Ελλήνες μουσουλμάνοι | |
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Regions with significant populations | |
Languages | |
Turkish, Greek ( Pontic Greek, Cretan Greek, Cypriot Greek, Cappadocian Greek), Georgian, Russian, Arabic | |
Related ethnic groups | |
Other Greeks, Turks |
Greek Muslims, also known as Grecophone Muslims, [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] are Muslims of Greek ethnic origin whose adoption of Islam (and often the Turkish language and identity) dates to the period of Ottoman rule in the southern Balkans. They consist primarily 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. [1] 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. [7]
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. [8] Historically, Greek Orthodoxy has been associated with being Romios (i.e., Greek) and Islam with being Turkish, despite ethnicity or language. [9]
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). [10] 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. [10] 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. [10] 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. [11]
In Turkey, where most Greek-speaking Muslims live, there are various groups of Grecophone Muslims, some autochthonous, some from parts of present-day Greece and Cyprus who migrated to Turkey under the population exchanges or immigration.
Dhimmi were subject to the heavy jizya tax, which was about 20%, versus the Muslim zakat, which was about 3%. [12] 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. [13] [14] [15]
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. [16]
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.[ citation needed]
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. [17] 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. [18]
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. [19][ better source needed] 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:
White Slaves — In Egypt there are white slaves and slaves of colour. [...] There are [for example] some Greeks who were taken in the War of Independence. [...] In Egypt, the officers of rank are for the most part enfranchised slaves. I have seen in the bazars of Cairo Greek slaves who had been torn from their country, at the time it was about to obtain its liberty; I have seen them afterwards holding nearly all the most important civil and military grades; and one might be almost tempted to think that their servitude was not a misfortune, if one could forget the grief of their parents on seeing them carried off, at a time when they hoped to bequeath to them a religion free from persecution, and a regenerated country.
— [20]
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. [21]
Greek has a specific verb, τουρκεύω (tourkevo), meaning "to become a Turk." [22] The equivalent in Serbian and other South Slavic languages is turčiti (imperfective) or poturčiti (perfective). [23]
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: [24] [25]
Today these Greek-speaking Muslims [28] regard themselves and identify as Turks. [27] [29] 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. [30] Men are usually bilingual in Turkish and Pontic Greek, while many women are monolingual Pontic Greek speakers. [30]
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. [31] The converted population accepted Ottoman identity, but in many instances people retained their local, native languages. [31] In 1914, according to the official estimations of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, about 190,000 Greek Muslims were counted in the Pontus alone. [32] 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. [26] Emigration out of Turkey has also occurred, such as to Germany as guest workers during the 1960s. [26]
In Turkey, Pontic Greek Muslim communities are sometimes called Rum. However, as with Yunan (Turkish for "Greek") or the English word "Greek," this term 'is associated in Turkey to be with Greece and/or Christianity, and many Pontic Greek Muslims refuse such identification. [33] [34] The endonym for Pontic Greek is Romeyka, while Rumca and/or Rumcika are Turkish exonyms for all Greek dialects spoken in Turkey. [35] Both are derived from ρωμαίικα, literally " Roman", referring to the Byzantines. [36] Modern-day Greeks call their language ελληνικά (Hellenika), meaning Greek, an appellation that replaced the previous term Romeiika in the early 19th century. [36] In Turkey, standard modern Greek is called Yunanca; ancient Greek is called either Eski Yunanca or Grekçe. [36]
According to Heath W. Lowry's [37] seminal work on Ottoman tax books [38] (Tahrir Defteri, with co-author Halil İnalcık), most "Turks" in Trebizond and the Pontic Alps region in northeastern Anatolia are of Pontic Greek origin. Pontian Greek Muslims are known in Turkey for their conservative adherence to Sunni Islam of the Hanafi school and are renowned for producing many Quranic teachers. [30] Sufi orders such as Qadiri and Naqshbandi have a great impact.
The term "Cretan Muslims" ( Turkish: Girit Müslümanları) or "Cretan Turks" ( Greek: Τουρκοκρητικοί; Turkish: Girit Türkleri) refers to Greek-speaking Muslims [2] [39] [40] who arrived in Turkey after or slightly before the start of the Greek rule in Crete in 1908, and especially in the context of the 1923 agreement for the Exchange of Greek and Turkish Populations. Prior to their resettlement in Turkey, deteriorating communal relations between Cretan Greek Christians and Cretan Greek Muslims drove the latter to identify with Ottoman and later Turkish identity. [41]
Cretan Muslims have largely settled on the coastline, stretching from the Çanakkale to İskenderun. [42] Significant numbers were resettled in other Ottoman-controlled areas around the eastern Mediterranean by the Ottomans following the establishment of the autonomous Cretan State in 1898. Most ended up in coastal Syria and Lebanon, particularly the town of Al-Hamidiyah, in Syria, (named after the Ottoman sultan who settled them there), and Tripoli in Lebanon, where many continue to speak Greek as their mother tongue. Others were resettled in Ottoman Tripolitania, especially in the eastern cities like Susa and Benghazi, where they are distinguishable by their Greek surnames. Many of the older members of this last community still speak Cretan Greek in their homes. [42]
A small community of Cretan Greek Muslims still resides in Greece in the Dodecanese islands of Rhodes and Kos. [43] These communities were formed prior to the area becoming part of Greece in 1948, when their ancestors migrated there from Crete, and their members are integrated into the local Muslim population as Turks today. [43]
Some Grecophone Muslims of Crete composed literature for their community in the Greek language, such as songs, but wrote it in the Arabic alphabet. [44] although little of it has been studied. [40]
Today, in various settlements along the Aegean coast, elderly Grecophone Cretan Muslims are still conversant in Cretan Greek. [42] Many in the younger generations are fluent in the Greek language. [45]
Often, members of the Muslim Cretan community are unaware that the language they speak is Greek. [2] Frequently, they refer to their native tongue as Cretan (Kritika Κρητικά or Giritçe) instead of Greek.
Cretan Greek Muslims are Sunnis of the Hanafi school, with a highly influential Bektashi minority who helped shape the folk Islam and religious tolerance of the entire community.
Muslims from the region of Epirus, known collectively as Yanyalılar (singular Yanyalı, meaning "person from Ioannina") in Turkish and Τουρκογιαννιώτες Turkoyanyótes in Greek (singular Τουρκογιαννιώτης Turkoyanyótis, meaning "Turk from Ioannina") arrived in Turkey in two waves of migration, in 1912 and after 1923. After the exchange of populations, Grecophone Epirote Muslims resettled themselves in the Anatolian section of Istanbul, especially the districts from Erenköy to Kartal, which had previously been populated by wealthy Orthodox Greeks. [46] Although the majority of the Epirote Muslim population was of Albanian origins, Grecophone Muslim communities existed in the towns of Souli, [47] Margariti (both majority-Muslim), [48] [49] Ioannina, Preveza, Louros, Paramythia, Konitsa, and elsewhere in the Pindus mountain region. [50] The Greek-speaking Muslim [3] [44] populations who were a majority in Ioannina and Paramythia, with sizable numbers residing in Parga and possibly Preveza, "shared the same route of identity construction, with no evident differentiation between them and their Albanian-speaking cohabitants." [3] [46]
Hoca Sadeddin Efendi, a Greek-speaking Muslim from Ioannina in the 18th century, was the first translator of Aristotle into Turkish. [51] Some Grecophone Muslims of Ioannina composed literature for their community in the Greek language, such as poems, using the Arabic alphabet. [44] The community now is fully integrated into Turkish culture.[ verification needed] Last, the Muslims from Epirus that were of mainly Albanian origin are described as Cham Albanians instead.
The Greek-speaking Muslims [4] [7] [39] [52] [53] who lived in the Haliacmon of western Macedonia [54] were known collectively as Vallahades; they had probably converted to Islam en masse in the late 1700s. The Vallahades retained much of their Greek culture and language. This is in contrast with most Greek converts to Islam from Greek Macedonia, other parts of Macedonia, and elsewhere in the southern Balkans, who generally adopted the Turkish language and identity and thoroughly assimilated into the Ottoman ruling elite. According to Todor Simovski's assessment (1972), 13,753 Muslim Greeks lived in Greek Macedonia in 1912. [55]
In the 20th century, the Vallahades were considered by other Greeks to have become Turkish and were not exempt from the 1922–1923 population exchange between Greece and Turkey. The Vallahades were resettled in western Asia Minor, in such towns as Kumburgaz, Büyükçekmece, and Çatalca or in villages like Honaz near Denizli. [4] Many Vallahades still continue to speak the Greek language, which they call Romeïka [4] and have become completely assimilated into the Turkish Muslim mainstream as Turks. [56]
Greek-speaking Muslims lived in Thessaly, [57] mostly centered in and around cities such as Larissa, Trikala, Karditsa, Almyros, and Volos.
