower Moesia in
the seventh century.
After the fall of Pax Osmanica in the Balkans (1908), the ancient realm
of Macedonia was aggressively contested by the Bulgarian, Greek, Albanian and
Serbian ultra-nationalists. Kosovo and Metohiya or the native lands of Muslim
Albanians were annexed by the bellicose Serbs and declared as 'the sacred
cradle of the medieval Serbian kingdom'.
The 'Macedonian', Serbian and Albanian nationalists identify the
medieval Islamization of Albanians and Slavs with the policy of Turkization of
the Balkans. Some nationalist Albanian historians like Hasan Kalesi from
Kosovo and Selam Pulaha from Tirana described the medieval Islamization of
Albania as a dialectic process which safeguarded the Shqeptarët (Albanians)
against Slavization and Hellenization.3
The recent revisionist re-examination of the history of Muslim
Europeans as well as the investigation of the Osmanli defters invigorated the
medieval studies of the Muslim Albania.
There is no doubt that during the transition from the Latino-Byzantine
oikumene into the Muslim multi-ethnic ummah many people were confronted
with political violence, religious prejudices and military brutality, played a
significant role. The Christianization of Europeans was a very violent process,
involving the extermination of 'heathens'. The Baltic Yatzvings, Galindes,
Pruses, Kurs, the Slavo-Vendic Lutices, Obodrites, Ranes and others did not

survive the crusades proclaimed by the popes and grand masters of militiae
Christi. Those who survived the Christianization by ferro ignique were turned
into the feudal helots of the powerful orders of monks-knights. It is very clear
that the social dynamics of conversion/acculturation in the Middle Ages was
closely associated with political and religious supremacy. But was Islamization
of the Albanians correlated with Turkization, like the earlier and almost similar
Islamization of the Iberian Germans and Romanized Celts was tied to the
ecumenical process of Arabization of the Andalusians and Murcians? And are
the Osmanli deftars, siçils and the charters from the Byzantine monasteries

reliable indicators of the so-called 'curve of conversion and continuity'?

The use of violence in the conversion of the Albanians to Orthodox

Christianity by the Serbian king Dushan met with ferocious resistance in

Kosovo, Albanian heartland and western Macedonia. In 719 ah/1319 ce,
Albanians revolted against the Serbian occupation from Tivar to Durrës. The
leaders of the anti-Serbian uprising wrote to the Pope John XXII that they are
"throwing off the yoke of tyrannical king of Rascia (Serbia), whose persecution
they could no longer endure". In 733 ah / 1332 ce, the Albanians from Zeta
(Montenegro) led by Dimitri Suma fought against the Serbian state and its
church until 737 ah / 1336 ce. The Serbs who are followers of the Orthodox
Church (pravoslavni) oppressed the Albanians who were Christianized by the
Roman and Greek churchmen. Albania remained a battlefield of two powerful
Christian theocracies since 577 ah / 1181 ce, when the Catholicized Normans

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 ataullah Bogdan KOPAÑSKi/lslamization of Albanians in the Middle Ages

invaded Dürres (Dyrrachion). In February 21, 1272 ce, the fanatical Catholic
king Charles I d'Anjou occupied the Albanian shores of the Adriatic Sea and
proclaimed himself the king of Albania.4
The Latin occupation of the Byzantine Albania and despotate Epiros
initiated a long struggle between the Eastern Orthodox 'schismatics' and the
Roman Catholic 'heretics'. The Muslim Osmanli Turks from the emirate of
Aydin, who were asked by the Byzantine Emperor Andronicos III for help to
restore the rule of Constantinople over the Balkans, came to know Albania in
737 ah / 1337 ce. A small contingent of Muslim crack troops sent by Umur Beg
to Macedonia smashed the Albanian invaders of Thessaly and Epiros. When the
Serbian 'empire' of Czar Dushan collapsed in 1355, the local Serb, Albanian,
Latin and Greek warlords partitioned Shqeptaria. The Norman-Gegian clan of
Balsha (Balsa) in the north, and the Toskian feudals from Thopia family in the
south, emerged as the most bellicose parties in 'Arberia'. The Balsha warlords
who overran the coastland between Durrës (Durazzio, Dyrrachion, Dyrrachium)
and Shköder (Skadar, Skodra) came into conflict with Trvtko, a Slavic ruler of
Bosnia and they antagonized the Serbian feudals of Zeta (Montenegro). As long
as Balshas confronted the Slavic feudals, the Thopias were supportive allies of
their northern kinsmen, but when the Balsha warlords established their own
tribal statelet from Avlona to Prizen, the threatened Thopias asked the Muslim
Turks for military assistance against them. Carlo Thopia of Durrës asked for
direct Turkish intervention in 787 ah / 1385 ce. The Muslim ghazis from the
Turkish frontier corps (udj) remained stationed near Yanina in the southern
Albania since 783 ah / 1381 ce as the 'rapid reaction forces' of the Byzantines.
The Emperor John V Cantacuzenos, whose daughter Theodora was married to
the sultan Orhan, recognized the Osmanli suzerainty over the ex-Byzantine
Balkan 'Romaioi'.5
The Muslim udj-begs established their own 'security zones' between

