13th century Albania first came into contact with Islam in the 13th century when
Angevin expansion into Albania during the reign of
Charles I Anjou was made possible in part by Muslim involvement.
Lucera is located only about 240 km northwest of
Brindisi, which was the main port of disembarkation. Charles claimed rights in Albania, as Manfred's successor, since 1267 when the Treaty of Viterbo was drawn up. During the winter of 1271, the Angevin forces took
Durrës. Within a year, Charles began to use the title "rex Albaniae", a title that was later recognized by the king of Serbia and the tsar of Bulgaria. In 1273, both Muslim and Christian contingents sailed across the Adriatic. In April 1273, a Muslim from
Lucera named Leone was appointed captain of the Muslim forces in Durrës. A month later, Musa took Leone's place as commander of 200 Muslims stationed "in partibus Romaniae". Although relations between the Church of
Rome and
Byzantium improved,
Charles I of Anjou continued to send Muslim and Christian military forces to the east, towards Albania. The Muslim knight Salem, a regular army officer, led 300 Lucerians - archers and lancers - to
Vlora, in 1275. In September of that year, Ibrahim became the captain of the Muslims of
Durrës, who took the place of Musa. On 19 April 1279, Charles I ordered 53 of the best Muslim archers from Lucera to be selected by the
Capitanata's justiciary, Guy d'Allemagne, to go to Durrës. As usually happens in the recruitment process, the advice of Muslim military leaders was sought. Ibrahim had to approve the selections. Orders were given that Ibrahim could take four horses with him as he crossed from Brindisi to
Durrës. Ibrahim served in
Durrës again in the early 1280s, as did a man from Lucera, named Pietro Cristiano. One source identifies him as "de... terra Lucerie Saracenorum", most likely a Christian convert from Islam. The demand for Muslim carpenters and blacksmiths to build war machines in Albania was so great during the summer of 1280 that it threatened to exhaust the skilled workers' pool for the construction of forts on the Italian coast. In June 1280, the king ordered the archers of the Capitanata and the Land of
Bari to send 60 Muslim archers, as well as carpenters, stonemasons and blacksmiths to Albania. The archers had to report to
Hugues le Rousseau de Sully in Berat. In the fall of the same year, 200 archers from Lucera were sent to Vlora. At the beginning of December, 300 archers were stationed in Durrës. Angevin forces took part in the unsuccessful siege of
Berat castle, and were repulsed by Byzantine forces.
Conversion and consolidation (15th–18th centuries) Islam was further introduced to Albania in the 15th century after the
Ottoman conquest of the area. During the 17th and 18th centuries, Albanians in large numbers converted to
Islam. As Muslims, many Albanians attained important political and military positions within the Ottoman Empire and culturally contributed to the wider Muslim world.
National Awakening (19th and early 20th centuries) By the 19th century, Albanians were divided into three religious groups. Catholic Albanians who had some Albanian ethno-linguistic expression in schooling and church due to Austro-Hungarian protection and Italian clerical patronage. Muslim Albanians during this period formed around 70% of the overall Balkan Albanian population in the Ottoman Empire with an estimated population of more than a million. With the rise of the
Eastern Crisis, Muslim Albanians became torn between loyalties to the Ottoman state and the emerging Albanian nationalist movement. Islam, the Sultan and the Ottoman Empire were traditionally seen as synonymous in belonging to the wider Muslim community. the Albanian nationalist movement advocated self-determination and strived to achieve socio-political recognition of Albanians as a separate people and language within the state. These geo-political events nonetheless pushed Albanian nationalists, many Muslim, to distance themselves from the Ottomans, Islam and the then emerging pan-Islamic
Ottomanism of Sultan
Abdulhamid II.