Grecophone Muslim communities existed in the towns and certain villages of Elassona, Tyrnovos, and Almyros. According to Lampros Koutsonikas, Muslims in the kaza of Elassona lived in six villages such as Stefanovouno, Lofos, Galanovrysi and Domeniko, as well as the town itself and belonged to the Vallahades group. [58] Evliya Chelebi, who visited the area in 1660s, also mentioned in his Seyahâtnâme that they spoke Greek. [59] In the 8th volume of his Seyahâtnâme he mentions that many Muslims of Thessaly were converts of Greek origin. [60] In particular, he writes that the Muslims of Tyrnovos were converts, and that he could not understand the sect to which the of Muslims of Domokos belonged, claiming they were mixed with "infidels" and thus relieved of paying the haraç tax . [60] Moreover, Chelebi does not mention at all the 12 so-called Konyar Turkish villages that are mentioned in the 18th-century Menâkıbnâme of Turahan Bey, such as Lygaria, Fallani, Itea, Gonnoi, Krokio and Rodia, which were referenced by Ottoman registrars in the yearly books of 1506, 1521. and 1570. This indicates that the Muslims of Thessaly are indeed mostly of convert origin. [61] There were also some Muslims of Vlach descent assimilated into these communities, such as those in the village of Argyropouli. After the Convention of Constantinople in 1881, these Muslims started emigrating to areas that are still under Turkish administration including to the villages of Elassona. [62]
Artillery captain William Martin Leake wrote in his Travels in Northern Greece (1835) that he spoke with the Bektashi Sheikh and the Vezir of Trikala in Greek. In fact, he specifically states that the Sheikh used the word "ἄνθρωπος" to define men, and he quotes the Vezir as saying, καί έγώ εϊμαι προφήτης στά Ιωάννινα.. [63] British Consul-General John Elijah Blunt observed in the last quarter of the 19th century, "Greek is also generally spoken by the Turkish inhabitants, and appears to be the common language between Turks and Christians."
Research on purchases of property and goods registered in the notarial archive of Agathagellos Ioannidis between 1882 and 1898, right after the annexation, concludes that the overwhelming majority of Thessalian Muslims who became Greek citizens were able to speak and write Greek. An interpreter was needed only in 15% of transactions, half of which involved women, which might indicate that most Thessalian Muslim women were monolingual and possibly illiterate. [64] However, a sizable population of Circassians and Tatars were settled in Thessaly in the second half of the 19th century, in the towns of Yenişehir (Larissa), Velestino, Ermiye (Almyros), and villages of Balabanlı ( Asimochori) and Loksada in Karditsa. [65] It is possible that they and also the Albanian Muslims were the ones who did not fully understand the Greek Language. Moreover, some Muslims served as interpreters in these transactions.
Greek-speaking Muslims lived in cities, citadels, towns, and some villages close to fortified settlements in the Peleponnese, such as Patras, Rio, Tripolitsa, Koroni, Navarino, and Methoni. Evliya Chelebi has also mentioned in his Seyahatnâme that the language of all Muslims in Morea was Urumşa, which is demotic Greek. In particular, he mentions that the wives of Muslims in the castle of Gördüs were non-Muslims. He says that the peoples of Gastouni speak Urumşa, but that they were devout and friendly nonetheless. He explicitly states that the Muslims of Longanikos were converted Greeks, or ahıryan. [59]
In 1878 the Muslim inhabitants of Cyprus constituted about one-third of the island's population of 120,000. They were classified as being either Turkish or "neo-Muslim." The latter were of Greek origin, Islamised but speaking Greek, and similar in character to the local Christians. The last of such groups was reported to arrive at Antalya in 1936. These communities are thought to have abandoned Greek in the course of integration. [66] During the 1950s, there were still four Greek speaking Muslim settlements in Cyprus: Lapithiou, Platanissos, Ayios Simeon and Galinoporni that identified themselves as Turks. [5] A 2017 study on the genetics of Turkish Cypriots has shown strong genetic ties with their fellow Orthodox Greek Cypriots. [67] [68]
Despite not having a majority Muslim population at any time during the Ottoman period, [69] some Aegean Islands such as Chios, Lesbos, Kos, Rhodes, Lemnos and Tenedos, and on Kastellorizo contained a sizable Muslim population of Greek origin. [70] Before the Greek Revolution, there were also Muslims on the island of Euboea, but there were no Muslims in the Cyclades and Sporades island groups. Evliya Chelebi mentions that there were 100 Muslim houses on the island of Aegina in 1660s. [60] On most islands, Muslims were only living in and around the main centers of the islands. Today, about 5,000–5,500 Greek-speaking Muslims (called Turks of the Dodecanese) live on Kos and Rhodes. This is because the Dodecanese islands were governed by Italy during the Greek-Turkish population exchange, and so these populations were exempt. However, many migrated after the Paris Peace Treaties in 1947.
In the Middle Ages the Greek population of Crimea traditionally adhered to Eastern Orthodox Christianity, even despite undergoing linguistic assimilation by the local Crimean Tatars. In 1777–1778, when Catherine the Great of Russia conquered the peninsula from the Ottoman Empire, the local Orthodox population was forcibly deported and settled north of the Azov Sea. In order to avoid deportation, some Greeks chose to convert to Islam. Crimean Tatar-speaking Muslims of the village of Kermenchik (renamed to Vysokoye in 1945) kept their Greek identity and were practicing Christianity in secret for a while. In the nineteenth century the lower half of Kermenchik was populated with Christian Greeks from Turkey, whereas the upper remained Muslim. By the time of the 1944 deportation, the Muslims of Kermenchik had already been identified as Crimean Tatars, and were forcibly expelled to Central Asia together with the rest of Crimea's ethnic minorities. [71]
There are about 7,000 Greek-speaking Muslims living in Tripoli, Lebanon and about 8,000 in Al Hamidiyah, Syria. [72] The majority of them are Muslims of Cretan origin. Records suggest that the community left Crete between 1866 and 1897, on the outbreak of the last Cretan uprising against the Ottoman Empire, which ended the Greco-Turkish War of 1897. [72] Sultan Abdul Hamid II provided Cretan Muslim families who fled the island with refuge on the Levantine coast. The new settlement was named Hamidiye after the sultan.
Many Grecophone Muslims of Lebanon somewhat managed to preserve their Cretan Muslim identity and Greek language [73] Unlike neighbouring communities, they are monogamous and consider divorce a disgrace. Until the Lebanese Civil War, their community was close-knit and entirely endogamous. However many of them left Lebanon during the 15 years of the war. [72]
Greek-speaking Muslims [6] constitute 60% of Al Hamidiyah's population. The percentage may be higher but is not conclusive because of hybrid relationship in families. The community is very much concerned with maintaining its culture. The knowledge of the spoken Greek language is remarkably good and their contact with their historical homeland has been possible by means of satellite television and relatives. They are also known to be monogamous. [72] Today, Grecophone Hamidiyah residents identify themselves as Cretan Muslims, while some others as Cretan Turks. [74]
By 1988, many Grecophone Muslims from both Lebanon and Syria had reported being subject to discrimination by the Greek embassy because of their religious affiliation. The community members would be regarded with indifference and even hostility, and would be denied visas and opportunities to improve their Greek through trips to Greece. [72]
In the Middle Ages, after the Seljuq victory over the Byzantine Emperor Romanus IV, many Byzantine Greeks were taken as slaves to Central Asia. The most famous among them was Al-Khazini, a Byzantine Greek slave taken to Merv, then in the Khorasan province of Persia but now in Turkmenistan, who was later freed and became a famous Muslim scientist. [75]
At the request of Sultan Mahmud II (1803-39), Muhammed Ali sent the Egyptian army to subdue a Greek revolt. In 1823 the re-attachment of Crete to the pashlik of Crete created a base from which to attack the Greeks. Egyptian troops led by Ibrahim Pasha, the adopted son of Muhammad Ali, proceeded to devastate the island completely; villages were burned down, plantations uprooted, populations driven out or led away as slaves, and vast numbers of Greek slaves were deported to Egypt. This policy was pursued in the Morea where Ibrahim organized systematic devastation, with massive Islamization of Greek children. He sent sacks of heads and ears to the sultan in Constantinople and cargoes of Greek slaves to Egypt.
White Slaves. — In Egypt there are white slaves and slaves of colour. [...] There are also some Greeks who were taken in the War of Independence. [...] In like manner in Egypt, the officers of rank are for the most part enfranchised slaves. I have seen in the bazars of Cairo Greek slaves who had been torn from their country, at the time it was about to obtain its liberty; I have seen them afterwards holding nearly all the most important civil and military grades; and one might be almost tempted to think that their servitude was not a misfortune, if one could forget the grief of their parents on seeing them carried off, at a time when they hoped to bequeath to them a religion free from persecution, and a regenerated country.