despotate Epiros, Thessaly, controlled by the Catalan mercenaries and the

Albanian frontier land called by the Turkish chronicles as the Karl-ili, or "the
land of Carlo". They responded positively to Carlo Thopia's appeal for help and
several special mountain units of the Muslim peace-keeping troops from western
Macedonia intervened in the civil war of Albanians. Balsha II's forces were
routed and Balsha himself was killed by the Muslim troops in the fierce battle
of Savra on the bank of Vijose river on Sha'bän 12, 787 ah (Sept. 18, 1385).
After the crushing defeat of Balshas, the Albanian warring feudal families
acknowledged the power of the sultan Murad I over their fiefs. In 1387, Balsha
and Dukagjin clans recognized the Muslim rule over Albania. As the Muslim
sultan's vassals, the Albanian warlords participated in the military expeditions
aimed at the conquest of Serbia and Bosnia. Shihab al-DTn Shähln Pasha of
Kavala and Gjergi (George) Stratzimirovic of Shköder invaded Bosnia several
times but their raids were halted in 1388. However, one year later the Muslim
army of Murad I defeated the multi-ethnic Christian army led by the Serbian
prince Lazar in the first battle of Kosovo Polje in 791 ah / 1389 ce. The
Albanian Christian vassals of the sultan Bayezid I fought in the tragic battle of

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Islamic Studies 36:2, 3 (1997) 195

Angora against the Turkoman army led by Tamerlenk Khan in 804 λη / 1404 cf..
The Albanian auxiliary troops were led by Dimitri Yonima, Gjin Dushmani,
Nicola Zaccaria and Gjergj Dukagjin. But during the hiatus of Osmanli power,
several Albanian feudals betrayed the Turks and recognized the Venetian

overlordship over western Albania. Among those disloyal vassals was Ivan

Kastrioti, Niketas Thopia and Nicola Zaccaria. When emir Suleiman restored
pax Islamica in Rumelia, Serbia and Albania in 812 ah / 1410 ce, Yigid Pasha
of Uskub (Skopje) extorted a pledge of allegiance ('besa' according to the
Albanian code of honour called Leka Law) from Ivan Kastrioti, a Serbo
Albanian warlord who occupied a part of northern Epiros, where two powerful
feudal clans of Shpata and Toccas fought for supremacy over the Toskas

(southern Albanians).
During the First Turko-Italian War (812-820 ah/1415-1417 ce) against
the Venetians, who occupied the coastal Albania, the Osmanli state established
a new sandjak, Arnawud-ili, between Yanina and Akca-hisar (Kroia) with a
capital in Agryrocastro (later Ergiri). Conversion to Islam was not a condition

for proprietorship of timar, but many Albanian timar-holders embraced Islam

in the early stage of the Osmanli supremacy over Shqeptaria. In 834 ah / 1430

ce, the sultan Murad II took Yanina after the death of the despot Carlo Tocca
and supported his Serbian vassal Stephen Lazarevic against the Venetians in

Gegeria (the northern Albania). In 836 ah / 1432 ce there were no more than
800 Turkish settlers in Albania, they were mostly sipahis (knights), preaching
dervishes, and imams of mosques. Many of them were massacred by the Araniti
and Thopia Zenebissi clansmen who, incited by the papacy, Hungary, Venice
and king Alfonso V of Naples, rebelled against Ali Evrenos-zade, the Muslim
governor of Arnawud-ili. In 837 ah / 1434 ce. Sinan Beg, the governor of
Rumelia quelled the rebellion but the Araniti feudals fled to the mountains of the

north Albania. The Araniti mutiny did not affect the process of Islamization of
Albanians, when Gjergj i (George) Kastrioti, a son of Ivan Kastrioti and son-in
law of the rebellious Araniti chief, joined the anti-Muslim band of guerrillas.6
The young George Kastrioti was removed from the post of subashi of
Akça-hisar (Kriije) in 840 ah / 1440 ce by the sandjak-pasha of Ergiri, because
of his treacherous behaviour. He tried unsuccessfully to form a kind of anti
Muslim confederation with other Albanian feudals during the Alessio (Lëzhe)
Gathering in March 1444, but the clans of southern and central Albania refused
to join his bands which never exceeded more than 3,000 outlaws. In the

beginning of his crusade, coordinated with the Hungarians and Venetians, the
sandjakbegs of Ohrida and Berat were able to cope with the terrorist attacks, but
when he became a vassal of the pope of Rome Eugenius IV and the Aragonese

king of Naples Alfonso V,7 and the rebellious Araniti clan joined his bands in
the south, the tiny Muslim forces in Albania were in trouble. The Kastrioti and
other seditious feudals received annually 1400 golden ducats, weapons and
gunpowder from the popes Nicholas V, Calixtus III, Pius II and the king
Alfonso V.

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 ataullah Bogdan kopañski/lslamization of Albanians in the Middle Ages

Kastrioti's bands were very active during the Second Turko-Venetian

War in Albania (868-884 ah / 1463-1479 ce), but the Muslim forces were able
to recapture Akça-Hisar, Drivasto, Lëzhe, Shköder and Durrës from the hands
of the Venetians and Kastrioti's rebels in the end of 907 ah /1501 ce.
In 1571 ce, the Muslim troops controlled the whole of Albania from
Yanina to Durrës. The end of the Venetian occupation of Albania was the

beginning of the era of peace and prosperity for Albanians. Thirty Grand Vezirs
of Albanian origin wisely ruled in Istanbul. The Küprüli family was the most
famous of them all. Peter Mazreku, a legate of the Pope of Rome, who was of
Albanian origin, investigated the rapid decline of Christianity in Albania, wrote
in his report that in 1624, an absolute majority of the Albanians were Muslims.
His account was verified in 1638 by Gregory Bardhi, archbishop of Tivar. The
Albanian nobility and townfolk from Kosovo were totally Islamized in the end
of the 17th century.8

