The Muslim population in Europe is extremely diverse with varied histories and origins. The most notable earlier revolt was
revolt of 1432–36 led principally by
Gjergj Arianiti. Although Skanderbeg was summoned by his relatives during this rebellion, he remained loyal to the sultan and did not fight the Ottomans. After this rebellion was suppressed by the Ottomans, Arianiti again revolted against the Ottomans in the region of central Albania in August 1443. Skanderbeg decided to leave his position of Ottoman sanjakbey and revolt against the Ottomans only after the victorious
Crusade of Varna in 1443. Successes of the crusaders inspired revolt of Skanderbeg and revolt of
Constantine XI Palaiologos in the
Despotate of the Morea. In early November 1443, Skanderbeg deserted the forces of Sultan Murad II during the Battle of Nish, while fighting against the crusaders of John Hunyadi. Skanderbeg quit the field along with 300 other Albanians serving in the Ottoman army. He immediately led his men to Krujë, where he arrived on November 28, and by the use of a forged letter from Sultan Murad to the Governor of Krujë he became lord of the city. To reinforce his intention of gaining control of the former domains of Zeta, Skanderbeg proclaimed himself the heir of the
Balšić noble family. After capturing some less important surrounding castles (Petrela, Prezë, Guri i Bardhë, Svetigrad, Modrič and others) and eventually gaining control over more than his father Gjon Kastrioti's domains, Skanderbeg abjured Islam and proclaimed himself the avenger of his family and country. He raised a red flag with a black double-headed eagle on it: Albania uses a similar flag as its national symbol to this day. Until September 1912, the Ottoman government intentionally kept
Albanians divided within four ethnically heterogeneous vilayets in order to prevent the
national unification of Albania. The reforms introduced by the
Young Turks provoked the
Albanian Revolt, which lasted from January to August 1912. In January 1912,
Hasan Prishtina, an Albanian deputy in the
Ottoman parliament, publicly warned members of the parliament that the policy of the Young Turks' government would lead to a revolution in Albania. The Albanian revolt was successful and until August 1912 rebels managed to gain control over whole
Kosovo vilayet (including
Novi Pazar,
Sjenica,
Pristina and even
Skopje), a part of the
Scutari Vilayet (including
Elbasan,
Përmet and
Leskovik),
Konitsa in
Janina Vilayet and
Debar in
Monastir Vilayet. The
Ottoman government ended the Albanian revolt on 4 September 1912 by accepting all demands related to establishing an unified autonomous system of administration and justice for Albanians within one vilayet—the
Albanian vilayet. The
international relations of Albania began to function on a
state level after it was proclaimed independent and the first diplomatic efforts of its government were requests for the
international recognition of the Albanian state. In December 1912, a delegation of
Albania submitted a memorandum to the
London Conference of 1913 insisting on the ethnic rights of
Albanians and requested an international recognition of the independent Albania composed of
Kosovo, western
Macedonia including
Skopje and
Bitola and the whole territory of
Epirus up to
Arta.
Bosnia and Herzegovina After the fall in 1463,
herceg Stjepan Vukčić, lord of the
Hum province in the south of the
medieval Kingdom of Bosnia, lived for another three years, long enough to see kingdom's complete demise, for which he blamed his eldest son
Vladislav Hercegović. On 21 May 1466, old and terminally ill, the duke dictated his last words, recorded in a testament, and condemned Vladislav by saying that it was him who "brought the great Turk to Bosnia to the death and destruction of us all", after which the duke died the following day. He was succeeded as
herceg by his second and younger son
Vlatko Hercegović, who struggled to retain as much of the territory he could. However,
Blagaj, Kosača capital, fell in 1466, while Ključ fort between Nevesinje and Gacko was cut off from the main part of his territory, although Vlatko's actions against Ottomans were mostly concentrated around this fort with limited success.
Počitelj fell in 1471, however,
herceg Vlatko already in 1470 realized that only radical change in his politics could bring him some release, so he pursued and achieved a peace with the Ottomans. In the same year, the Ottomans excluded Hum from the
Bosnian Sanjak, and established a new, separate sanjak with its seat in
Foča,
Sanjak of Herzegovina. He also gave up his agreement with Ottomans, after just a few years or so, just about the same time when his younger brother, Stjepan, assumed highest office of the Ottoman navy as
Ahmed Pasha Hercegović (around 1473) in
Istanbul. After his marriage in 1474, he reconciled with his older brother Vladislav. So, the province endured for another fifteen years after Stjepan Vukčić's death, shrinking with time, before it was eventually swallowed by the Ottomans in December 1481, and incorporated into the empire as re-organized territory of already formed and renamed province,
Sanjak of Herzegovina. This signified the disappearance of the last-remaining independent point of the medieval Bosnian state.
