Islam in Greece is represented by two distinct communities; Muslims that have lived in Greece since the times of the Ottoman Empire (primarily in East Macedonia and Thrace) and Muslim immigrants that began arriving in the last quarter of the 20th century, mainly in Athens and Thessaloniki. Today, Muslims in Greece are mainly immigrants from West Asia (Syria, Iraq, Iran, Palestine), other Balkan regions (Turkey, Albania), South Asia (Afghanistan, Pakistan), and North Africa (Morocco, Algeria, Libya, Egypt).
Local Muslims in Greece
The Muslim population in Greece is not homogeneous, since it consists of different ethnic, linguistic, and social backgrounds which often overlap. The Muslim faith is the creed of several ethnic groups living in the present territory of Greece, namely the Pomaks, ethnic Turks, certain Romani groups, and Greek Muslims particularly of Crete, Epirus, and western Greek Macedonia who converted mainly in the 17th and 18th centuries. The country's Muslim population decreased significantly as a result of the 1923 population exchange agreement between Greece and the new Turkish Republic, which also uprooted approximately 1.5 million Greeks from Asia Minor. Many of the Muslims of Northern Greece were actually ethnic Greek Muslims from Epirus and Greek Macedonia, whereas the Muslims of Pomak and ethnic Turkish origin (the Western Thrace Turks) from Western Thrace were exempt from the terms of the population exchange. Successive Greek governments and officials consider the Turkish-speaking Muslims of Western Thrace as part of the Greek Muslim minority and not as a separate Turkish minority. This policy is aimed to give the impression that the Muslims of the region are the descendants of Ottoman-era ethnic Greek converts to Islam like the Vallahades of pre-1923 Greek Macedonia and so thereby avoid a possible future situation in which Western Thrace is ceded to Turkey on the basis of the ethnic origin of its Muslim inhabitants.See Hugh Poulton, 'The Balkans: minorities and states in conflict', Minority Rights Publications, 1991
The term Muslim minority (Μουσουλμανική μειονότητα Musulmanikí mionótita) refers to an Islamic religious, linguistic and ethnic minority in western Thrace, which is part of the Greek administrative region of East Macedonia and Thrace. In 1923, under the terms of the Treaty of Lausanne, the Greek Muslims of Epirus, Greek Macedonia, and elsewhere in mainly Northern Greece were required to immigrate to Turkey; whereas, the Christians living in Turkey were required to immigrate to Greece in an "Exchange of Populations". The Muslims of western Thrace and the Christians of Istanbul and the islands of Gökçeada and Bozcaada (Imvros and Tenedos) were the only populations not exchanged. For more information on this community, see Muslim minority of Greece.
There is also a small Muslim community in some of the Dodecanese islands (Turks of the Dodecanese) which, as part of the Italian Dodecanese of the Kingdom of Italy between 1911 and 1947, were not subjected to the exchange of the population between Turkey and Greece in 1923. They number about 3,000, some of whom espouse a Turkish identity and speak Turkish, while others are the Greek-speaking descendants of Cretan Muslims. The community is strongest in the city of Rhodes and on the island of Kos (in particular the village of Platanos).
The Pomaks are mainly located in compact villages in Western Thrace's Rhodope Mountains. While the Greek Roma community is predominantly Greek Orthodox, the Roma in Thrace are mainly Muslim.
Estimates of the recognized Muslim minority, which is mostly located in Thrace, range from 98,000 to 140,000 (between 0.9% and 1.2%)., predominantly in the area of AseaTa Nea 23 April 2010 Albanian immigrants to Greece are usually associated with the Muslim faith, although most are secular in orientation.
Immigrant Muslims in Greece The first immigrants of Islamic faith, mostly Egyptians, arrived in the early 1950s from Egypt, and are concentrated in the country's two main urban centres, Athens and Thessaloniki. Since 1990, there has been a large increase in the numbers of immigrant Muslims from various countries of the Middle East, North Africa, as well as from Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Somalia and Muslim Southeast Asia. However, the bulk of the immigrant Muslim community has come from the Balkan states, specifically from Albania, Albanian communities in North Macedonia, and other former Yugoslav republics. Since the collapse of the Warsaw Pact in Eastern Europe in the early 1990s, Albanian workers started immigrating to Greece, taking low wage jobs in search of economic opportunity, and bringing over their families to settle in cities like Athens and Thessaloniki.