III
The mass conversion of Albanians to Islam raises the question: what motivated
these anarchic and bellicose highlanders to give up their Christian lifestyle? The
Muslim historians are inclined to explain that the new faith permitted them to
live in dignity and freedom from the constantly crusading churches of the East
and the West. Certainly, Islam appeared to the Albanians as the powerful force
of the Osmanli Turks capable of liberating them from the feudal yoke of the
Orthodox Serbs and the Catholic Venetians. The new converts in Albania
obtained a broad range of new intellectual and religious power which made it
possible for them to assimilate all vital components of the Muslim multi-ethnic
culture enjoyed by the Turks, Arabs and other Islamized peoples in Asia and
Africa.9
The papal legate, Marino Bizzi, who visited Albania in 1610, wrote that
the spreading of Islam among the Albanians by "zealous hodjas and sincere
mullahs is lively and exuberant".10 Between 1620 and 1650, more than 300,000
Christian Albanians embraced Islam."
The Islamization of Albanians was a gradual process involving the
embracing of Muslim civilization rather than a sudden rejection of Christianity.
The absence of a planned policy of coercive Islamizaiton in the 'Ottoman
Empire' contrasted very sharply with the Christian policy of cuius regio eius
religio in post-Islamic Spain, Sicily and Kandia (Crete), where Muslims were
totally exterminated. On the contrary, the Muslim authorities in Egypt and Syria
did not expel the Copts, Maronites and Syriac Christians after the collapse of the
Christian states. However, many of the native Christians zealously collaborated
with the Latin crusaders.
This absence of the Osmanli policy of coercive Islamization was the
greatest success of the Turkish sultans and the most efficient instrument of
removing of the ecclesiae adscripti Catholics and the Orthodox Christians from
the clutches of bishops and patriarchs in Albania. The Turkish conquerors of the
Balkans were ghazis who fought for Islam and enthusiasticly welcomed every

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Islamic Studies 36:2, 3 (1997) 197

single new convert, but they did not have recourse to explicit intimidation in
order to increase the number of Muslims in their multi-religious commonwealth.
The most powerful agent of Islamization of the Albanians was neither the
victorious scimitar of the Turks nor the decadence of the Christian churches but
the missionary zeal of the Sufi dervishes and wandering hodjas, who tirelessly
preached the words of the Qur'än long before the Osmanli military conquest of
the Balkans.12
In the nineth century, the Sicilian, Andalusian and Maghribi Muslim
merchants established their trade colonies in the Illyrian and Dalmatian
coastland. Ulcinj, the medieval port between Albania and Montenegro, was held
by Muslims for two centuries. Many 'Sakaliba' from Carinthiaand Dalmatiaor
the Slavic Croats, Slovenians, Serbs, and definitely the Illyrian Albanians,
accepted Islam in Muslim Spain, where they served as the 'Mute Guard' of the
Ummayad amirs. After the fall of the emirate of Bari in Apulia, and later, after
the collapse of the Islamic state in Sicily, many Italian Muslim migrants
preferred to settle in the pastoral land of Albania and Dalamatia than to return
to the Islamic North Africa which had been ravaged by petty Arab and Berber
tyrants. Persecuted by the new Norman invaders of Albania, these Muslim
Sicilians and Lombards either became crypto-Muslims or moved further into the
Balkan wilderness. Probably the Muslim refugees from Sicily and southern Italy
influenced the anti-trinitarian founders of Bosanska Crkva (Bosnian Church),
incorrectly identified with the Bulgarian para-Christian sect of Bogomils, who
were themselves inspired by the Paulian dissenters deported by the Byzantine
Emperors from Asia Minor to Bulgaria and Macedonia. The medieval Albanians
and Bosnians were in fact introduced to Islam four centuries before the arrival
of the Turks.
In 979 AH/ 1571 ce, the Albanian-origin sea-ghazi Ulj Ali from Algiers
recaptured the Montenegrin port Ulcinj from the Venetians and transformed it
into the navy base of Algerian Albanians and Moorish Africans. In Ulcinj, the
Sudanese Muslims from Bagrimi near Lake Chad intermarried with Albanians
and their dark-skinned descendants became the most numerous inhabitants in the
town until 1914, when the Serbs from Crnagora (Montenegro) massacred them.
The Black Albanians of Ulcinj spoke Arabic and "their women have always
covered and still cover their faces and refuse to give up that custom".13

IV
According to the popular legend of the eastern European Muslims, Baba Sari
Saltik was the first apostle of Islam in the Balkans, who converted in 1261 ce,
in Dobruja (Moldavia), several hundred Pecheneg Vlach and Bulgar noblemen.
The famous Ibn Battütah visited his tomb {turbe) in Babadag, a border town
between the Turkic-controlled Bessarab and the Byzantine Bulgaria. Baba Sari
Saltik travelled to Bosnia and Albania where he established his tekkes or Sufi
lodges under the facade of Christian hermitages. His disciples, disguised as the
Catholic or Orthodox monks, preached Islam to the Albanians and Bosnians who
were well known to the crusading popes of Rome as the heretical 'Babuns' and

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 ATAULLAH Bogdan KOPAÑSKi/lslamization of Albanians in the Middle Ages