The element that makes this text a unicum is that it is written in Greek script. In the Ottoman Empire, the primary criterion for the selection of an alphabet in which to write was religion. Thus, people who did not speak—or even know—the official language of their religion used to write their religious texts in the languages that they knew, though in the alphabet where the sacred texts of that religion were written. Thus, the Grecophone Catholics of Chios wrote using the Latin alphabet, but in the Greek language ( frangochiotika); the Turcophone Orthodox Christians of Cappadocia wrote their Turkish texts using the Greek alphabet ( karamanlidika); and the Grecophone Muslims of the Greek peninsula wrote in Greek language using the Arabic alphabet ( tourkogianniotika, tourkokretika). Our case is much stranger, since it is a quite early example for that kind of literature and because it is largely concerned with religious themes."; p. 306. The audience for the Greek Mi'rājnāma was most certainly Greek-speaking Muslims, in particular the so-called Tourkogianniotes (literally, the Turks of Jannina). Although few examples have been discovered as yet, it seems that these people developed a religious literature mainly composed in verse form. This literary form constituted the mainstream of Greek Aljamiado literature from the middle of the seventeenth century until the population exchange between Greece and Turkey in 1923. Tourkogianniotes were probably of Christian origin and were Islamized sometime during the seventeenth century. They did not speak any language other than Greek. Thus, even their frequency in attending mosque services did not provide them with the necessary knowledge about their faith. Given their low level of literacy, one important way that they could learn about their faith was to listen to religiously edifying texts such as the Greek Mi'rājnāma.
"Al-Khazini (who lived in the 12th century), a slave of the Seljuk Turks, but of Byzantine origin, probably one of the spoils of the victory of the Seljuks over the Christian emperor of Constantinople, Romanus IV Diogenes."
Mother of Bayezid II was Gülbahar Hatun (a Pontic Greek from the village of Douvera in Trabzon)
Although he was dressed like an Englishman, and on deck wore a straw hat with the word "Scott" inside it, he soon let them know that his name was Mahmoud Baroudi, that his native place was Alexandria, that he was of mixed Greek and Egyptian blood, and that he was a man of great energy and will, interested in many schemes, pulling the strings of many enterprises. ...Baroudi's father was a rich Turco-Egyptian. His mother had been a beautiful Greek girl, who had embraced Islam when his father fell in love with her and proposed to marry her.
Mahmoud Baroudi, 'of mixed Greek and Egyptian blood
Rabia Gulnus a Greek girl who had been captured in the Ottoman invasion of Crete. Rabia Gulnus was the mother of Mehmet's first two sons, the future sultans Mustafa II and Ahmet III
She was the daughter of a Cretan (Greek) family and she was the mother of Mustafa II (1664–1703), and Ahmed III (1673–1736).
the mother of Mustafa II and Ahmed III was a Cretan
Unusually, the twenty-nine-year old Ahmed III was a brother, rather than a half- brother, of his predecessor; their Cretan mother, Rabia
Osman Hamdi Bey's father, Edhem Pasha (ca. 1818-1893) was a high official of the Empire. A Greek boy captured on Chios after the 1822 massacres, he was acquired and brought up by Husrev Pasha, who sent him to Paris in 1831 in order to acquire a western education.
Osman Hamdi Bey..(1) Turkish statesman and art expert, son of Hilmi Pasha, one of the last of the grand viziers of the old regime, was born at Istanbul. The family was of Greek origin. Hilmi Pasha himself, as a boy of 12, was rescued from the massacre of the Greeks at Chios in 1825 and bought by Mahmud..&...(2) Statesman and art expert who asserted the right of Constantinople to receive the finds made by various archaeological enterprises in the Ottoman Empire. Hamdi Bey founded the Archaeological Museum of Istanbul and became its director in 1881. His enlightened taste and energy did much to establish the reputation of the museum and its impressive collection of Greco-Roman antiquities.
Gülbahar Hatun' s husband Sultan Bayezid II (opposite page) and his mausoleum in Istanbul. - Chronicler of Trabzon, Şakir Şevket writes that the income from Vakfikebir and Vakfısagir taxes were donated to the Hatuniye Külliyesi, and that the revenues collected from the thirty-two plateaus of Maçka were distributed among the staff and kitchen of this kulliye. Şakir Şevket explains the above mentioned issue as, "The aforesaid girl is originally Greek, and that is why she is described as a Greek princess on her mausoleum. It is told that she has been taken by Fatih and wedded to Sultan Bayezid, she was the daughter of a Christian man in the village of Vayvara." We understand from this explanation that she was captured during the conquest of Trabzon and given to Bayezid. Halil Edhem Bey indicates in the "Vâlide-i Sultan Selim-i Evvel Gülbahâr Hâtun Mausoleum, year 911" part of his article, "Ottoman Epigraphs in Trabzon", that there act of foundation by Valide Sultan, and quotes the inscription on her tomb, which is told to be written by Sultan Selim - "May Bânû-yi Rûm, who has turned her face from the world towards eternity, sit on the throne of Heaven and may God bless her." The year of death written on the last lines is 911 AH (1505 AD). There are no Islamic wishes or prayers on this epigraph of six verses, written in Persian rather than Arabic. It is mentioned that the person lying in the mausoleum is a Greek princess (Banû-yi Rum), but her father's name and her name are not.
Eid travels: I'm not sure yet, maybe Greece. My grandmother is Greek so we go there every summer and any island in Greece is pretty much perfect – I love the beach.
Hussein Hilmi Pasha, descended from a Greek convert to Islam in the island of Mitylene, was sent to Macedonia as High Commissioner.
His Excellency Hussein Hilmi Pacha is a Turk "of the isles." The politest Turks of all come from the isles. There is also Greek blood in his veins,
Hussein Hilmi Pasha, descended from a Greek convert to Islam in the island of Mitylene, was sent to Macedonia as High Commissioner.
For Hilmi is a novus homo. A native of Mytilene, of obscure origin, partly Greek, he began his career as secretary to Kemal Bey
Hussein Hilmi Pasha, descended from a Greek convert to Islam in the island of Mitylene.
Hüseyin Hilmi (1855–1923), who was to become Grand Vezir twice in 1909
the Ottoman Red Crescent Society of which Hilmi Pasha was the head, which he said, utilized their money for the purpose it was contributed by Muslims in India.
Hüseyin Hilmi Pasha (1855-1923) (Ottoman Inspector-General of Macedonia, 1902-8
Hüseyin Hilmi Pasha (1855-1923) Minister for the Interior, 1908-9)
Hüseyin Hilmi Pasha (1855-1923) Ambassador at Vienna, 1912-18
Ahmed Vefik Pasa (1823-91), the grandson of a Greek convert to Islam and the holder of several of the highest positions, was one of those interested in Turkish studies.
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The statesman whom the Turks like best is Achmet Vefyk Effendi. Although a Greek by descent, he is a more orthodox Moslem than Fuad or Aali, and is the head of the reforming party, whose object is to bring about reform for the purpose of re-establishing the Turkish empire on the basis on which it stood in its palmy day, rather than adopt European customs.
Ahmed Vefik Pasha was the grandson of a Greek convert to Islam.
Fuad Pasha — unlike Ahmed Vefyk, who had Greek blood in his veins — was a pure Turk by descent.
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Ahmad Vefik Pasha) (grandson of a Greek convert) published influential works : Les Tuns Anciens et Modernes (1169) and Lahja-i-Osmani, respectively
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In 1876 Ahmed Vefik Pasha, the grandson of a Greek convert to Islam, and a keen student of Turkish customs, published the first Turkish-Ottoman dictionary
Ahmad Vefik Pasha (grandson of a Greek convert) published influential works : Les Turcs Anciens et Modernes ( 1 1 69) and Lahja-i-Osmani, respectively
Ahmed Vefik Paşa Ottoman statesman and scholar born 6 July 1823, Constantinople [now Istanbul] died 2 April 1891, Constantinople... He presided over the first Turkish Parliament (1877) and was twice appointed grand vizier (chief minister) for brief periods in 1878 and 1882.
Ahmed Vefik Paşa Ottoman statesman and scholar born 6 July 1823, Constantinople [now Istanbul] died 2 April 1891, Constantinople... In 1879 he became the vali (governor) of Bursa, where he sponsored important reforms in sanitation, education, and agriculture and established the first Ottoman theatre.
RESMI, AHMAD Ottoman statesman and historian. Ahmad b. Ibrahim, known as Resmi, belonged to Rethymo (turk. Resmo; hence his epithet) in Crete and was of Greek descent (cf. J. v. Hammer, GOR, viii. 202). He was born in III (1700) and came in 1146 (1733) to Stambul where he was educated, married a daughter of the Ke is Efendi
Ahmed Resmi Efendi (1700-1783). Der osmanische Staatsmann und Geschichtsschreiber griechischer Herkunft. Translation "Ahmed Resmi Efendi (1700-1783). The Ottoman statesman and historian of Greek origin
Resmi Ahmad (−83) was originally of Greek descent. He entered Ottoman service in 1733 and after holding a number of posts in local administration, was sent on missions to Vienna (1758) and Berlin (1763–4). He later held a number of important offices in central government. In addition, Resmi Ahmad was a contemporary historian of some distinction.
Ahmad b. Ibrahim, known as Resmi came from Rethymno (Turk. Resmo; hence his epithet?) in Crete and was of Greek descent (cf. Hammer- Purgstall, viii, 202). He was born in 1112/ 1700 and came in 1 146/1733 to Istanbul,
Gand vizier Edhem Pasha... The history of Edhem is a curious one. He was born of Greek parents, and saved from the massacre of Scio in 1822. He was then sold as a slave in Constantinople, and bought by the grand vizier.
