Greek Muslims, also known as Grecophone Muslims, are Muslims of Greek ethnic origin whose adoption of Islam (and often the Turkish language and identity in more recent times) dates either from the contact of early Islamic caliphates with the Byzantine Empire or to the period of Ottoman rule in the southern Balkans and Anatolia. In more recent times, they consist primarily of descendants of Ottoman-era converts to Islam from Greek Macedonia (e.g., Vallahades), Crete (Cretan Muslims), and northeastern Anatolia (particularly in the regions of Trabzon, Gümüşhane, Sivas, Erzincan, Erzurum, and Kars).
Despite their ethnic Greek origin, the contemporary Grecophone Muslims of Turkey have been steadily assimilated into the Turkish-speaking Muslim population. Sizable numbers of Grecophone Muslims, not merely the elders but even young people, have retained knowledge of their respective Greek dialects, such as Cretan and Pontic Greek.Mackridge, Peter (1987). "Greek-speaking Moslems of north-east Turkey: prolegomena to a study of the Ophitic sub-dialect of Pontic." Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies. 11. (1): 117. Because of their gradual Turkification, as well as the close association of Greece and Greeks with Orthodox Christianity and their perceived status as a historic, military threat to the Turkish Republic, very few are likely to call themselves Greek Muslims. In Greece, Greek-speaking Muslims are not usually considered as forming part of the Greek nation.Mackridge, Peter (2010). Language and national identity in Greece, 1766–1976. Oxford University Press. p. 65. "Greek-speaking Muslims have not usually been considered as belonging to the Greek nation. Some communities of Greek-speaking Muslims lived in Macedonia. Muslims, most of them native speakers of Greek, formed a slight majority of the population of Crete in the early nineteenth century. The vast majority of these were descended from Christians who had voluntarily converted to Islam in the period following the Ottoman conquest of the island in 1669."
In the late Ottoman period, particularly after the Greco-Turkish War (1897), several communities of Greek Muslims from Crete and southern Greece were also relocated to Libya, Lebanon, and Syria, where, in towns like al-Hamidiyah, some of the older generation continue to speak Greek.Barbour, S., Language and Nationalism in Europe, Oxford University Press, 2000, Historically, Greek Orthodoxy has been associated with being Romios (i.e., Greek) and Islam with being Turkish, despite ethnicity or language.Hodgson, Marshall (2009). The Venture of Islam, Volume 3: The Gunpower Empires and Modern Times. University of Chicago Press. Chicago. pp. 262–263. "Islam, to be sure, remained, but chiefly as woven into the character of the Turkish folk. On this level, even Kemal, unbeliever as he was, was loyal to the Muslim community as such. Kemal would not let a Muslim-born girl be married to an infidel. Especially in the early years (as was illustrated in the transfer of populations with Greece) being a Turk was still defined more by religion than by language: Greek-speaking Muslims were Turks (and indeed they wrote their Greek with the Turkish letters) and Turkish-speaking Christians were Greeks (they wrote their Turkish with Greek letters). Though language was the ultimate criterion of the community, the folk-religion was so important that it might outweigh even language in determining basic cultural allegiance, within a local context."
Most Greek-speaking Muslims in Greece left for Turkey during the 1920s population exchanges under the Convention Concerning the Exchange of Greek and Turkish Populations (in return for Turkish-speaking Christians such as the Karamanlides). Due to the historical role of the millet system, religion and not ethnicity or language was the main factor used during the exchange of populations. All Muslims who departed Greece were seen as "Turks," whereas all Orthodox people leaving Turkey were considered "Greeks," again regardless of their ethnicity or language.Poulton, Hugh (2000). "The Muslim experience in the Balkan states, 1919‐1991." Nationalities Papers. 28. (1): 46. "In these exchanges, due to the influence of the millet system (see below), religion not ethnicity or language was the key factor, with all the Muslims expelled from Greece seen as "Turks," and all the Orthodox people expelled from Turkey seen as "Greeks" regardless of mother tongue or ethnicity." An exception was made for the native Muslim Pomaks and Western Thrace Turks living east of the River Nestos in East Macedonia and Thrace, Northern Greece, who are officially recognized as a religious minority by the Greek government.See Hugh Poulton, 'The Balkans: minorities and states in conflict', Minority Rights Publications, 1991.
In Turkey, where most Greek-speaking Muslims live, there are various groups of Grecophone Muslims, some autochthonous, and some from parts of present-day Greece and Cyprus.
Motivations for conversion to Islam Taxation Dhimmi were subject to the heavier tax, jizya, versus the Muslim zakat. Other major taxes were the Defter and İspençe and the more severe Haraç, whereby a document was issued which stated that "the holder of this certificate is able to keep his head on the shoulders since he paid the Haraç tax for this year..." All these taxes were waived if the person converted to Islam.Νικόλαος Φιλιππίδης (1900). Επίτομος Ιστορία του Ελληνικού Έθνους 1453–1821. Εν Αθήναις: Εκ του Τυπογραφείου Α. Καλαράκη. Ανακτήθηκε στις 23 Ιουλίου 2010.Ιωάννης Λυκούρης (1954). Η διοίκησις και δικαιοσύνη των τουρκοκρατούμενων νήσων : Αίγινα – Πόρος – Σπέτσαι – Ύδρα κλπ., επί τη βάσει εγγράφων του ιστορικού αρχείου Ύδρας και άλλων. Αθήνα. Ανακτήθηκε στις 7 Δεκεμβρίου 2010.Παναγής Σκουζές (1777–1847) (1948). Χρονικό της σκλαβωμένης Αθήνας στα χρόνια της τυρανίας του Χατζή Αλή (1774–1796). Αθήνα: Α. Κολολού. Ανακτήθηκε στις 6 Ιανουαρίου 2011.