'Theophiles'. Evliya Chelebi, the famous Turkish traveller and chronicler, who
visited Albanian sandjaks in the seventeenth century, identified the legendary
preacher Baba Sari Saltik as Muhammad BukhârT, a disciple of Shaykh Ahmad
Yasavi from Khorasan (d. 1137 ce). According to Chelebi and the local Muslim
legends, he came from Turkestan with forty Turkoman murzas as a beg of the
Tatar emir Nogay. Other oral traditions identified him with a Tatar aga of Berke
(Barakah) Khan, the Muslim ruler of the Golden Horde. He converted to Islam

many Poles, Lithuanians, Hungarians, Vlachs, Kumans, Pechengs, Bulgars and

Germans. Later he preached Islam in Albania and Bosnia. Like the Christian
saints in the Serbian and Greek legends, Baba Sari Saltik healed the sick, killed
dragons and worked miracles. Baba Sari Saltik is also declared a dede or pir by
the Albanian and Bosnian Bektashis. According to one of the numerous legends,
Sari Saltik killed 'Sviatiy Nicola' (the Western Santa Claus) and in his robes he
converted to Islam thousands of Russians and Prussians in the Baltic port of

Danzig (Gdansk). He also converted to Islam the prince of Georgia.14

A large number of rural Albanians were converted to Islam by the Sufi
preachers of Naqshbandiyyah and Qädiriyyah orders, mostly disciples of Shaykh
'Abd Allah al-Iâhl and Shaykh Shams al-Dm al-BukharT.
The Osmanli census of 860 ah (1455 ce) in the sandjaks of Albania
authenticates the phenomenon of mass conversion of the Shqeptari peasants to
Islam in Kosovo, Metohija and Macedonia, particularly in the region of
Kustendil and Kretova.15
The spread of Islam brought to the almost illiterate Albania the Arabic

script in which the great works of Shqeptari 'Al-Jamiado' literature had been
written.16

Islamization in Albania had proceeded faster in the higher urbanized

sandjaks of Elbasan, Shköder, Prizen, Vlora, Devlina, and Ohrida than in the
remote regions of the northern Albanian Alpines, where a primitive form of
Catholicism prevailed among the nomadic Klementi and Mirditi tribes.17
The Albanian Muslim militia defended Algiers and Tunis against the
Christian pirates, the Knights of Malta, and the Spanish armadas of Charles V
and Philip II. Famous beylerbeys of Algiers, Ulj Ali, and Khayr-al-DIn
Barbarossa who defeated the Spaniards in Tunis (1569 ce) were of Albanian
origin. In Damascus, the Albanian Sufi shaykhs and scholars established their
own Sufi order, Sa'diyyah, so called because it was founded in 1335 by Sa'd al
DTn al-JibawT. This order had tekkes in every Albanian city. One of the best
known Albanian shaykh of Sa'diyyah order was Baba Suleiman Adzidzi from
Gjakova.
The curve of conversion of the medieval Albanians to Islam evaluated
by the 'defterological' surveying of the Muslim and Christian hanes or
households in selected districts is a highly speculative method of estimation of
the medieval Islamization, particularly in the urbanized areas, where madrasahs,
Sufi orders, and ghäzi flituwwah, as well as 'sürgüned' Muslim settlers made
da'wah to the natives. Islamization of Albanians also cannot be assessed by the
number of timar-holders and described as an act of economic opportunism of

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Islamic Studies 36:2, 3 (1 997) 199

those who embraced Islam and who, in European historical works, are termed
as 'renegades'. This is notwithstanding the fact that many scholars honesty feel
otherwise.18
All scholarly efforts to reduce and subtract the percentage of Muslims
in the medieval Arnavut-ili and Rum-ili are suppressed by the historically
irremovable fact that about 65 per cent of Albanian population were at least

nominal Muslims after the coup d'etat of the Young Turks in 1908.

ν
In the Central State Archives of the Albanian Republic (Arkivat Qëndrore
Shtetërore të Republikës së Shqipërisë), and in the Archives of the Institute of
History (Arkivat e Institut të Historisë) there are more than eight hundred
Islamic manuscripts written in the Arabic script. Many of them are the works
of medieval Persian poets, Arab jurists, Indian Sufis, Albanian Muslim writers
and Turkish chroniclers. Among the fifteenth century manuscripts which have
survived the Communist book-burning are works of Albanian fuqaha' and
'ulama'. The most valuable documents of the medieval Islamic literature and
culture of the Albanians were donated to the state libraries by the Bushati
Muslim noblemen who were the administrators of Shköder. Kara Mahmud
Bushati's collection of manuscripts and Mustafa Pasha Bushati's corpus of

precious incunabula clearly demonstrate that in the fifteenth century ce, Albania
was an integral part of Islamic civilization which determined the cultural and
religious life of the Albanians."
The monuments of Islamic architecture and inscriptions which survived
the barbarious Enver Hoxha's 'cultural revolution' in 1967 also indicate that the
Osmanli sultans and 'ulama' took personal responsibility to carry on da 'wah and

preserve the Islamic way of life in Albania. They built whole new cities such as
Korçe, Tirana, Elbasan, Ak-Hisar (Kriije) and Telepenë and promoted the
urbanization of small villges and towns like Kavajë, Uskiib (Skopje), and Peqin.
A significant role in the Islamization of the ancient realm of Albania
and Macedonia was played by the members of the Osmanli élite of power who
were of Shqeptari-origin.
The narrative travel books and reports written by the Christian voyagers
and spies in the late Middle Ages authenticate the advanced process of
Islamization and urbanization of the Albanian pastoral society. Marino Sanuto,
Paolo Jovio, Pierre Belon, Nocolas Nicolay, Charlie de Pinon, Phillipo
Lonicero, Caesare Vecelli, Lorenzo Bernardo, Robert Whiters and other