Politically, the only person of any account in the Bardo palace was the prime minister, the all-powerful Mustafa Khaznadar, a mamluk of Greek extraction, who had managed to remain in power, under three beys, since 1837. The khaznadar, intelligent and cunning, maintained at court a careful balance between France and England, but his own sympathies were on the side of Great Britain on account of his connections with Wood, the British consul. At the palace, he alone exercised influence over the feeble spirit of the bey.
Shortly afterward a new grand vizier, Hasan, came to take the place of the old one, and he held his post during the period we are interested in: from November 16, 1703, to September 28, 1704.
Hasan Pasa (Damad-i- Padisahi), Greek convert from Morea. He began his career as imperial armourer and rose to the post of Grand Vezir (1703). He married the daughter of Sultan Mehmed IV, Hatice Sultan, fell into disgrace and was exiled with his wife to izmit.
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Shortly afterward a new grand vizier, Hasan, came to take the place of the old one, and he held his post during the period we are interested in: from November 16, 1703, to September 28, 1704. He was the new sultan's son-in-law... "he was a very honest and comparatively humane pasha of Greek origin and cannot be suspected of selling the sultan's pages to a foreigner."
The Valide Sultan was born Evmania Voria, daughter of a Greek priest in a village near Rethymnon on Crete. She was captured by the Turks when they took Rethymnon in 1645.
Rabia Gulnus a Greek girl who had been captured in the Ottoman invasion of Crete. Rabia Gulnus was the mother of Mehmet's first two sons, the future sultans Mustafa II and Ahmet III.
the mother of Mustafa II and Ahmed III was a Cretan.
Unusually, the twenty-nine-year old Ahmed III was a brother, rather than a half- brother, of his predecessor; their Cretan mother, Rabia.
Their mother, a Cretan, lady named Rabia Gulnus, continued to wield influence as the Walide Sultan - mother of the reigning sultan.
The sultan appears to have been in no hurry to leave his prized concubine from the Ottoman conquest of Rethymnon, Crete - the haseki Emetullah Gulnus, and their new son Mustafa.
Mahpeikir [Kösem Mahpeyker] and Revia Gülnûş [Rabia Gülnûş] were Greek.
Mehmet had by now set up his own harem, which he took with him in his peregrinations between Topkapi Sarayi and Edirne Sarayi. His favourite was Rabia Gülnûş Ummetüllah, a Greek girl from Rethymnon.
He set up his harem there, his favourite being Rabia Giilniis Ummetiillah, a Greek girl from Rethymnon on Crete.
After the accession of the fourth Fatimid caliph, al-Mu'izz (953- 975), a cultivated and energetic ruler who found an able second in Jawhar, an ethnic Greek, conditions for conquest of Egypt improved.
The Fatimid general, Gohar (Jewel), a converted ~ Greek, immediately began a new city where the dynasty henceforth reigned * (969-1171).
a Greek mercenary born in Sicily, and his 100000-man army had little
Under Mu'izz (955-975) the Fatimids reached the height of their glory, and the universal triumph of isma 'ilism appeared not far distant. The fourth Fatimid Caliph is an attractive character: humane and generous, simple and just, he was a good administrator, tolerant and conciliatory. Served by one of the greatest generals of the age, Jawhar al-Rumi, a former Greek slave, he took fullest advantage of the growing confusion in the Sunnite world.
The architect of his military system was a general named Jawhar, an islamicized Greek slave who had led the conquest of North Africa and then of Egypt
When the Sicilian Jawhar finally entered Fustat in 969 and the following year founded the new dynastic capital, Cairo, 'The Victorious', the Fatimids ...
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EDHEM PASHA, the successor of Midhat Pasha as Grand Vizier, was born at Chio, of Greek parents, in 1823. He was saved, when a child, by Turkish soldiers
Edhem Pasha was a Greek by birth, pure and unadulterated, having when an infant been stolen from the island of Chios at the time of the great massacre there
A Turkish soldier and statesman, born of Greek parents on the island of Chios. In 1831 he was taken to Paris, where he was educated in engineering
In the 17th century, the two most successful rulers were converted Greeks, both originally from the island of Chios and therefore known as Saqizly, which has that meaning in Turkish. The first, Muhammad (1632-1649), had lived in Algiers as a Christian for some years and then adopted Islam and the profession of a privateer. ...Uthman, also a former Christian, to high military command.
Mustafa Khaznadar became Prime Minister in 1837, a position he maintained under three successive bey-s, more or less continuously until 1873.
Mustafa Khaznadar was of Greek origin (b. 1817), and proved to be one of the most influential persons Tunisia saw in her modern history. He took the interest of his master and the country to heart and did all he could to prevail on Ahmad Bey to see that Tunisia acquired as much as she could
A mamluk of Greek origin raised by Prince Ahmad (later Ahmad Bey). Khaznadar first worked as the prince's private treasurer before the latter succeeded his father to the throne in 1837. Then, he immediately became Ahmad Bey's khaznadar (treasurer )
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the Greek Mustafa Khaznadar, a former slave who from 1837 to 1873 was Minister of Finance and the actual ruler of the country
The Hussienite Dynasty was itself of Greek origin and Prime Minister Mustapha Kharznader was a Greek whose original name was Stravelakis.
Mustapha's name was in fact Georges Kalkias Stravelakis, born in 1817 on the island of Chio (Greece) where he was captured during the 1824 massacres
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Mustafa Khaznadar (George Kalkias Stravelakis) was born on the island of Chios in 1817. The nephews were sons of a brother who had remained in Chios in 1821. Bin Diyaf stated that he had learned of his expenditure from a receipt he had seen on the fifteenth page of a state treasury register kept by Khaznadar.
Mustafa Khaznader was born Georges Kalkias Stravelakis, on the island of Chios. In 1821, during the Greek rebellion against the Turks, he was seized, taken to Constantinople, and sold into slavery, In 1821 he was sent to Tunis, where he was sold again.
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PRIME MINISTERS * Ragheb Pasha was Prime Minister from July 12, 1882
This Ragheb Pasha, a decrepit old man with a reputation of venality, was of Greek extraction, and had originally been a Greek slave.
Ragheb Bey, as I knew him first, was a Candiote, a Mussulman of Greek origin, and gifted with the financial cunning of his race. He began political life in Egypt under Said Pasha, as an employé in the financial department where he was speedily promoted to a high...
Isma'il Pasha Raghib and al-Shaykh al-Bakri. Raghib was an established figure in the state administrative machinery, who came from Greek origins, and who had held various portfolios in finance and served as President of the first Majlis Shura al-Nuwwab in 1866.
Ragheb Pasha is (as mentioned by Ninet) of Greek descent, though a Moslem
Isma'il Raghib was born in Greece in 1819; the sources differ over his homeland. After first being kidnapped to Anatolia, he was brought as a slave to Egypt in 1246 (1830/1), by Ibrahim Pasha, and there he was 'converted' from Christianity
Raghib Pasha, the new Minister — by birth a Sciote Greek, sold into Egypt after the massacre of 1822 — is said to be an able administrator, and enjoys a high personal character
Ragheb Bey, as I knew him first, was a Candiote, a Mussulman of Greek origin
Isma'il Raghib ...After first being kidnapped to Anatolia, he was brought as a slave to Egypt in 1246 (1830/1), by Ibrahim Pasha, and there he was 'converted' from Christianity
"One of the most famous corsairs was Turghut (Dragut) (?–1565), who was of Greek ancestry and a protégé of Khayr al-Din. He participated in the successful Ottoman assault on Tripoli in 1551 against the Knights of St. John of Malta.
"And the corsairs' greatest leader, Dragut, had also done time, at the oar of a Genoese galley. Dragut was born of Greek parents, Orthodox Christians, at Charabulac on the coast of Asia Minor, but a Turkish governor took a fancy to the boy and carried him off to Egypt.
"Neither was the career of Dragut, another Greek whom we find in 1540s on the Tunisian coast and in 1561 installed at Tripoli in Barbary, in place of the Knights of Malta whom the Turks had expelled five years earlier.
"It is named after the 16th-century Admiral Turgut (Dragut), who was born here to Greek parents; his mentor Barbarossa, another Greek who 'turned Turk', in a moment of unusual humility declared that Dragut was ahead of him 'both in fishing and bravery'.
A new star was now rising in the piratical firmament, Barbarossa's lieutenant Dragut-Reis, a Greek who had been taken prisoner by the corsairs in his youth and had turned Mahometan.
"Of all the corsairs who preyed on Sicilian wheat, Dragut (Turghut) was the most dangerous. A Greek by birth, he was now about fifty years old and behind him lay a long and adventurous career including four years in the Genoese galleys.
"Ottomans extended their western maritime frontier across North Africa under the naval command of another Greek Moslem, Torghoud (or Dragut), who succeeded Barbarossa upon the latter's death in 1546.
"One of the most famous corsairs was Turghut (Dragut) (?–1565), who was of Greek ancestry and a protégé of Khayr al-Din. ...While pasha, he built up Tripoli and adorned it, making it one of the most impressive cities along the North African littoral.