Albanian nationalism overall was a reaction to the gradual breakup of the Ottoman Empire and a response to Balkan and Christian national movements that posed a threat to an Albanian population that was mainly Muslim. Muslim (Bektashi) Albanians were heavily involved with the Albanian National Awakening producing many figures like
Faik Konitza,
Ismail Qemali,
Midhat Frashëri,
Shahin Kolonja and others advocating for Albanian interests and self-determination. During the late Ottoman period, Muslims inhabited compactly the entire mountainous and hilly hinterland located north of the Himarë, Tepelenë, Këlcyrë and Frashëri line that encompasses most of the Vlorë, Tepelenë,
Mallakastër, Skrapar, Tomorr and Dishnicë regions. In southern Albania during the late Ottoman period being Albanian was increasingly associated with Islam, while from the 1880s the emerging Albanian National Movement was viewed as an obstacle to
Hellenism within the region. In central and southern Albania, Muslim Albanian society was integrated into the Ottoman state. While northern Albanian society was little integrated into the Ottoman world, Shkodër was inhabited by a Muslim majority with a sizable Catholic minority.
Independence ====
Balkan Wars (1912–13) and World War One (1914–18) ==== on the first anniversary of the session of the
Assembly of Vlorë which proclaimed the
Independence of Albania. Realising that the collapse of Ottoman rule through military defeat in the Balkans was imminent, Albanians represented by Ismail Qemali declared Independence from the Ottoman Empire on 28 November 1912 in Vlorë. International recognition of Albanian independence entailed the imposition of a Christian monarch which alongside internal political power struggles generated a failed Muslim
uprising (1914) in central Albania that sought to restore Ottoman rule. During World War one, northern, central and south-central Albania came under Austro-Hungarian occupation. In the census of 1916–18 conducted by Austro-Hungarian authorities, the results showed that Muslims in the regions of Dibër, Lumë and Gorë were over 80% of the population. The experience of World War One, concerns over being partitioned and loss of power made the Muslim Albanian population support Albanian nationalism and the territorial integrity of Albania. An understanding emerged between most Sunni and Bektashi Albanians that religious differences needed to be sidelined for national cohesiveness.
Interwar period (1919–39): State interference and reforms Community in
Tirana. From the early days of interwar Albania and due to Albania's heterogeneous religious makeup, Albania's political leadership defined Albania as without an official religion. From 1920 until 1925, a four-member governing regency council from the four religious denominations (Sunni, Bektashi, Catholic, Orthodox) was appointed. Albanian secularist elites pushed for a
reform of Islam as the process of Islamic religious institutions were nationalised and the state increasingly imposed its will upon them. As with the congress, the attitudes of Muslim clerics were during the interwar period monitored by the state who at times appointed and dismissed them at will. After prolonged debate amongst Albanian elites during the interwar era and increasing restrictions, the wearing of the veil in 1937 was banned in legislation by Zog. Throughout the interwar period, the Albanian intellectual elite often undermined and depreciated Sunni Islam, whereas Sufi Islam and its various orders experienced an important period of promising growth. Apart from Bektashis, there were other main Sufi orders present in Albania during the interwar period such as the
Halvetis,
Qadiris,
Rufais and
Tijaniyyah. Of the Muslim Albanian population, the Italians attempted to gain their sympathies by proposing to build a large mosque in Rome, though the Vatican opposed this measure and nothing came of it in the end. The Italian occupiers also won Muslim Albanian sympathies by causing their working wages to rise. Albanian society was still traditionally divided between four religious communities. The communist regime through Albanian Nationalism attempted to forge a national identity that transcended and eroded these religious and other differences with the aim of forming a unitary Albanian identity. Inspired by
Pashko Vasa's late 19th century
poem for the need to overcome religious differences through Albanian unity, Hoxha took the
stanza "
the faith of the Albanians is Albanianism" and implemented it literally as state policy. In 1967 therefore the communist regime declared Albania the only non-religious country in the world, banning all forms of religious practice in public. People who still performed religious practices did so in secret, while others found out were persecuted and personal possession of religious literature such as the Quran forbidden. Mosques became a target for Albanian communists who saw their continued existence as exerting an ideological presence in the minds of people. Islamic buildings were hence appropriated by the communist state who often turned into them into gathering places, sports halls, warehouses, barns, restaurants, cultural centres and cinemas in an attempt to erase those links between religious buildings and people. In 1967 within the space of seven months, the communist regime destroyed 2,169 religious buildings and other monuments. Of the roughly 1,127 Islamic buildings existing in Albania prior to the communists coming to power, only 50 mosques remained thereafter with most being in a state of disrepair.