Western European peregrinators who visited the Albanian sandjaks in the

sixteenth and seventeenth centuries corroborate the cultural and religious
transformation of Albanians from the Christian-dominated tribal populace into
the urbanized Muslim millet.
The best statistical illustration of the Islamization of Albanians are the
Osmanli year books (saínames), tax registers (tahrirs) of the Albanian vilayets,
religious directives of 'ulama' and muftis and registers of the qadt courts
(sidjils). Most of the medieval Turkish documents are located in the archives of

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 ATAULLAH Bogdan kopañski/lslamization of Albanians in the Middle Ages

Istanbul (Basbakanlik Arsivi, Top-kapu arsivi), Ankara (Tapu ve Kadestro),

Skopje, Berat and Sarajevo. Halil Inalcik, a renowned Turkish historian,
published some of them which depict the medieval southern and central
Albania.20 Selami Pulaha, a historian from Tirana, published several tahrirs from
the northern Albania21 and compiled the Muslim Turkish descriptions of the
early Islamization of Albania. However, he abridged and censored the Osmanli
annals according to the exigencies of politics and the ideological directives of the
ruling Albanian leftist nationalists.22
One of the richest single sources for the Islamization of Albanians is the
famous travel book, Seyahat-name, written by the Muslim sojourner Evliya
Chelebi, who travelled to Albanian sandjaks in the seventeenth century.23
The· medieval Muslim annalists like Ahmedi, Shukrullah, Oruch, the
anonymous Turkish author of Tevarikh-i al-i Othman, Dervish Ashik-pasha
Fashazade, Mehmed Neshri, Tursuni, Kevami, Idris Bitlisi, Kamal Pashazade,
Nishankhi, Hodja Sadeddin, Ali, Sollakzade, Hadji Calpha and Mynekhimbashi
lavishly described the political panorama and cultural demeanour of the
Albanians during the Osmanli conquests.
Many registers of the orders of sultans (muhimmes), and endowment
deeds (yakipiames) from the Albanian sandjaks located in the Turkish archives
still await careful and competent examination. The Osmanli governmental
departments collected several thousands of tax-registers and letters from the
Albanian provinces of the Islamic commonwealth and collected them in the
archives of Istanbul from the early decades of the fifteenthcentury until 1908.
Until recently, however, these extraordinarily rich sources of the history of
Islamization in Albania, Epiros, Macedonia, Rumelia, Bosnia and Herzegovina
were totally neglected. The Kemalist regime destroyed tens of thousands of

precious documents which illustrated the glorious past of Islam in Europe. In

1931, two tons of historical records and charters from the Osmanli State Council

(Divan-i Humayun and the Chancery of Grand Vezir (Bab-i Asalfi) were sold
as a waste paper for recycling to the Bulgarian paper-mills. Hundreds of
documents signed by the Osmanli sultans comprising priceless medieval ahti
names, fermans, berats, hatt-i humayuns, personal epistles written by veziers,
governors, and agas, 'ulama' directives, registers of fiefs (timar defterleri) from
Albanian and other European sandjaks, perished in the annus terribilis of 1924.
Fortunately, in 1929 P.Dorev, a Bulgarian orientalist and then in 1936
a group of Bosnian historians — S. Stanojeviô, G. Elezowic, F. Bajraktarevic
and B. Durdev — copied hundreds of Muslim manuscripts from the archival
collections of Istanbul.24 Microfilms of these documents that were subsequently
destroyed are now available in Skopje, Belgrade and Sarajevo.
Unfortunately, hundreds of these invaluable microfilms perished in the
devastated Oriental Institute of Sarajevo during the savage bombardment of the
capital of Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1994. The Serbian self-appointed 'defenders
of antemurale Christianitatis Europae' deliberately targeted the monuments and
documents of the Islamic heritage in Bosnia, hoping thereby to annihilate all
traces of the medieval Islamic cultural presence in Eastern Europe.

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Islamic Studies 36:2, 3 (1997) 201

Machiel Kiel, a Dutch scholar, has recently presented the most

systematic examination of the existing relics of Islamic architecture and

inscriptions in Albania.25 The most serviceable non-Muslim anthology of the

medieval primary sources for the history of Albania is still the collection of
documents known as Acta et Diploma Res Albaniae Aetatis illustrantia which
was published in a two-volume edition by L.de Thalloczy, C. Jiricek and E. de
Suffay in Vienna (1913-1918). Also Acta Albaniae Veneta Saeculorum XIV et
XV, edited in 24 volumes by J. Valentini in Palermo-Milan-Rome between 1967
and 1977, is an indispensible corpus of documents for every serious student of
the Albanian past.
Many historical events which took place in Albania during the Middle
Ages are recorded in annals and manuscripts amassed in the 19th century by
G.M. Thomas and R. Predelli in a compendium called Diplomatarium Veneto
Levantinum, sive Acta et Diplomata res Venetas, Greacas, ataque Levantis

illustrantia a 1330-1454, published in Venice (1880-1889). There are many

interesting charters, letters and secret messages about Islamization of Albania in

the State Archives of Venice (Archives di Stato de Venezia). In documenti turci

conserved by the Venetian archivists we find a letter of the sultan Bayezid II to
Signoria (the Republic of Venice) written in Rajab, 891 ah (3-12 July, 1486),
with a rather unique data about sandjak-beys and qâdîs in Albania. Stefano
Magno's chronicle Annali Veneti e del Mondo contains the most objective
Christian coverage of Islamization of Albanians (Shqeptarët) and the historical
details about the Muslim conquest of George Kastrioti-Skanderbeg's stronghold
in Akçe-Hisar (Krüje, Kroia) in 1471-1481 ce. His sources of information,
however, are questionable and often even unreliable.26 Hamid Hadzibegic,
Nedim Filipovic and Bronislav Djurjev from Bosnia published the law codes
(kanun-name) from the sandjak of Shköder (Skadar) in the monumenta Turcica
Historiam Slavorum Meridionalium Illustrandia (the massive compilation of
Turkish records of history of the Southern Slavs).27
The Macedonian historian, Alexander Matkovski, edited a monumental