Hungarian rulers perceived Bosnia as a country
under their sovereignty during medieval time. Bosnian rulers acted completely independently in carrying out state and diplomatic affairs, governing the judicial system, granting towns and estates, minting coins, exploiting natural resources, and making trading agreements with other countries and independent cities. As a main trading partner of the Bosnian state, the Ragusa referred to the Bosnian Kingdom as a separate state ("rusag"), for example in a charter issued to
Sandalj Hranić in November 1405, where they articulated that the Ragusan merchants would be safe across the "Bosnian rusag", or 1451, during the war with Stjepan Vukčić, as a "Holy Kingdom". Ragusans also paid Saint Demetrius an income of 2000
Ragusan perpera.
Ladislaus of Naples acknowledged the territories of the kingdom on 26 August 1406 at the request of Tvrtko II.
Bulgaria in the year 1396 The Ottomans reorganised the Bulgarian territories, dividing them into several
vilayets, each ruled by a
Sanjakbey or Subasi accountable to the
Beylerbey. Significant parts of the conquered land were parcelled out to the
Sultan's followers, who held it as benefices or
fiefs (small
timar, medium
zeamet and large
hass) directly from him, or from the Beylerbeys. This category of land could not be sold or inherited but reverted to the Sultan when the fiefholder died. The lands were organised as private possessions of the Sultan or Ottoman nobility, called "mülk", and also as an economic base for religious foundations, called
vakιf, as well as other people. The system was meant to make the army self-sufficient and to continuously increase the number of Ottoman cavalry soldiers, thus both fuelling new conquests and bringing conquered countries under direct Ottoman control. From the 14th century until the 19th century
Sofia was an important administrative centre in the Ottoman Empire. It became the capital of the
beylerbeylik of
Rumelia (
Rumelia Eyalet), the
province that administered the Ottoman lands in
Europe (the
Balkans), one of the two together with the beylerbeylik of
Anatolia. It was the capital of the important
Sanjak of Sofia as well, including the whole of
Thrace with
Plovdiv and
Edirne, and part of
Macedonia with
Thessaloniki and
Skopje. The
Danube Vilayet was a first-level administrative division (vilayet) of the Ottoman Empire from 1864 to 1878 with a capital in
Ruse. In the late 19th century it reportedly had an area of 34,120 square miles (88,400 km2) and incorporated the
Vidin Eyalet,
Silistra Eyalet, and
Niš Eyalet. The
April Uprising was an
insurrection organised by the
Bulgarians in the
Ottoman Empire from April to May 1876. The rebellion was suppressed by
irregular Ottoman
bashi-bazouk units that engaged in indiscriminate slaughter of both rebels and non-combatants (see
Batak massacre). The April uprising was not successful in itself, but its bloody suppression by the Ottomans caused such outrage across Europe that public opinion, even in Turcophile England, shifted, demanding a reform of the model of Ottoman governance. As a result, the
Great Powers called the
Constantinople Conference in December 1876, where they presented the Sultan with a combined proposal that envisaged the creation of two autonomous Bulgarian provinces, largely overlapping with the borders of the
Bulgarian Exarchate. By splitting the autonomy in two and ensuring extensive international oversight of provincial affairs, the proposal reflected all of the
British Empire's wishes and allayed its fears that the provinces would become Russian puppets. Thus, the decades-long Bulgarian struggle for self-governance and freedom appeared to finally bear fruit. And this the Bulgarians had achieved entirely by themselves—through the efforts of both clergy and the young Bulgarian bourgeoisie, which had successfully argued before and succeeded in convincing Grand Vizier
Âli Pasha in the need for a separate
Bulgarian church and millet, thus initiating the Bulgarian nation-building process even under foreign rule, and through the blood shed by the hothead revolutionaries who had managed to cause a seismic shift in European public opinion.