Ελλήνες μουσουλμάνοι | |
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Regions with significant populations | |
Languages | |
Turkish, Greek ( Pontic Greek, Cretan Greek, Cypriot Greek, Cappadocian Greek), Georgian, Russian, Arabic | |
Related ethnic groups | |
Other Greeks, Turks |
Greek Muslims, also known as Grecophone Muslims, [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] are Muslims of Greek ethnic origin whose adoption of Islam (and often the Turkish language and identity) dates to the period of Ottoman rule in the southern Balkans. They consist primarily 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. [1] 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. [7]
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. [8] Historically, Greek Orthodoxy has been associated with being Romios (i.e., Greek) and Islam with being Turkish, despite ethnicity or language. [9]
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). [10] 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. [10] 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. [10] 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. [11]
In Turkey, where most Greek-speaking Muslims live, there are various groups of Grecophone Muslims, some autochthonous, some from parts of present-day Greece and Cyprus who migrated to Turkey under the population exchanges or immigration.
Dhimmi were subject to the heavy jizya tax, which was about 20%, versus the Muslim zakat, which was about 3%. [12] 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. [13] [14] [15]
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. [16]
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.[ citation needed]
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. [17] 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. [18]
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. [19][ better source needed] 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:
White Slaves — In Egypt there are white slaves and slaves of colour. [...] There are [for example] some Greeks who were taken in the War of Independence. [...] In Egypt, the officers of rank are for the most part enfranchised slaves. I have seen in the bazars of Cairo Greek slaves who had been torn from their country, at the time it was about to obtain its liberty; I have seen them afterwards holding nearly all the most important civil and military grades; and one might be almost tempted to think that their servitude was not a misfortune, if one could forget the grief of their parents on seeing them carried off, at a time when they hoped to bequeath to them a religion free from persecution, and a regenerated country.
— [20]
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. [21]
Greek has a specific verb, τουρκεύω (tourkevo), meaning "to become a Turk." [22] The equivalent in Serbian and other South Slavic languages is turčiti (imperfective) or poturčiti (perfective). [23]
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: [24] [25]
Today these Greek-speaking Muslims [28] regard themselves and identify as Turks. [27] [29] 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. [30] Men are usually bilingual in Turkish and Pontic Greek, while many women are monolingual Pontic Greek speakers. [30]
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. [31] The converted population accepted Ottoman identity, but in many instances people retained their local, native languages. [31] In 1914, according to the official estimations of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, about 190,000 Greek Muslims were counted in the Pontus alone. [32] 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. [26] Emigration out of Turkey has also occurred, such as to Germany as guest workers during the 1960s. [26]
In Turkey, Pontic Greek Muslim communities are sometimes called Rum. However, as with Yunan (Turkish for "Greek") or the English word "Greek," this term 'is associated in Turkey to be with Greece and/or Christianity, and many Pontic Greek Muslims refuse such identification. [33] [34] The endonym for Pontic Greek is Romeyka, while Rumca and/or Rumcika are Turkish exonyms for all Greek dialects spoken in Turkey. [35] Both are derived from ρωμαίικα, literally " Roman", referring to the Byzantines. [36] Modern-day Greeks call their language ελληνικά (Hellenika), meaning Greek, an appellation that replaced the previous term Romeiika in the early 19th century. [36] In Turkey, standard modern Greek is called Yunanca; ancient Greek is called either Eski Yunanca or Grekçe. [36]
According to Heath W. Lowry's [37] seminal work on Ottoman tax books [38] (Tahrir Defteri, with co-author Halil İnalcık), most "Turks" in Trebizond and the Pontic Alps region in northeastern Anatolia are of Pontic Greek origin. Pontian Greek Muslims are known in Turkey for their conservative adherence to Sunni Islam of the Hanafi school and are renowned for producing many Quranic teachers. [30] Sufi orders such as Qadiri and Naqshbandi have a great impact.
The term "Cretan Muslims" ( Turkish: Girit Müslümanları) or "Cretan Turks" ( Greek: Τουρκοκρητικοί; Turkish: Girit Türkleri) refers to Greek-speaking Muslims [2] [39] [40] who arrived in Turkey after or slightly before the start of the Greek rule in Crete in 1908, and especially in the context of the 1923 agreement for the Exchange of Greek and Turkish Populations. Prior to their resettlement in Turkey, deteriorating communal relations between Cretan Greek Christians and Cretan Greek Muslims drove the latter to identify with Ottoman and later Turkish identity. [41]
Cretan Muslims have largely settled on the coastline, stretching from the Çanakkale to İskenderun. [42] Significant numbers were resettled in other Ottoman-controlled areas around the eastern Mediterranean by the Ottomans following the establishment of the autonomous Cretan State in 1898. Most ended up in coastal Syria and Lebanon, particularly the town of Al-Hamidiyah, in Syria, (named after the Ottoman sultan who settled them there), and Tripoli in Lebanon, where many continue to speak Greek as their mother tongue. Others were resettled in Ottoman Tripolitania, especially in the eastern cities like Susa and Benghazi, where they are distinguishable by their Greek surnames. Many of the older members of this last community still speak Cretan Greek in their homes. [42]
A small community of Cretan Greek Muslims still resides in Greece in the Dodecanese islands of Rhodes and Kos. [43] These communities were formed prior to the area becoming part of Greece in 1948, when their ancestors migrated there from Crete, and their members are integrated into the local Muslim population as Turks today. [43]
Some Grecophone Muslims of Crete composed literature for their community in the Greek language, such as songs, but wrote it in the Arabic alphabet. [44] although little of it has been studied. [40]
Today, in various settlements along the Aegean coast, elderly Grecophone Cretan Muslims are still conversant in Cretan Greek. [42] Many in the younger generations are fluent in the Greek language. [45]
Often, members of the Muslim Cretan community are unaware that the language they speak is Greek. [2] Frequently, they refer to their native tongue as Cretan (Kritika Κρητικά or Giritçe) instead of Greek.
Cretan Greek Muslims are Sunnis of the Hanafi school, with a highly influential Bektashi minority who helped shape the folk Islam and religious tolerance of the entire community.
Muslims from the region of Epirus, known collectively as Yanyalılar (singular Yanyalı, meaning "person from Ioannina") in Turkish and Τουρκογιαννιώτες Turkoyanyótes in Greek (singular Τουρκογιαννιώτης Turkoyanyótis, meaning "Turk from Ioannina") arrived in Turkey in two waves of migration, in 1912 and after 1923. After the exchange of populations, Grecophone Epirote Muslims resettled themselves in the Anatolian section of Istanbul, especially the districts from Erenköy to Kartal, which had previously been populated by wealthy Orthodox Greeks. [46] Although the majority of the Epirote Muslim population was of Albanian origins, Grecophone Muslim communities existed in the towns of Souli, [47] Margariti (both majority-Muslim), [48] [49] Ioannina, Preveza, Louros, Paramythia, Konitsa, and elsewhere in the Pindus mountain region. [50] The Greek-speaking Muslim [3] [44] populations who were a majority in Ioannina and Paramythia, with sizable numbers residing in Parga and possibly Preveza, "shared the same route of identity construction, with no evident differentiation between them and their Albanian-speaking cohabitants." [3] [46]
Hoca Sadeddin Efendi, a Greek-speaking Muslim from Ioannina in the 18th century, was the first translator of Aristotle into Turkish. [51] Some Grecophone Muslims of Ioannina composed literature for their community in the Greek language, such as poems, using the Arabic alphabet. [44] The community now is fully integrated into Turkish culture.[ verification needed] Last, the Muslims from Epirus that were of mainly Albanian origin are described as Cham Albanians instead.
The Greek-speaking Muslims [4] [7] [39] [52] [53] who lived in the Haliacmon of western Macedonia [54] were known collectively as Vallahades; they had probably converted to Islam en masse in the late 1700s. The Vallahades retained much of their Greek culture and language. This is in contrast with most Greek converts to Islam from Greek Macedonia, other parts of Macedonia, and elsewhere in the southern Balkans, who generally adopted the Turkish language and identity and thoroughly assimilated into the Ottoman ruling elite. According to Todor Simovski's assessment (1972), 13,753 Muslim Greeks lived in Greek Macedonia in 1912. [55]
In the 20th century, the Vallahades were considered by other Greeks to have become Turkish and were not exempt from the 1922–1923 population exchange between Greece and Turkey. The Vallahades were resettled in western Asia Minor, in such towns as Kumburgaz, Büyükçekmece, and Çatalca or in villages like Honaz near Denizli. [4] Many Vallahades still continue to speak the Greek language, which they call Romeïka [4] and have become completely assimilated into the Turkish Muslim mainstream as Turks. [56]
Greek-speaking Muslims lived in Thessaly, [57] mostly centered in and around cities such as Larissa, Trikala, Karditsa, Almyros, and Volos.