collection of the travel reports on the medieval Albania written by Muslim and

Christian visitors.28

VI
In European archives, the Christian anti-Turkish war propaganda pamphlets and
the anti-Islamic hate-literature relating to the medieval Albania constitute a

significant part of turcica. Among the turcica et albanica the hagiographie

curriculum vitae of George Kastrioti-Skanderbeg plays the most important role
in the psychological war against Islam until today. George Kastrioti"called
'Skanderbeg' was a tribal leader of the anti-Muslim rebellion instigated by the
papacy, Venice and the king of Naples. He waged a long terrorist crusade
against the Muslims in the mountains of Central Albania. As a mercenary of
Alfonso V and supported financially by the popes he killed many Turkish and
Albanian Muslims. He was opposed by several pro-Turkish Albanian clans and
his own Muslim nephew Hamza Kastrioti. For his murderous campaigns George

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 ataullah Bogdan KOPAÑSKi/lslamization of Albanians in the Middle Ages

Kastrioti was rewarded by the pope with a large sum of money and political
asylum. Called by the Catholic Church athleti Christi or the 'champion of
Christ', he collaborated with Janos Hunyadi, the Hungarian 'athleti Christi',
who massacred the Muslim settlers in Slavonia, Banat and Srijem. Kastrioti
failed to unite the Christian tribal chieftains of Albania and Epiros against the
victorious Turks, who defeated a great pan-Christian coalition in the battle of
Varna in 1444. Kastrioti-Skanderbeg's close ally, the atrocious Vallachian
hospodar Vlad Tepes Dracula 'Impaler' (son of Vlad Devil), was totally defeated
by Murad II's Janissaries. In 1560, Marino Barleti (Barlezio, Barletius), a
Christian expatriate from 'Arbenia' published in Venice his Historia del
Magnanimo et Valoroso Signor Geòrgie Castrioto detto Scanderbego, dignissimo
Principe de gli Albani. Barleti's bombastic biography of the Albanian rebel was
an Italian version of his original manuscript written in Rome probably in 1509.
There are numerous well-preserved copies of Barleti's biography of Kastrioti
Skanderbeg printed in the sixteenth century in all European languages. Those
incunabula are plagiarist renditions of Barleti's Latin original Historia de Vita
et Gestis Skanderbegi Epirotarum Principis. The large numbers of this 16th
century 'bestseller' suggest that it was the favourite book of the Christian war

propagandists designed to stimulate a violent resistance against the Muslims in

the era of the triumphal expansion of Islam.29

Interestingly, in the original Latin version of Barleti's book, the anti

Turkish rebel is called a 'prince of Epiros'. His mother was a Serbian woman.
In the later European translations he is the 'Albanian prince'. The name Iskander

given to George Kastrioti by his followers recalls the memory of Alexander the
Great, the ancient Macedonian slayer of the Persians who was also 'Albanized'
by the modern Albanian nationalists.
Revered by the Christian propagandists as a new Albanian incarnation
of the mythical Spanish el-Cid, Kastrioti-Skanderbeg was depicted by the
Muslim chroniclers, Ashikzade Pasha and Munadjidjim Pasha, as a petty,
perfidious traitor and papal stooge. He died as a broken old man after the fall
of his last ramparts on January 18, 1468 and his family embraced Islam. He was
a petty feudal warlord from Central Albania who was skilfully used by popes,
by the king of Naples, and by the Venetians. He switched political sides several
times during the Turco-Venetian war when cash did not come to him from Italy.
He was definitely not an Albanian Roderigo Diaz de Vivar 'el-Cide' or the semi
legendary Spanish slayer of Muslims in Valencia; rather he was 'Ibn Hafsun' of
Albania.
Both modern Marxist and Christian nationalist Albanian myth-makers
elevated this feudal insurgent to the position of their greatest idol. Karl Marx
considered Georgius Castriotus Epirotarum de Turcis Skanderbeg dictus as the
defender of Europe against the most powerful Asiatic state which "opposed
historical development and progress".
There are many realistic and allegorical portraits of Kastrioti in various
museums and castles of Europe.30 There are also several 16th century woodcuts,
book illustrations and drawings which present Skanderbeg 'the King of Albania'

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Islamic Studies 36:2, 3 (1997) 203

fighting 'against the Persians' who resembles an ancient Roman centurion or a

biblical king of Judea (vide. Domenicus Custos, Francesco Zucchi, Andrea

Bianchi). Some 18th and 19th century European artists portrayed him as the

Spartan King Leonidas, turbaned sage of the East, etc. The nineteenth century
Italian painter S. Polarolli presented Kastrioti-Skanderbeg as a fully armoured
knight in a crusader's mantle. In 1900 the Christian fundamentalists who
received political asylum in USA established the Skanderbeg Prize for writers
and artists who will write or paint anti-Turkish and anti-Islamic works. In 1902,
this award was received by Jeronim de Rada, and in 1906 by Theohar Gjini who
painted many anti-Turkish pictures exhibited in Paris. Na'im Frasheri, an
Albanian freemason, published in Romania in 1898 his anti-Turkish novel,
Skander Beg. Earlier, in 1833, Benjamin Disraeli, the Jewish Prime Minister of
England, wrote his fictitious story The Rise of Iskander, about the 'Greek hero
Skanderbeg' who fought the 'Turkish Peril'. However, not all British writers,
politicians and historians were anti-Turkish in the era of the colonial crusade
against the Osmanli Caliphate. The British scholar, T.W. Arnold, explored a
huge number of the medieval Latin sources on Islamization of Europe and he

refuted the myth of coercive conversion of Albanians to Islam in his The

Preaching of Islam, published in 1896. But in 1937, the westernized secularist

power élite in Tirana wanted to erect a huge monument to their medieval anti

Islamic hero. They applied to foreign sculptors like Croatian N. Augustinic,

Italian R. Romanelli and Bulgarian P. Pejev, because the Albanian artists
refused to undertake such a work. Enver Hoxha, the Stalinist dictator of