Devşirme Greek non-Muslims were also subjected to practices like Devşirme (blood tax), in which the Ottomans took Christian boys from their families and later converted them to Islam with the aim of selecting and training the ablest of them for leading positions in Ottoman society. Devşirme was not, however, the only means of conversion of Greek Christians. Many male and female orphans voluntarily converted to Islam in order to be adopted or to serve near Turkish families.
Legal system Another benefit converts received was better legal protection. The Ottoman Empire had two separate court systems, Islamic and non-Islamic, with the decisions of the former superseding those of the latter. Because non-Muslims were forbidden in the Islamic court, they could not defend their cases and were doomed to lose every time.
Career opportunities Conversion also yielded greater employment prospects and possibilities of advancement in the Ottoman government bureaucracy and military. Subsequently, these people became part of the Muslim community of the millet system, which was closely linked to Islamic religious rules. At that time, people were bound to their millets by their religious affiliations (or their confessional communities), rather than by their ethnic origins.Ortaylı, İlber. "Son İmparatorluk Osmanlı (The Last Empire: Ottoman Empire)", İstanbul, Timaş Yayınları (Timaş Press), 2006. pp. 87–89. . Muslim communities prospered under the Ottoman Empire, and as Ottoman law did not recognize such notions as ethnicity, Muslims of all ethnic backgrounds enjoyed precisely the same rights and privileges.Eastern Europe: An Introduction to the People, Lands, and Culture, Richard C. Frucht, , ABC-CLIO, 2005, p. 803.
Avoiding slavery During the Greek War of Independence, Ottoman Egyptian troops under the leadership of Ibrahim Pasha of Egypt ravaged the island of Crete and the Greek countryside of the Morea, where Muslim Egyptian soldiers enslaved vast numbers of Christian Greek children and women. Ibrahim arranged for the enslaved Greek children to be forcefully converted to Islam en masse. The enslaved Greeks were subsequently transferred to Egypt, where they were sold. Several decades later in 1843, the English traveler and writer Sir John Gardner Wilkinson described the state of enslaved Greeks who had converted to Islam in Egypt:
A great many Greeks and Slavs became Muslims to avoid these hardships. Conversion to Islam is quick, and the Ottoman Empire did not keep extensive documentation on the religions of their individual subjects. The only requirements were knowing Turkish, saying you were Muslim, and possibly getting circumcised. Converts might also signal their conversion by wearing the brighter clothes favored by Muslims, rather than the drab garments of Christians and Jews in the empire.Sharkey, Heather J. (2009). A History of Muslims, Christians, and Jews in the Middle East. Cambridge University Press. p. 74. "To signal conversion, converts changed their clothes to brighter Muslim clothes – in the sixteenth century, for example, by abandoning the gray outer coats and flat, black-topped shoes that an edict prescribed for Christian and Jewish men."
Greek has a specific verb, τουρκεύω (tourkevo), meaning "to become a Turk."Sharkey, p. 74. "Thus, for example, a Greek verb for converting to Islam was tourkevo, meaning literally "to become a Turk." The equivalent in Serbian and other South Slavic languages is turčiti (imperfective) or poturčiti (perfective).The New Encyclopedia of Islam, ed. Cyril Glassé, Rowman & Littlefield, 2008, p.129
Greek Muslims of Pontus and the Caucasus
Geographic dispersal Pontic Greek (called Ρωμαίικα/Roméika in the Pontus, not Ποντιακά/Pontiaká as it is in Greece), is spoken by large communities of Pontic Greek Muslim origin, spread out near the southern Black Sea coast. Pontian Greek Muslims are found within Trabzon province in the following areas:Mackridge. Greek-speaking Moslems of north-east Turkey. 1987. p. 115-116.Özkan, Hakan (2013). "The Pontic Greek spoken by Muslims in the villages of Beşköy in the province of present-day Trabzon." Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies. 37. (1): 130–131.
Today these Greek-speaking MuslimsPoutouridou, Margarita (1997). " The Of valley and the coming of Islam: The case of the Greek-speaking Muslims." Bulletin of the Centre for Asia Minor Studies. 12: 47–70. regard themselves and identify as Turks.Mackridge. Greek-speaking Moslems of north-east Turkey. 1987. p. 117. "lack of any apparent sense of identity other than Turkish". Nonetheless, a great many have retained knowledge of and/or are fluent in Greek, which continues to be a mother tongue for even young Pontic Muslims.Mackridge. Greek-speaking Moslems of north-east Turkey. 1987. p. 117. Men are usually bilingual in Turkish and Pontic Greek, while many women are monolingual Pontic Greek speakers.
History Many Pontic natives were converted to Islam during the first two centuries following the Ottoman conquest of the region. Taking high military and religious posts in the empire, their elite were integrated into the ruling class of imperial society. The converted population accepted Ottoman identity, but in many instances people retained their local, native languages. In 1914, according to the official estimations of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, about 190,000 Greek Muslims were counted in the Pontus alone.Α. Υ.Ε., Κ. Υ.,Α/1920, Ο Ελληνισμός του Πόντου, Έκθεση του Αρχιμανδρίτη Πανάρετου, p.12 Over the years, heavy emigration from the Trabzon region to other parts of Turkey, to places such as Istanbul, Sakarya, Zonguldak, Bursa and Adapazarı, has occurred.Hakan. The Pontic Greek spoken by Muslims. 2013. p. 131. Emigration out of Turkey has also occurred, such as to Germany as guest workers during the 1960s.
Glossonyms