The majority of the immigrant Muslim community resides in Athens. In recognition of their religious rights, the Greek government approved the building of a mosque in July 2006. In addition, the Greek Orthodox Church has donated , worth an estimated $20 million, in west Athens for the purpose of a Muslim cemetery. Greece's government gave the green light to begin construction in 2016, but both commitments continued to remain dead letters by 2017. However, Kostas Gavroglou – Greece's education and religious minister from 2016 to July 2019 – said that the country's first state-sponsored mosque was likely to begin operations in September 2019. Still, the country faces strong opposition from some of its citizens, who consider mosques to be a means of spreading Islam in Europe. Though the construction and operation of this Athenian mosque was within legal regulations, the strong ideological spread of the Greeks will likely perpetuate the controversy. If the mosque is built, it will end an almost two-century wait.
For prayers that are required to be performed in congregation, the Thessaloniki Muslim community meets inside apartments, basements, and garages for worship. In addition, there are very few Muslim cemeteries – forcing some to travel hundreds of kilometres to bury their dead.
In 2010, an unofficial mosque on the island of Crete was targeted in the night without any casualties, likely as a result of anti-Muslim sentiments in the Greek far-right, but no suspects had been identified. There has been anti-Muslim rhetoric from certain right-wing circles, including the Golden Dawn party. A survey published in 2019 by the Pew Research Center found that 37% of Greeks had a favorable view of Muslims, whereas 57% had an unfavourable view.
Conversion to Christianity There are two groups who have converted in large numbers from Islam to Christianity. The first group are the Turks of the Dodecanese. Being seen as a remnant of the former Ottoman Empire and culturally similar to the country of Turkey, many Turks do not show interest in the Islamic faith in order not to face discrimination by the Greek state.
The second case are the Albanian immigrants who have shown a preference for rapid assimilation into Greek culture. They form the largest migrant group in Greece, and the majority do not want to be identified as Albanian. Many Albanian newcomers change their Albanian name to Greek ones and their religion from Islam to Orthodoxy: Even before emigration, many Muslim people in southern Albania presented themselves as Greeks and adopted Greek names instead of Albanian Muslim ones in order to avoid discrimination before immigrating. As such, they seek to increase their chances to get a Greek visa and work in Greece. "The recent socio-political changes in Albania have brought on this change. Work in Greece is of vital importance, so in order to acquire entry or a work permit in Greece, you have to declare being a member of the Greek Minority or prove your ‘Greek origin’, which has acquired tremendous social and economic value in Albania. Different identity cards were provided by the Greek state to ‘Greeks by descent’ (homogeneis), i.e. to Albanian citizens claiming Greek origin. A great number of Vlachs in the south-east of Albania have also claimed Greek homogeneis identity based on their pro-Greek social networks and identity idioms of the past. There have even been cases of Albanian Muslims who made similar claims by falsifying their Albanian documents. This is the potential effect of Greek policy, since people in Albania believe that there is discrimination by the Greek state against Muslims or ‘non-Greeks’ in favour of ‘Christians’ or those of ‘Greek origin’." After migrating to Greece, they get baptized and change their Muslim or Albanian names in their passports to Greek ones. para.1-63
Application of Islamic law in Greece In Greece, Islamic law can be applied in two different situations. One of the two, like in many other countries, is used in the case of private international law when the utilization of a foreign law controlling family relations that may be religious is used due to conflict rules. The second case refers to Greece only, as the only country in the European Union with Islamic religious courts. There have been many international conventions between Greece and Turkey starting in 1881, which have dealt with the Greek minority in Turkey and the Turkish minority in Greece. Consequently, the Mufti, as a religious leader of all the Muslims in Greece, was given power by law to make decisions regarding the personal status of the Muslim minority. This was still the case in Western Thrace, in the northeast of Greece, until 2018, when the laws were largely limited. Even though this law is restricted to only about 120,000 Greek citizens, which represent this minority, the law can be viewed as a certain section of the national Greek legal system.
The Sharia law used to be mandatory among the Muslim citizens of Greece, a situation that stems from the Ottoman era and predates its reinforcement by the 1923 Lausanne Treaty. The mandatory applicability of Sharia law came into international spotlight when a woman from Komotini named Chatize Molla Sali lodged a complaint to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) and that is when the law came into the spotlight. She went against Greece due to a dispute over inheritance rights with the sisters of the deceased husband. After her appeal was accepted by the secular justice system of Greece, her win was overruled by the Supreme Court, stating that no one other than a Mufti has the competency to decide on the issues related to inheritance in the Muslim community. The ECHR found unanimously that the mandatory application of Sharia law on the Muslim minority was a violation of the European Convention on Human Rights, particularly Article 14 (prohibition of discrimination), by Greece. In 2018, the applicability of Sharia law in Greece was restricted to cases where all the parties accept its jurisprudence, therefore it can no longer be forced upon people against their will.
History