|
Islamic monuments in Kosovo commonly are related with the Ottoman arrival in 1389, respectively their establishment in Kosovo in 1459. However, many historical evidences show that the first encounters of Islam with the Balkans happened well before the arrival of the Ottomans and their establishment in the Balkans. Because of its proximity to the centers of Islam, i.e., Middle East, the Byzantine Empire and parts of the Balkans, including the Albanian territories and Kosovo as well, were exposed to Islam as early as in the 10th century. Moreover, the geographical position of the Balkans enabled its people to be exposed to different missionary activities, as well as trade and military encounters. Thus, the first contacts of the Albanian territories with Islam date back to the pre-Ottoman medieval period.〔 Nevertheless, the process of Albanian transfer to Islam began and was completed during the Ottoman Era, and thus main Islamic monuments in the country appeared during the Ottoman and after Ottoman period. ==History== The Balkans were part of the Roman Empire and the peninsula remained part of the Byzantine Empire until the late Middle Ages, when the Ottoman Turks overruled and gradually took control of almost the entire peninsula. Islam was introduced to Europe mainly through the two major peninsulas, Iberia and the Balkans. With influences from Muslim Spain (Andalusia) from the west, the Mediterranean coast and Sicily from the south, and Muslim Pechengs of Hungary from the north-east, Islam penetrated easily even to the most inner parts of the Balkans. Furthermore, the well known Muslim geographer, historian, and cartographer Al Idrīsī during the 12th century (1154) provided valuable information on a journey inland from the Albanian port of Durrës towards Constantinople through Thessaloniki, offering some interesting references to the lakes on the Kosovo-Macedonia border as important crossing points, with Ohrid as the most important. These connections though predominantly for trade and commerce also had left other impact on life in the Balkans. Because of Muslim fairness in their dealings and their advanced system and ideas, many individuals chose Islam to be their faith. At the same time, many Muslim merchants found good accommodations in the coastal cities, fertile valleys, crossroad towns or fortifications, and so settled there. Thus, the first small Muslim settlements emerged, which grew and influenced how people dressed, measured time, cooked food. According to Thomas Arnold, the first introduction of Islam in South-Eastern Europe was the work of a Muslim jurist-consul, who was taken as a prisoner, probably in one of the wars between the Byzantine Empire and its Muslim neighbors, and was taken to the country of the Pechengs at the beginning of the 11th century. The prisoner explained to them the main tenets of Islam, and, therefore many of them embraced Islam. Thus, well before the end of the 11th century, Islam began to spread among them, and almost all Pechengs became Muslim. The migrations of people within the Balkan countries as well as outside arrivals played an important role in the spread of Islam. Some of these migrations had religious and missionary purposes. For instance, the traveling of Sari Saltuq, an ecstatic Sufi devotee mentioned even by Ibn Battuta in 1332–1334, was well known among the Balkan people. Specific towns and specific topographical localities are associated with his story. He, furthermore, has various tombs in different countries in the Balkan Peninsula. Thus, as early as the 13th and especially during the 14th century, many mystic and nomad imams groups appeared in the Christian countries, where they propagated their faith and helped people to get more knowledge about Islam. The most important migration for the region was that of the Al-Aga family, from Aleppo, Syria. Some members of this family migrated to there beginning from 1095 while the others came at the end of 1291 and settled in a local village. They have built a mosque there, which exists to present days, and it is going to further explored by this article later on. From the above description, based on mentioned facts, it can be concluded that the first encounters of the Balkan people, including Kosovo, with Islam were much earlier than the arrival of the Ottomans. These first contacts may have taken place as early as the beginning of the 8th century in the Balkans in general, and they became more frequent in the 9th and 10th centuries among the Slavs and Albanians. Afterwards, they increased greatly during the 11th, 12th and 13th centuries. In other words, Kosovo encounters with other parts of the world, particularly Muslim world, was not mainly due to and through Ottoman occupation and siege but there were natural human migrations and mixtures as a result of trade, marriages and other human relations. Islam is not purely enforced, as it is often claimed, but it was a long historical process that was associated with many benefits especially for those who sought great careers within the Ottoman Empire. Despite claims that might rise about radicalism or radicals movements in Kosovo, however, the presence of many international, mainly European, organizations hold that Kosovo Muslims do not define their national identity through religion, but through language and have a relatively relaxed approach towards the observance of the forms of Islam. And the following available information show that Islamic monuments were present in Kosovo well before the Ottomans. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Islamic monuments in Kosovo」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|