Grecophone Muslim communities existed in the towns and certain villages of Elassona, Tyrnovos, and Almyros. According to Lampros Koutsonikas, Muslims in the kaza of Elassona lived in six villages such as Stefanovouno, Lofos, Galanovrysi and Domeniko, as well as the town itself and belonged to the Vallahades group. [58] Evliya Chelebi, who visited the area in 1660s, also mentioned in his Seyahâtnâme that they spoke Greek. [59] In the 8th volume of his Seyahâtnâme he mentions that many Muslims of Thessaly were converts of Greek origin. [60] In particular, he writes that the Muslims of Tyrnovos were converts, and that he could not understand the sect to which the of Muslims of Domokos belonged, claiming they were mixed with "infidels" and thus relieved of paying the haraç tax . [60] Moreover, Chelebi does not mention at all the 12 so-called Konyar Turkish villages that are mentioned in the 18th-century Menâkıbnâme of Turahan Bey, such as Lygaria, Fallani, Itea, Gonnoi, Krokio and Rodia, which were referenced by Ottoman registrars in the yearly books of 1506, 1521. and 1570. This indicates that the Muslims of Thessaly are indeed mostly of convert origin. [61] There were also some Muslims of Vlach descent assimilated into these communities, such as those in the village of Argyropouli. After the Convention of Constantinople in 1881, these Muslims started emigrating to areas that are still under Turkish administration including to the villages of Elassona. [62]
Artillery captain William Martin Leake wrote in his Travels in Northern Greece (1835) that he spoke with the Bektashi Sheikh and the Vezir of Trikala in Greek. In fact, he specifically states that the Sheikh used the word "ἄνθρωπος" to define men, and he quotes the Vezir as saying, καί έγώ εϊμαι προφήτης στά Ιωάννινα.. [63] British Consul-General John Elijah Blunt observed in the last quarter of the 19th century, "Greek is also generally spoken by the Turkish inhabitants, and appears to be the common language between Turks and Christians."
Research on purchases of property and goods registered in the notarial archive of Agathagellos Ioannidis between 1882 and 1898, right after the annexation, concludes that the overwhelming majority of Thessalian Muslims who became Greek citizens were able to speak and write Greek. An interpreter was needed only in 15% of transactions, half of which involved women, which might indicate that most Thessalian Muslim women were monolingual and possibly illiterate. [64] However, a sizable population of Circassians and Tatars were settled in Thessaly in the second half of the 19th century, in the towns of Yenişehir (Larissa), Velestino, Ermiye (Almyros), and villages of Balabanlı ( Asimochori) and Loksada in Karditsa. [65] It is possible that they and also the Albanian Muslims were the ones who did not fully understand the Greek Language. Moreover, some Muslims served as interpreters in these transactions.
Greek-speaking Muslims lived in cities, citadels, towns, and some villages close to fortified settlements in the Peleponnese, such as Patras, Rio, Tripolitsa, Koroni, Navarino, and Methoni. Evliya Chelebi has also mentioned in his Seyahatnâme that the language of all Muslims in Morea was Urumşa, which is demotic Greek. In particular, he mentions that the wives of Muslims in the castle of Gördüs were non-Muslims. He says that the peoples of Gastouni speak Urumşa, but that they were devout and friendly nonetheless. He explicitly states that the Muslims of Longanikos were converted Greeks, or ahıryan. [59]
In 1878 the Muslim inhabitants of Cyprus constituted about one-third of the island's population of 120,000. They were classified as being either Turkish or "neo-Muslim." The latter were of Greek origin, Islamised but speaking Greek, and similar in character to the local Christians. The last of such groups was reported to arrive at Antalya in 1936. These communities are thought to have abandoned Greek in the course of integration. [66] During the 1950s, there were still four Greek speaking Muslim settlements in Cyprus: Lapithiou, Platanissos, Ayios Simeon and Galinoporni that identified themselves as Turks. [5] A 2017 study on the genetics of Turkish Cypriots has shown strong genetic ties with their fellow Orthodox Greek Cypriots. [67] [68]
Despite not having a majority Muslim population at any time during the Ottoman period, [69] some Aegean Islands such as Chios, Lesbos, Kos, Rhodes, Lemnos and Tenedos, and on Kastellorizo contained a sizable Muslim population of Greek origin. [70] Before the Greek Revolution, there were also Muslims on the island of Euboea, but there were no Muslims in the Cyclades and Sporades island groups. Evliya Chelebi mentions that there were 100 Muslim houses on the island of Aegina in 1660s. [60] On most islands, Muslims were only living in and around the main centers of the islands. Today, about 5,000–5,500 Greek-speaking Muslims (called Turks of the Dodecanese) live on Kos and Rhodes. This is because the Dodecanese islands were governed by Italy during the Greek-Turkish population exchange, and so these populations were exempt. However, many migrated after the Paris Peace Treaties in 1947.
In the Middle Ages the Greek population of Crimea traditionally adhered to Eastern Orthodox Christianity, even despite undergoing linguistic assimilation by the local Crimean Tatars. In 1777–1778, when Catherine the Great of Russia conquered the peninsula from the Ottoman Empire, the local Orthodox population was forcibly deported and settled north of the Azov Sea. In order to avoid deportation, some Greeks chose to convert to Islam. Crimean Tatar-speaking Muslims of the village of Kermenchik (renamed to Vysokoye in 1945) kept their Greek identity and were practicing Christianity in secret for a while. In the nineteenth century the lower half of Kermenchik was populated with Christian Greeks from Turkey, whereas the upper remained Muslim. By the time of the 1944 deportation, the Muslims of Kermenchik had already been identified as Crimean Tatars, and were forcibly expelled to Central Asia together with the rest of Crimea's ethnic minorities. [71]
There are about 7,000 Greek-speaking Muslims living in Tripoli, Lebanon and about 8,000 in Al Hamidiyah, Syria. [72] The majority of them are Muslims of Cretan origin. Records suggest that the community left Crete between 1866 and 1897, on the outbreak of the last Cretan uprising against the Ottoman Empire, which ended the Greco-Turkish War of 1897. [72] Sultan Abdul Hamid II provided Cretan Muslim families who fled the island with refuge on the Levantine coast. The new settlement was named Hamidiye after the sultan.
Many Grecophone Muslims of Lebanon somewhat managed to preserve their Cretan Muslim identity and Greek language [73] Unlike neighbouring communities, they are monogamous and consider divorce a disgrace. Until the Lebanese Civil War, their community was close-knit and entirely endogamous. However many of them left Lebanon during the 15 years of the war. [72]
Greek-speaking Muslims [6] constitute 60% of Al Hamidiyah's population. The percentage may be higher but is not conclusive because of hybrid relationship in families. The community is very much concerned with maintaining its culture. The knowledge of the spoken Greek language is remarkably good and their contact with their historical homeland has been possible by means of satellite television and relatives. They are also known to be monogamous. [72] Today, Grecophone Hamidiyah residents identify themselves as Cretan Muslims, while some others as Cretan Turks. [74]
By 1988, many Grecophone Muslims from both Lebanon and Syria had reported being subject to discrimination by the Greek embassy because of their religious affiliation. The community members would be regarded with indifference and even hostility, and would be denied visas and opportunities to improve their Greek through trips to Greece. [72]
In the Middle Ages, after the Seljuq victory over the Byzantine Emperor Romanus IV, many Byzantine Greeks were taken as slaves to Central Asia. The most famous among them was Al-Khazini, a Byzantine Greek slave taken to Merv, then in the Khorasan province of Persia but now in Turkmenistan, who was later freed and became a famous Muslim scientist. [75]
At the request of Sultan Mahmud II (1803-39), Muhammed Ali sent the Egyptian army to subdue a Greek revolt. In 1823 the re-attachment of Crete to the pashlik of Crete created a base from which to attack the Greeks. Egyptian troops led by Ibrahim Pasha, the adopted son of Muhammad Ali, proceeded to devastate the island completely; villages were burned down, plantations uprooted, populations driven out or led away as slaves, and vast numbers of Greek slaves were deported to Egypt. This policy was pursued in the Morea where Ibrahim organized systematic devastation, with massive Islamization of Greek children. He sent sacks of heads and ears to the sultan in Constantinople and cargoes of Greek slaves to Egypt.
White Slaves. — In Egypt there are white slaves and slaves of colour. [...] There are also some Greeks who were taken in the War of Independence. [...] In like manner in Egypt, the officers of rank are for the most part enfranchised slaves. I have seen in the bazars of Cairo Greek slaves who had been torn from their country, at the time it was about to obtain its liberty; I have seen them afterwards holding nearly all the most important civil and military grades; and one might be almost tempted to think that their servitude was not a misfortune, if one could forget the grief of their parents on seeing them carried off, at a time when they hoped to bequeath to them a religion free from persecution, and a regenerated country.