Albania, ordered to place a bronze monument of the anti-Islamic rebel in front

of a mosque built in Tirana by Hadji Edhem Beg in 1208 ah / 1794 ce.
After the fall of Communist dictatorship in Albania, several Muslim
revivalist and revisionist historians refuted the myth of the 'national hero'.
Recently, some Western historians have written very balanced and objective
books on Islam in Albania. Their historical inquiries have contributed much to

correcting the previous 'Ottoman studies'. These scholars tend to describe the
Islamic culture of Albanians as a unique contribution to European civilization.31

'R. Marmallaku, Albania and the Albanians (London: Routlege & Kegan Paul, 1975); I.
Kocollari, Arvanitet (Tirana: Albin, 1994); S. Pollo and A. Puto, History of Albania from its
Origins to the Present Days, tr. C. Wiesman and G. Hole (London: Routlege & Kegan Paul, 1981).
2N. Limanovski, Islamizatzya e etnichkite promeni vo Makedonya (Skopje: Makedonska Kinga,
1993), p. 417.
"Das türkische Vordringen auf dem Balkan und die Islamisierung — Faktoren fur
3H. Kalesi,
der Erhaltung der ethinsche und nationalen Existenz des albanischen Volkes" in G. Stadmüller,
Südosten Europa unter dem Halbmond, zum 65. Geburtstag gewidmet, ed. P. Bart) and H. Glassi
(München: 1975), pp. 135-138.
'Acta et Diplomata res Albaniae mediae aetetis illustrantia, ed., L. de Thalloczy, C. Jiricek,
E. de áuffay, vol. 1, nos. 269, 283, pp. 77,81.
5D. Dennis, "The Reign of Manuel II Paleologus in Thessalonica, 1382-1387", Orientalia
Christiana Annalecta, no. 159 (Rome: 1960), p. 35.

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 ataullah Bogdan KOPAÑSKi/lslamization of Albanians in the Middle Ages

6H. Inalcik, "Arnawutluk", in ISlam Ansiklopedisi (Istanbul: Milli Egitim, 1940), vol. 1,
pp. 582-586.
7C. Marinesco, "Alphonse V, roi d'Aragon et de Naples, et l'Albanie de Scanderbeg" in
Melanges de l'ecole Roumanie en France (Paris: 1923), pp. 34-56; J. Radonic, "Djordj Kastrioti
Skanderbeg i Arbaniya u XV vyeku", SAN no. 35 (1942), pp. 20-21; F. Pall, "Skanderbeg et lanco
Hunedoara" in Revue des études sud-est européens, vol. 6 (1968), pp. 10-14.
"E. Rossi, "Saggio sul dominio turco e l'introduzione dell' islam in Albania" in Revista
d'Albania, 1942, fsc. 4; N. Borgia, l monaci basiliani d'Italia in Albania. Appunti di storia
missionaria, secoli XVI-XVIII, (Rome, 1935), vol. I, pp. 34-67.
"S. Skendi, 'Religion in Albania during the Ottoman Rule' in Südostforschungen, vol. 15,
(1956), pp. 311-327.
'""Relatione della visita fatta da me, Marino Bizzi, Arcivescoro d'Antivari, nelle parti della
Turchia, Antivari, Albania, e Servia, alla Santita di Nostro Signore Paolo Quinto", Roma:
Bibliotheca Barberina, 1610, MS No. LXIII, 13, passim. (Croatian translation of Marino Bizzi's
report, vide: F. Racki, 'Izvjestaj Barskoga Nadbiskupa Marino Bizzi o svoyem putovanyu god. 1610
po Arbanskoy i Staroy Srbyi' in Starine (Zagreb, 1888), vol. 20, pp. 12-29.
"Voyages de Pietro Della Valle, Rouen: R. Machuel, 1745, vol. I, p. 37. See also Notize
universali dello stato di Albania de Monsignore Vincenzo Zmaievich, arcivescoro di Antivari
esaminate nelle Congregationi Generali de Propaganda Fide di tt Debr. 1703-1712, Feb. 1704,
Bibliotheca Barberina, Rome, MS. No. L. 126.
I2P. Bartl, Die Albanischen Muslime zur Zeit der naktionalen Unbhängigkeitsbewegung
(Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassovitz, 1968), pp. 16-26.
I3A. Lopasic, "A Negro Community in Yugoslavia", Man, vol. 58, (1958), p. 171. See also
D. Petrovii, "Crni u Ulcinju", in Etnologski Preglad (1972), vol. 10, pp. 31-36.
I4H. Kalesi, "Albanische Legend um Sari Saltik", De Études Balkaniques et Sud-Est
Européens, Actes du Premier Congrès Internationale (Sofia, 1971), vol. 7, pp. 11-149; Also G.M.
Smith, "Some Turbes and Maqams od Sari Saltuq an early Anatolian Turkish Gazi Saint" in Turcica,
vol. 15 (1982), pp. 216-225. See also F.W. Hasluck, Christianity and Islam under the Sultans
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1929), vol. 2, p. 577.
"A. Stojanovski, I. Eren, "Kretovskata nahija voXVI vijek", GlasnikNacionalnogoInstituía
u Skopje, vol. 15 (1971), no. 1, pp. 60-92.
"Ή. KaleSi, "Albanska Aljamiado knizevnost", Prilozi za Orientalnog Filologji, no. 17
(1966-67), (Sarajevo: 1967-67), pp. 49-61.
I7S. Rizaj, "The Islamization of the Albanians during the XVth and XVIth Centuries", Studia
Albanica (1985), vol. 1, pp. 129-130.
'"H.W. Lowry Jr., Studies in Defterology. Ottoman Society in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth
Centuries (Istanbul: Isis Press, 1992).
"G. E. Lohja, "Islamic Manuscripts in Albania", Gazi Husrev Beg, vol. 1, no. 3 (1994),
pp. 23-24.
■"'H. Inalcik, Hiçri 835 tarihli Siiret-i Defter-i Sançak-i Arvanid (Ankara: T.T.K, 1988).
2,S. Pulaha, Defteri i Regjistrimi té sanxhakut té Shkodrés i Vitit 1485 (Tirana: TU, 1974).
22S. Pulasha, "Matériaux en langue Osmano-Turque des Archives Albanaises concernant
l'Albanie du XVIe au XIXe
siede", in Studia Albanica, vol. 3 (1966), pp. 187-198; Idem, Le
Cadastre de l'an 1485
du Sandjak de Shkoder (Tirana: 1974); Idem. Lufta Shqiptaro-Turke ne
Shekullin XV. Burime Osmane (Tirana: Universiteti Shtëtëror i tiranës, 1968).
23E. Celebi, Ptepis, trans, and ed. S. Dimitrov, BAN (Sofia: Institut za Balkanstika),
pp. 223-56.
24J. Reychman, "Archiva tureckie i ich znaczenie dia nauki europejskiej" in Archeion, no. 34,
(1961), Warsaw, pp. 123-135. See also A. Sacerdoteanu, "ArhiveledeStatdin Peninsula Balcanica"
in Balcania, no. 4 (1941), pp. 440-444.
25M. Kiel, Ottoman Architecture in Albania (1385-1912) (Istanbul: Research Centre for
Islamic History, Art and Culture, 1410/1990).
2"S. Magno, Annali Veneti e del Mondo, vol. IV, Bibliotheca Correr, Venice, MS, Cicogna,
3529-3533.