Bulgaria had been a widely autonomous
principality since 13 July 1878
Congress of Berlin and the end of the
Russo-Turkish War (1877–78). Although it was still technically under the
suzerainty of the
Sublime Porte, this was a
legal fiction that Bulgaria only acknowledged in a formal way. It acted largely as a
de facto independent state with its own constitution, flag, anthem and currency, and conducted a separate foreign policy. On , it had
unified with the
Bulgarian-majority Ottoman autonomous province of
Eastern Rumelia. The
de jure independence of Bulgaria from the Ottoman Empire was proclaimed on in the old capital of
Tarnovo by Prince
Ferdinand of Bulgaria, who afterwards took the title "
Tsar".
Croatia , from 1515, depicts the
Battle of Krbava Field between the army of
Croatian nobility and
Ottoman akinji. Serious Ottoman attacks on Croatian lands began after the fall of
Bosnia to the
Ottoman Turks in 1463. At this point main Ottoman attacks were not yet directed towards Central Europe, with
Vienna as its main objective, but towards renaissance Italy with Croatia standing on their way between. As the
Ottomans launched expansion further into Europe, Croatian lands became a place of permanent warfare. This period of history is considered to be one of the direst for the people living in Croatia. Baroque poet
Pavao Ritter Vitezović subsequently described this period of Croatian history as "
two centuries of weeping Croatia". Armies of Croatian nobility fought numerous battles to counter the
Ottoman akinji and
martolos raids. The Ottoman forces frequently raided the Croatian countryside, plundering towns and villages and captured the local inhabitants as slaves. These "
scorched earth" tactics, also called "The Small War", were usually conducted once a year with intention to soften up the region's defenses, but didn't result in actual conquest of territory. Meanwhile, after king
Mathias Corvinus died in 1490, a
succession war ensued, where supporters of
Vladislaus Jagiellon prevailed over those of
Maximilian Habsburg, another contester to the throne of Kingdom of Hungary-Croatia. Maximilian gained many supporters among Croatian nobility and a favourable peace treaty he concluded with Vladislaus enabled Croatians to increasingly turn towards Habsburgs when seeking protections from the Ottoman attacks, as their lawful king Vladislaus turned out unable to protect his subjects in Croatia. On same year, the estates of Croatia also declined to recognize
Vladislaus II as a ruler until he had taken an oath to respect their liberties and insisted that he strike from the constitution certain phrases which seemed to reduce Croatia to the rank of a mere province. The dispute was resolved in 1492 when according to
Lujo Margetić, king Vladislaus recognised the autonomy of both Croatia and Slavonia, whose nobility gave a separate confirmation to the succession agreement between Vladislaus and the house of Habsburg, enabling Croatians and Slavonians to have their say in future interregnum periods.
Hungary in
Pécs Islam was practiced by a sizeable minority of the
conquering Hungarians, who arrived in the
territory of present-day Hungary at the end of the 9th century. Muslims in early Hungary were known as
Böszörmény,
Khalyzians,
Saracens, and
Ishmaelites. The biggest Muslim settlement was near the town of present-day
Orosháza in the central part of the Hungarian Kingdom. This settlement, entirely populated by Muslims, was likely one of the biggest settlements of the early Kingdom. This and several other Muslim settlements were destroyed with their inhabitants massacred during the 1241 Mongol invasion of Hungary and Muslims were later mandated to become Christian by
Charles I of Hungary. The country was reintroduced to Islam via the Ottoman Empire, particularly when it was
under Ottoman rule. Following the end of Ottoman rule in Hungary, the country continued to border the Ottoman Empire, and experienced various influxes of migration of Bosniak, Albanian and Turkish Muslims.
Seljuks As a result of
Babai revolt, in 1261, one of the
Turkoman dervish Sari Saltuk was forced to take refuge in the
Byzantine Empire, alongside 40 Turkoman clans. He was settled in
Dobruja, whence he entered the service of the powerful Muslim
Mongol emir,
Nogai Khan. Sari Saltuk became the hero of an epic, as a dervish and
ghazi spreading Islam into Europe.