The element that makes this text a unicum is that it is written in Greek script. In the Ottoman Empire, the primary criterion for the selection of an alphabet in which to write was religion. Thus, people who did not speak—or even know—the official language of their religion used to write their religious texts in the languages that they knew, though in the alphabet where the sacred texts of that religion were written. Thus, the Grecophone Catholics of Chios wrote using the Latin alphabet, but in the Greek language ( frangochiotika); the Turcophone Orthodox Christians of Cappadocia wrote their Turkish texts using the Greek alphabet ( karamanlidika); and the Grecophone Muslims of the Greek peninsula wrote in Greek language using the Arabic alphabet ( tourkogianniotika, tourkokretika). Our case is much stranger, since it is a quite early example for that kind of literature and because it is largely concerned with religious themes."; p. 306. The audience for the Greek Mi'rājnāma was most certainly Greek-speaking Muslims, in particular the so-called Tourkogianniotes (literally, the Turks of Jannina). Although few examples have been discovered as yet, it seems that these people developed a religious literature mainly composed in verse form. This literary form constituted the mainstream of Greek Aljamiado literature from the middle of the seventeenth century until the population exchange between Greece and Turkey in 1923. Tourkogianniotes were probably of Christian origin and were Islamized sometime during the seventeenth century. They did not speak any language other than Greek. Thus, even their frequency in attending mosque services did not provide them with the necessary knowledge about their faith. Given their low level of literacy, one important way that they could learn about their faith was to listen to religiously edifying texts such as the Greek Mi'rājnāma.
"Al-Khazini (who lived in the 12th century), a slave of the Seljuk Turks, but of Byzantine origin, probably one of the spoils of the victory of the Seljuks over the Christian emperor of Constantinople, Romanus IV Diogenes."
Mother of Bayezid II was Gülbahar Hatun (a Pontic Greek from the village of Douvera in Trabzon)
Although he was dressed like an Englishman, and on deck wore a straw hat with the word "Scott" inside it, he soon let them know that his name was Mahmoud Baroudi, that his native place was Alexandria, that he was of mixed Greek and Egyptian blood, and that he was a man of great energy and will, interested in many schemes, pulling the strings of many enterprises. ...Baroudi's father was a rich Turco-Egyptian. His mother had been a beautiful Greek girl, who had embraced Islam when his father fell in love with her and proposed to marry her.
Mahmoud Baroudi, 'of mixed Greek and Egyptian blood
Rabia Gulnus a Greek girl who had been captured in the Ottoman invasion of Crete. Rabia Gulnus was the mother of Mehmet's first two sons, the future sultans Mustafa II and Ahmet III
She was the daughter of a Cretan (Greek) family and she was the mother of Mustafa II (1664–1703), and Ahmed III (1673–1736).
the mother of Mustafa II and Ahmed III was a Cretan
Unusually, the twenty-nine-year old Ahmed III was a brother, rather than a half- brother, of his predecessor; their Cretan mother, Rabia
Osman Hamdi Bey's father, Edhem Pasha (ca. 1818-1893) was a high official of the Empire. A Greek boy captured on Chios after the 1822 massacres, he was acquired and brought up by Husrev Pasha, who sent him to Paris in 1831 in order to acquire a western education.
Osman Hamdi Bey..(1) Turkish statesman and art expert, son of Hilmi Pasha, one of the last of the grand viziers of the old regime, was born at Istanbul. The family was of Greek origin. Hilmi Pasha himself, as a boy of 12, was rescued from the massacre of the Greeks at Chios in 1825 and bought by Mahmud..&...(2) Statesman and art expert who asserted the right of Constantinople to receive the finds made by various archaeological enterprises in the Ottoman Empire. Hamdi Bey founded the Archaeological Museum of Istanbul and became its director in 1881. His enlightened taste and energy did much to establish the reputation of the museum and its impressive collection of Greco-Roman antiquities.
Gülbahar Hatun' s husband Sultan Bayezid II (opposite page) and his mausoleum in Istanbul. - Chronicler of Trabzon, Şakir Şevket writes that the income from Vakfikebir and Vakfısagir taxes were donated to the Hatuniye Külliyesi, and that the revenues collected from the thirty-two plateaus of Maçka were distributed among the staff and kitchen of this kulliye. Şakir Şevket explains the above mentioned issue as, "The aforesaid girl is originally Greek, and that is why she is described as a Greek princess on her mausoleum. It is told that she has been taken by Fatih and wedded to Sultan Bayezid, she was the daughter of a Christian man in the village of Vayvara." We understand from this explanation that she was captured during the conquest of Trabzon and given to Bayezid. Halil Edhem Bey indicates in the "Vâlide-i Sultan Selim-i Evvel Gülbahâr Hâtun Mausoleum, year 911" part of his article, "Ottoman Epigraphs in Trabzon", that there act of foundation by Valide Sultan, and quotes the inscription on her tomb, which is told to be written by Sultan Selim - "May Bânû-yi Rûm, who has turned her face from the world towards eternity, sit on the throne of Heaven and may God bless her." The year of death written on the last lines is 911 AH (1505 AD). There are no Islamic wishes or prayers on this epigraph of six verses, written in Persian rather than Arabic. It is mentioned that the person lying in the mausoleum is a Greek princess (Banû-yi Rum), but her father's name and her name are not.
Eid travels: I'm not sure yet, maybe Greece. My grandmother is Greek so we go there every summer and any island in Greece is pretty much perfect – I love the beach.
Hussein Hilmi Pasha, descended from a Greek convert to Islam in the island of Mitylene, was sent to Macedonia as High Commissioner.
His Excellency Hussein Hilmi Pacha is a Turk "of the isles." The politest Turks of all come from the isles. There is also Greek blood in his veins,
Hussein Hilmi Pasha, descended from a Greek convert to Islam in the island of Mitylene, was sent to Macedonia as High Commissioner.
For Hilmi is a novus homo. A native of Mytilene, of obscure origin, partly Greek, he began his career as secretary to Kemal Bey
Hussein Hilmi Pasha, descended from a Greek convert to Islam in the island of Mitylene.
Hüseyin Hilmi (1855–1923), who was to become Grand Vezir twice in 1909
the Ottoman Red Crescent Society of which Hilmi Pasha was the head, which he said, utilized their money for the purpose it was contributed by Muslims in India.
Hüseyin Hilmi Pasha (1855-1923) (Ottoman Inspector-General of Macedonia, 1902-8
Hüseyin Hilmi Pasha (1855-1923) Minister for the Interior, 1908-9)
Hüseyin Hilmi Pasha (1855-1923) Ambassador at Vienna, 1912-18
Ahmed Vefik Pasa (1823-91), the grandson of a Greek convert to Islam and the holder of several of the highest positions, was one of those interested in Turkish studies.
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The statesman whom the Turks like best is Achmet Vefyk Effendi. Although a Greek by descent, he is a more orthodox Moslem than Fuad or Aali, and is the head of the reforming party, whose object is to bring about reform for the purpose of re-establishing the Turkish empire on the basis on which it stood in its palmy day, rather than adopt European customs.
Ahmed Vefik Pasha was the grandson of a Greek convert to Islam.
Fuad Pasha — unlike Ahmed Vefyk, who had Greek blood in his veins — was a pure Turk by descent.
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Ahmad Vefik Pasha) (grandson of a Greek convert) published influential works : Les Tuns Anciens et Modernes (1169) and Lahja-i-Osmani, respectively
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In 1876 Ahmed Vefik Pasha, the grandson of a Greek convert to Islam, and a keen student of Turkish customs, published the first Turkish-Ottoman dictionary
Ahmad Vefik Pasha (grandson of a Greek convert) published influential works : Les Turcs Anciens et Modernes ( 1 1 69) and Lahja-i-Osmani, respectively
Ahmed Vefik Paşa Ottoman statesman and scholar born 6 July 1823, Constantinople [now Istanbul] died 2 April 1891, Constantinople... He presided over the first Turkish Parliament (1877) and was twice appointed grand vizier (chief minister) for brief periods in 1878 and 1882.
Ahmed Vefik Paşa Ottoman statesman and scholar born 6 July 1823, Constantinople [now Istanbul] died 2 April 1891, Constantinople... In 1879 he became the vali (governor) of Bursa, where he sponsored important reforms in sanitation, education, and agriculture and established the first Ottoman theatre.
RESMI, AHMAD Ottoman statesman and historian. Ahmad b. Ibrahim, known as Resmi, belonged to Rethymo (turk. Resmo; hence his epithet) in Crete and was of Greek descent (cf. J. v. Hammer, GOR, viii. 202). He was born in III (1700) and came in 1146 (1733) to Stambul where he was educated, married a daughter of the Ke is Efendi
Ahmed Resmi Efendi (1700-1783). Der osmanische Staatsmann und Geschichtsschreiber griechischer Herkunft. Translation "Ahmed Resmi Efendi (1700-1783). The Ottoman statesman and historian of Greek origin
Resmi Ahmad (−83) was originally of Greek descent. He entered Ottoman service in 1733 and after holding a number of posts in local administration, was sent on missions to Vienna (1758) and Berlin (1763–4). He later held a number of important offices in central government. In addition, Resmi Ahmad was a contemporary historian of some distinction.
Ahmad b. Ibrahim, known as Resmi came from Rethymno (Turk. Resmo; hence his epithet?) in Crete and was of Greek descent (cf. Hammer- Purgstall, viii, 202). He was born in 1112/ 1700 and came in 1 146/1733 to Istanbul,
Gand vizier Edhem Pasha... The history of Edhem is a curious one. He was born of Greek parents, and saved from the massacre of Scio in 1822. He was then sold as a slave in Constantinople, and bought by the grand vizier.