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Islamic Studies 36:2, 3 (1997) 205

27B. Dzurdzev, Ν. Filipovié, Η. Hadzibegic, "Kanun-name za Bosnaski, Hercegovacki,

Zvornicki, Kliski, Crnogorski i Skadarski Sandzak" in Monumenta Turcica Historiam Slavorum
Meridionalium Illustrantia (Sarajevo: 1957).
™Makedoniya vo delata na stranskitepatopisy, 1377-1777, ed. A. Matkovski (Skopje: Misla,
1991).
"There are many printed copies of M. Barlezio's biography of Skanderbeg in several
European libraries and archives. The best guide to these albanica is C. Gollner's Turcica, Die
europaischen Turkendrucke des XVI Jahrhunderts, II Band, MDL-MDC, Bucarest-Baden-Baden:
Editura Academiei Romania & Verlag Librairie Heitz Gmbh, MCMIXVIII (1958). In my research
work I cite his book translated into the 16th century Polish language by Cyprian Bazylik in 1569,
vide: Historya o Zywocie y Zacnych sprawach Jerzego Kastryota, ktorego pospolicie Szkanderbegiem
ZWQ., Ksiazecia Epirenskiego, na Trzynascie ksiag rozdzielona, napisana od Maryna Berlecyusa.
Przydane sa ktemu o oblezeniu y dobywaniu Szkodzy Ksiegi Troie. Ζ*Lacinskiego jezyka na Polski
przetozone przez C. Bazylika, MDLXIX, MS, no. XVI, folio, no. 223 in the National Library at
Warsaw (Narodowa Biblioteka w Warszawie).
"'In the 16th century castle at Beauregard, France. In Bytca Castle at Zlin, Slovakia, in the
German castle of Waldburg. In Danzig (Gdansk) in Poland. In Rome, in the gallery of Uffizi of
Florence, in the town hall of Fermo, Italy.
The Albanian Communist and nationalist propagandists do not hesitate to lie about the authors
of several Kastrioti portraits. Ferid Hudhri in his Albania and Albanians in World Art published in
Athens, Greece by Christos Giovants (1990) declared Bellini and Rembrandt as the supervisors of
'painting of the great hero Skanderbeg' (op. cit., pp. 26-27).
31Vide; H. T. Norris, Islam in the Balkans:Religion and Society between Europe and the Arab
World (London: Hurst, 1993) and T. Winnifrith, Perspectives on Albania (London: Macmillan,
1992).

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 atauliah Bogdan kopañski/lslamization of Albanians in the Middle Ages

London

1911,

Institute,

shop",

the
in

Anthropological

"Albanians
Royal

Durham,
colour,
E. —

water

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Islamic Studies 36:2, 3 (1997) 207

oil

1848,

"Vlora",

Lear,

E.

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 ataullah Bogdan kopañski/lslamization of Albanians in the Middle Ages

C. Gordon, "Elbasan", 1927

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