Ottomans Suleiman the Magnificent awaits the arrival of the Greek Muslim
Grand Vizier Pargalı Ibrahim Pasha at
Buda, in 1529. The
Ottoman Empire began its expansion into Europe by invading the European portions of the
Byzantine Empire in the 14th and 15th centuries up until the
capture of Constantinople in 1453, establishing Islam as the state religion of the newly-founded empire. The
Ottoman Turks further expanded into
Southeastern Europe and consolidated their political power by invading and conquering huge portions of the
Serbian Empire,
Bulgarian Empire, and the remaining territories of the
Byzantine Empire in the 14th and 15th centuries. During the 16th and 17th centuries, the empire absorbed the territory of present-day Hungary and the vast majority of present-day Croatia. The territory of present-day Moldova was also absorbed within an
Ottoman vassal state. The empire continued to stretch northwards, reaching as far north as present-day southern Slovakia and southwestern Ukraine in the mid-17th century. By the time the
Peace of Buczacz was signed with the
Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1672, most of the Balkans was under Ottoman control. Ottoman expansion in Europe ended with their defeat in the
Great Turkish War in 1699. Over the centuries, the
Ottoman Empire gradually lost almost all of its European territories, until it was
defeated and eventually collapsed in 1922. Between 1354 (when the Ottoman Turks crossed into Europe at
Gallipoli) and 1526, the Empire had conquered the territories of present-day
Albania,
Bosnia and Herzegovina,
Bulgaria,
Greece,
Hungary,
Kosovo,
Montenegro,
North Macedonia,
Romania, and
Serbia.
Slavery, slave trade, and conversions for the
tribute in blood. Ottoman miniature painting, 1558. The
slave trade in the Ottoman Empire supplied the ranks of the
Ottoman army between the 15th and 19th centuries. They were useful in preventing both the
slave rebellions and the
breakup of the Empire itself, especially due to the
rising tide of nationalism among European peoples in its Balkan provinces from the 17th century onwards. Apart from the effect of a lengthy period under Ottoman domination, many of the subject populations
were periodically and forcefully converted to Islam as a result of a deliberate move by the Ottoman Turks as part of a policy of ensuring the loyalty of the population against a potential
Venetian invasion. However, Islam was spread by force in the areas under the control of the
Ottoman sultan through the
devşirme system of
child levy enslavement, and
jizya taxes.
Southern Europe , located in the historic citadel of
Alhambra in
Granada, Spain. request permission from
King James I of Aragon (13th century) Arab Muslim forays into Europe began shortly after
the foundation of Islam in the 7th century CE. Soon after the
death of Muhammad in 632 CE, his community needed to appoint a new leader, giving rise to the title of
caliph (), which was claimed by some of
Muhammad's closest companions (
ṣaḥāba) and their descendants over the succession for the role of caliph throughout the centuries. The four "
rightly-guided" (
rāshidūn) caliphs who succeeded him oversaw the initial phase of the
early Muslim conquests, advancing through
Persia,
the Levant,
Egypt, and
North Africa. and
incorporated the former Byzantine province of Syria, pushing to the north and west. At the same time, consolidation of the hold of Islam by the
Arab empires in
North Africa and the
Middle East was soon to be followed by incursions into what is now Europe, as Arab and Berber Muslim armies raided and eventually conquered territories leading to the establishment of Muslim-ruled states on the European continent. A short-lived invasion of
Byzantine Sicily by a small
Arab and Berber contingent that landed in 652 was the prelude of a series of incursions; from the 8th to the 15th centuries, Muslim states ruled parts of the
Iberian Peninsula,
southern Italy,
southern France, while in the East, incursions into a much reduced in territory and weakened
Byzantine Empire continued. In the 720s and 730s, Arab and Berber Muslim forces
fought and raided north of the Pyrenees, well into what is now France, reaching as north as Tours, where they
were eventually defeated and repelled by the Christian Franks in 732 to their Iberian and North African territories. Islam gained its first genuine foothold in continental Europe from 711 onward, with the
Umayyad conquest of Hispania. The Arabs renamed the land
al-Andalus, which expanded to include the larger parts of what is now
Portugal and
Spain, excluding the northern highlands. Arab and Berber Muslim forces established various
emirates in Europe after the invasion of southern Iberia and the foundation of al-Andalus. One notable emirate was the
Emirate of Crete, a Muslim-ruled state and center of
Muslim piratical activity that existed on the
Mediterranean island of
Crete from the late 820s until the Byzantine reconquest of the island in 961, when the
Byzantine Emperor Nikephoros II Phokas defeated and expelled the Muslim Arabs and Berbers from Crete for the Byzantine Empire, and made the island into a
theme. The other was the
Emirate of Sicily, which existed on the eponymous island from 831 to 1091; Muslim Arabs and Berbers held onto Sicily and other regions of southern Italy until they
were eventually defeated and expelled by the Christian Normans in 1072 to their Iberian and North African territories. Modern historians further recognize that the Christian populations living in the