Politically, the only person of any account in the Bardo palace was the prime minister, the all-powerful Mustafa Khaznadar, a mamluk of Greek extraction, who had managed to remain in power, under three beys, since 1837. The khaznadar, intelligent and cunning, maintained at court a careful balance between France and England, but his own sympathies were on the side of Great Britain on account of his connections with Wood, the British consul. At the palace, he alone exercised influence over the feeble spirit of the bey.
Shortly afterward a new grand vizier, Hasan, came to take the place of the old one, and he held his post during the period we are interested in: from November 16, 1703, to September 28, 1704.
Hasan Pasa (Damad-i- Padisahi), Greek convert from Morea. He began his career as imperial armourer and rose to the post of Grand Vezir (1703). He married the daughter of Sultan Mehmed IV, Hatice Sultan, fell into disgrace and was exiled with his wife to izmit.
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Shortly afterward a new grand vizier, Hasan, came to take the place of the old one, and he held his post during the period we are interested in: from November 16, 1703, to September 28, 1704. He was the new sultan's son-in-law... "he was a very honest and comparatively humane pasha of Greek origin and cannot be suspected of selling the sultan's pages to a foreigner."
The Valide Sultan was born Evmania Voria, daughter of a Greek priest in a village near Rethymnon on Crete. She was captured by the Turks when they took Rethymnon in 1645.
Rabia Gulnus a Greek girl who had been captured in the Ottoman invasion of Crete. Rabia Gulnus was the mother of Mehmet's first two sons, the future sultans Mustafa II and Ahmet III.
the mother of Mustafa II and Ahmed III was a Cretan.
Unusually, the twenty-nine-year old Ahmed III was a brother, rather than a half- brother, of his predecessor; their Cretan mother, Rabia.
Their mother, a Cretan, lady named Rabia Gulnus, continued to wield influence as the Walide Sultan - mother of the reigning sultan.
The sultan appears to have been in no hurry to leave his prized concubine from the Ottoman conquest of Rethymnon, Crete - the haseki Emetullah Gulnus, and their new son Mustafa.
Mahpeikir [Kösem Mahpeyker] and Revia Gülnûş [Rabia Gülnûş] were Greek.
Mehmet had by now set up his own harem, which he took with him in his peregrinations between Topkapi Sarayi and Edirne Sarayi. His favourite was Rabia Gülnûş Ummetüllah, a Greek girl from Rethymnon.
He set up his harem there, his favourite being Rabia Giilniis Ummetiillah, a Greek girl from Rethymnon on Crete.
After the accession of the fourth Fatimid caliph, al-Mu'izz (953- 975), a cultivated and energetic ruler who found an able second in Jawhar, an ethnic Greek, conditions for conquest of Egypt improved.
The Fatimid general, Gohar (Jewel), a converted ~ Greek, immediately began a new city where the dynasty henceforth reigned * (969-1171).
a Greek mercenary born in Sicily, and his 100000-man army had little
Under Mu'izz (955-975) the Fatimids reached the height of their glory, and the universal triumph of isma 'ilism appeared not far distant. The fourth Fatimid Caliph is an attractive character: humane and generous, simple and just, he was a good administrator, tolerant and conciliatory. Served by one of the greatest generals of the age, Jawhar al-Rumi, a former Greek slave, he took fullest advantage of the growing confusion in the Sunnite world.
The architect of his military system was a general named Jawhar, an islamicized Greek slave who had led the conquest of North Africa and then of Egypt
When the Sicilian Jawhar finally entered Fustat in 969 and the following year founded the new dynastic capital, Cairo, 'The Victorious', the Fatimids ...
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EDHEM PASHA, the successor of Midhat Pasha as Grand Vizier, was born at Chio, of Greek parents, in 1823. He was saved, when a child, by Turkish soldiers
Edhem Pasha was a Greek by birth, pure and unadulterated, having when an infant been stolen from the island of Chios at the time of the great massacre there
A Turkish soldier and statesman, born of Greek parents on the island of Chios. In 1831 he was taken to Paris, where he was educated in engineering
In the 17th century, the two most successful rulers were converted Greeks, both originally from the island of Chios and therefore known as Saqizly, which has that meaning in Turkish. The first, Muhammad (1632-1649), had lived in Algiers as a Christian for some years and then adopted Islam and the profession of a privateer. ...Uthman, also a former Christian, to high military command.
Mustafa Khaznadar became Prime Minister in 1837, a position he maintained under three successive bey-s, more or less continuously until 1873.
Mustafa Khaznadar was of Greek origin (b. 1817), and proved to be one of the most influential persons Tunisia saw in her modern history. He took the interest of his master and the country to heart and did all he could to prevail on Ahmad Bey to see that Tunisia acquired as much as she could
A mamluk of Greek origin raised by Prince Ahmad (later Ahmad Bey). Khaznadar first worked as the prince's private treasurer before the latter succeeded his father to the throne in 1837. Then, he immediately became Ahmad Bey's khaznadar (treasurer )
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the Greek Mustafa Khaznadar, a former slave who from 1837 to 1873 was Minister of Finance and the actual ruler of the country
The Hussienite Dynasty was itself of Greek origin and Prime Minister Mustapha Kharznader was a Greek whose original name was Stravelakis.
Mustapha's name was in fact Georges Kalkias Stravelakis, born in 1817 on the island of Chio (Greece) where he was captured during the 1824 massacres
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Mustafa Khaznadar (George Kalkias Stravelakis) was born on the island of Chios in 1817. The nephews were sons of a brother who had remained in Chios in 1821. Bin Diyaf stated that he had learned of his expenditure from a receipt he had seen on the fifteenth page of a state treasury register kept by Khaznadar.
Mustafa Khaznader was born Georges Kalkias Stravelakis, on the island of Chios. In 1821, during the Greek rebellion against the Turks, he was seized, taken to Constantinople, and sold into slavery, In 1821 he was sent to Tunis, where he was sold again.
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PRIME MINISTERS * Ragheb Pasha was Prime Minister from July 12, 1882
This Ragheb Pasha, a decrepit old man with a reputation of venality, was of Greek extraction, and had originally been a Greek slave.
Ragheb Bey, as I knew him first, was a Candiote, a Mussulman of Greek origin, and gifted with the financial cunning of his race. He began political life in Egypt under Said Pasha, as an employé in the financial department where he was speedily promoted to a high...
Isma'il Pasha Raghib and al-Shaykh al-Bakri. Raghib was an established figure in the state administrative machinery, who came from Greek origins, and who had held various portfolios in finance and served as President of the first Majlis Shura al-Nuwwab in 1866.
Ragheb Pasha is (as mentioned by Ninet) of Greek descent, though a Moslem
Isma'il Raghib was born in Greece in 1819; the sources differ over his homeland. After first being kidnapped to Anatolia, he was brought as a slave to Egypt in 1246 (1830/1), by Ibrahim Pasha, and there he was 'converted' from Christianity
Raghib Pasha, the new Minister — by birth a Sciote Greek, sold into Egypt after the massacre of 1822 — is said to be an able administrator, and enjoys a high personal character
Ragheb Bey, as I knew him first, was a Candiote, a Mussulman of Greek origin
Isma'il Raghib ...After first being kidnapped to Anatolia, he was brought as a slave to Egypt in 1246 (1830/1), by Ibrahim Pasha, and there he was 'converted' from Christianity
"One of the most famous corsairs was Turghut (Dragut) (?–1565), who was of Greek ancestry and a protégé of Khayr al-Din. He participated in the successful Ottoman assault on Tripoli in 1551 against the Knights of St. John of Malta.
"And the corsairs' greatest leader, Dragut, had also done time, at the oar of a Genoese galley. Dragut was born of Greek parents, Orthodox Christians, at Charabulac on the coast of Asia Minor, but a Turkish governor took a fancy to the boy and carried him off to Egypt.
"Neither was the career of Dragut, another Greek whom we find in 1540s on the Tunisian coast and in 1561 installed at Tripoli in Barbary, in place of the Knights of Malta whom the Turks had expelled five years earlier.
"It is named after the 16th-century Admiral Turgut (Dragut), who was born here to Greek parents; his mentor Barbarossa, another Greek who 'turned Turk', in a moment of unusual humility declared that Dragut was ahead of him 'both in fishing and bravery'.
A new star was now rising in the piratical firmament, Barbarossa's lieutenant Dragut-Reis, a Greek who had been taken prisoner by the corsairs in his youth and had turned Mahometan.
"Of all the corsairs who preyed on Sicilian wheat, Dragut (Turghut) was the most dangerous. A Greek by birth, he was now about fifty years old and behind him lay a long and adventurous career including four years in the Genoese galleys.
"Ottomans extended their western maritime frontier across North Africa under the naval command of another Greek Moslem, Torghoud (or Dragut), who succeeded Barbarossa upon the latter's death in 1546.
"One of the most famous corsairs was Turghut (Dragut) (?–1565), who was of Greek ancestry and a protégé of Khayr al-Din. ...While pasha, he built up Tripoli and adorned it, making it one of the most impressive cities along the North African littoral.