Bulgaria: A Paradise On Earth - Islam in Bulgaria

Islam in 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:

    * Turks - 713,000;
    * Bulgarians - 131,000;
    * Roma - 103,000;
    * Others - 20,000;

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.

Banya Bashi mosque, built in 1576.

Banya Bashi Mosque (Bulgarian: Баня баши джамия, Banya bashi dzhamiya; Turkish: Banya Başı Camii) is a mosque in Sofia, Bulgaria. It is one of the oldest mosques in Europe, having been completed in 1576, during the years the Ottomans had control of the capital. The mosque derives its name from the phrase Banya Bashi, which means many baths. The Mosque was designed by Koca Mimar Sinan, one of the leading architects of the Ottoman period. The most outstanding feature of the Mosque is that it was actually built over natural thermal spas. One can even see the steam rising from vents in the ground near the Mosque walls. The Mosque is famous for its large dome and the minaret rising upward to the sky.Currently the Banya Bashi Mosque is the only functioning mosque in Sofia, a remnant of the Ottoman rule of Bulgaria that lasted nearly five centuries, and is used by the city's Muslim community of 8,614 out of 1,170,842.