lands invaded by the Arab Muslim armies between the 7th and 10th centuries CE suffered
religious persecution,
religious violence, and
martyrdom multiple times at the hands of Arab Muslim officials and rulers; many
were executed under the Islamic death penalty for defending their Christian faith through dramatic acts of resistance such as refusing to convert to Islam,
repudiation of the Islamic religion and subsequent
reconversion to Christianity, and
blasphemy towards Muslim beliefs. after the
Frankish conquest of Septimania in 759. after the
Frankish conquest of Narbonne in 759, the Muslim Arabs and Berbers were defeated by the Christian Franks and retreated to their Andalusian heartland after 40 years of occupation, and the
Carolingian king Pepin the Short came up reinforced. Muslim forces under the
Aghlabids conquered Sicily after a series of expeditions spanning 827–902, and had notably
raided Rome in 846. By 1236, practically all that remained of Muslim-ruled Iberia was the southern province of
Granada. Since they are considered "
People of the Book" in the
Islamic religion, Christians and Jews under Muslim rule were subjected to the status of
dhimmi (along with
Samaritans,
Gnostics,
Mandeans, and
Zoroastrians in the Middle East), which was inferior to the status of Muslims. Arab Muslims imposed the
Islamic law (
sharīʿa) in these Muslim-ruled countries; thus, the
Latin- and
Greek-speaking European Christian populations, as well as the
Jewish communities of Europe, faced
religious discrimination and
persecution due to being considered religious minorities;
Overthrown by the Abbasids, the deposed Umayyad caliph
Abd al-Rahman I fled the city of
Damascus in 756 and established an independent
Emirate of Córdoba in al-Andalus. His dynasty consolidated the presence of Islam in al-Andalus. By the time of the reign of
Abd al-Rahman II (822–852),
Córdoba was becoming one of the biggest and most important cities in Europe.
Umayyad Spain had become a centre of the
Muslim world that rivaled the Muslim cities of Damascus and
Baghdad. "The emirs of Córdoba built palaces reflecting the confidence and vitality of Andalusi Islam, minted coins, brought to Spain luxury items from the East, initiated ambitious projects of irrigation and transformed agriculture, reproduced the style and ceremony of the Abbasid court ruling in the East and welcomed famous scholars, poets and musicians from the rest of the Muslim world". But, the most significant impact of the Emirate was its cultural influence over the Non-Muslim local populations.
An "elegant Arabic" became the preferred language of the educated—Muslim, Christian, and Jewish, the readership of Arabic books increased rapidly, and Arabic romance and poetry became extremely popular. The popularity of literary Arabic was just one aspect of the
Arabization of the Christian and Jewish populations of the Iberian Peninsula, which led contemporaries to refer to the affected populations as "
Mozarabs" (
mozárabes in Spanish;
moçárabes in Portuguese; derived from the Arabic
musta’rib, translated as "like Arabs" or "Arabicized")." Arabic-speaking Iberian Christian scholars preserved and studied influential
pre-Christian and pre-Islamic Greco-Roman texts, and introduced aspects of
medieval Islamic culture, including the
arts,
economics,
science, and
technology. (
See also:
Latin translations of the 12th century and
Islamic contributions to Medieval Europe). Muslim rule endured in the
Emirate of Granada, from 1238 as a
vassal state of the Christian
Kingdom of Castile until the completion of
La Reconquista in 1492. The
Moriscos (
Moorish in Spanish) were finally expelled from
Spain between 1609 (Castile) and 1614 (rest of Iberia), by
Philip III during the
Spanish Inquisition. nobility. Tatar coats of arms often included motifs related to
Islamic culture.
European kingdoms began establishing embassies and diplomatic missions to the
Ottoman Empire between the 15th and 16th centuries in order to create closer, and more friendly, relationships with the
Ottoman Turks (
see also:
Franco-Ottoman alliance). The fear of
Ottoman expansion and its implications on
religion in Europe finally dissipated by the 17th century. The
last hundred years of the Ottoman Empire brought about the period in which the rest of European countries looked upon it as the "
Sick man of Europe", as it was widely held that
the Ottoman Empire was a stagnant nation and incapable of modernizing. This thesis was used throughout most of the 20th century as the basis of both Western and
Republican Turkish understanding of
Ottoman history. However, by 1978, historians had begun to reexamine the fundamental assumptions of the Ottoman decline thesis. Throughout the 16th to 19th centuries, the
Barbary States sent
pirates to raid nearby parts of Europe
in order to capture Christian slaves to sell at
slave markets in the
Muslim world, primarily in
North Africa and the
Ottoman Empire, throughout the
Renaissance and
early modern period. According to historian Robert Davis, from the 16th to 19th centuries, Barbary pirates captured 1 million to 1.25 million Europeans as slaves, although these numbers are disputed. These slaves were captured mainly from the crews of captured vessels, from coastal villages in
Spain and
Portugal, and from farther places like the
Italian Peninsula,
France, or
England, the
Netherlands,
Ireland, the
Azores Islands, and even
Iceland. The Crimean Tatars frequently mounted raids into the
Danubian Principalities,
Poland–Lithuania, and
Russia to enslave people whom they could capture.
Central and Eastern Europe for
territorial expansion in Europe in 1566;
Crimean Tatars were used as vanguard troops by the
Ottoman army.
Belarus, Lithuania, and Poland The
Lipka Tatars in present-day
Belarus,
Lithuania, and
Poland are a
Turkic ethnic group who originally settled in the
Grand Duchy of Lithuania at the beginning of the 14th century. Traditionally, the material of their
mosques is wood. Lithuanian Tatars, who are descendants of immigrants from the
Crimean Khanate, are considered an ethnic group of
Crimean Tatars. The first Tatar settlers tried to preserve their
Turco-Mongol shamanistic religion and sought asylum amongst the
pre-Christian Lithuanians. Towards the end of the 14th century, another wave of Tatars—this time,
Islamized Turks, were invited into the Grand Duchy by
Vytautas the Great. These Tatars first settled in
Lithuania proper around
Vilnius,
Trakai,
Hrodna, and
Kaunas. There are still small groups of Lipka Tatars living in Belarus, Lithuania, and Poland, as well as their communities in the
United States.
Finland The
Finnish Tatars are a
Tatar ethnic group and minority in
Finland whose community has approximately 600–700 members. The community was formed between the late 1800s and the early 1900s, when
Mishar Tatar merchants emigrated from the
Nizhny Novgorod Governorate of the
Russian Empire, and eventually settled in Finland. Tatars have the main building of
their congregation in
Helsinki. They have also founded cultural associations in different cities. They are the
oldest Muslim community in Finland. The identity of the Finnish Tatars has had different reference points throughout their history in the country. In the early days, they were known by their religious identity (
Muslims). Starting from the establishment of the
Republic of Turkey, local
Turkic Tatars began associating themselves as "
Turks". During those times they were also influenced by
Turkish culture and for example
adopted the Latin alphabet, which replaced the previously used Arabic one. Nowadays, they once again identify as Tatars and are very connected to
Tatarstan and especially its capital,
Kazan.
Russia and Ukraine , the only mosque ever built in
Slovenia, constructed in the town of
Log pod Mangartom during
World War I. In the mid-7th century AD, following the
Muslim conquest of Persia, Islam spread into areas that are today part of
Russia as a result of the
Russo-Persian Wars. There are accounts of the
trade connections between Muslims and the
Rus', apparently people from the
Baltic region who made their way towards the
Black Sea through
Central Russia. The
Mongols began their
invasion of Rus', of
Volga Bulgaria, and of the
Cuman-Kipchak Confederation (parts of present-day Russia and
Ukraine) in the 13th century. After the
Mongol Empire fractured into four separate khanates, the eastern European section became known as the
Golden Horde. Although not originally Muslim, the western Mongols adopted Islam as their religion in the early-14th century under
Berke Khan, and later
Uzbeg Khan established it as the official religion of the state. Much of the mostly Turkic-speaking population of the Horde, as well as the small Mongol aristocracy, became
Islamized as well (if they were not already Muslim, like the Volga Bulgars), and were known to
Russians and other Europeans as the "
Tatars".
Cultural influences Islam piqued interest among European scholars, setting off the movement of
Orientalism. The founder of modern Islamic studies in Europe was
Ignác Goldziher, who began studying Islam in the late 19th century. For instance,
Richard Francis Burton, 19th-century English explorer, scholar, and orientalist, and translator of
The Book of One Thousand and One Nights, disguised himself as a Pashtun and visited both Medina and Mecca during the Hajj, as described in his book
A Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to Al-Medinah and Meccah. Islamic architecture influenced European architecture in various ways (for example, the
Türkischer Tempel synagogue in
Vienna). During the 12th-century Renaissance in Europe, Latin translations of
Arabic texts were introduced. ==Current demographics==