Republic of Albania (1992 onward) , commissioned by the
Pasha of Scutari Mehmed Bushati. Previously prone to flooding damage, it was jointly restored by the Albanian and Turkish governments in 2021. Following the
wider trends for socio-political pluralism and freedom in Eastern Europe from communism, a series of fierce protests by Albanian society culminated with the
communist regime collapsing after allowing two elections in 1991 and then 1992. Toward the end of the regime's collapse, it had reluctantly allowed for limited religious expression to reemerge. Within this context Muslim Albanians have also supported the separation of
religion from the state with faith being considered as a personal private matter. Today, Albania is a parliamentary secular state and with no official religion.
Revival of Sunni Islam In the 1990s, Muslim Albanians placed their focus on restoring institutions, religious buildings and Islam as a faith in Albania that had overall been decimated by the communists. During this time the restoration of Islam in Albania appealed to older generations of Muslim Albanian adherents, those families with traditional clerical heredity and limited numbers of young school age people who wished to qualify and study abroad in Muslim countries. Most mosques and some madrassas destroyed and damaged during the communist era had by 1996 been either reconstructed or restored in former locations where they once stood before 1967 and in contemporary times there are 555 mosques. Due to interwar and communist era legacies of weakening Islam within Albania and secularisation of the population, the revival of the faith has been somewhat difficult due to people in Albania knowing little about Islam and other religions. There are a few prayer houses located throughout Albania and one mosque run by the Sufi Rifai order. In April 2011,
Bedër University, Albania's first Muslim university was opened in Tiranë and is administered by the Gülen movement. The presence and influence of the Gülen movement in Albania has recently been a source of tension with the Turkish government headed by
Recep Tayyip Erdogan since it has blamed the movement for attempting to destabilize Turkey. The main state run Turkish Muslim organisation
Diyanet has funded and started construction of the
Great Mosque of Tiranë in 2015. International assistance from oversees organisations such as the Turkish International Cooperation and Development Agency (
TIKA) have also helped finance the restoration of Ottoman era mosques, of which only nine survived the communist dictatorship. In a post-communist environment the Muslim Community of Albania has been seeking from successive Albanian governments a return and restitution of properties and land confiscated by the communist regime though without much progress. File:Kalaja në Qytetin e Durrësit 07.jpg|
Great Mosque of Durrës built in 1931 File:Xhamia Ebubeker - Shkodër F.jpg|
Ebu Beker Mosque in
Shkodër File:Përmet – Gur i Qytetit, mosque i Vjosa zoom 02.jpg|Mosque in
Përmet File:Kanina neue Moschee.jpg|New Mosque in
Kaninë Revival of Sufi Islam The Muslim Community of Albania in its statutes claims authority over all Muslim groups in Albania. The Shia Bektashi order in the 1990s was only able to reopen 6 of its tekkes. the rest of Sufi orders are present in Albania such as the Rifais, Saidis, Halvetis, Qadiris and the Tijaniyah are Sunni and combined have 384 turbes, tekes,
maqams and
zawiyas. and have on occasion laid claims to Sufi shrines of other orders. The Bektashi though are selective of outside influence, with sometimes for example editing texts of Iranian Shia thinkers in Bektashi literature or borrowing from others. Bektashis also highlight and celebrate figures such as
Naim Frashëri who was made an honorary
baba because he was involved in the Albanian National Awakening and often referred to his Bektashi roots. Bektashis also use Shiite related iconography of Ali, the
Battle of Karbala and other revered Muslim figures of
Muhammad's family that adorn the interiors of turbes and tekkes. The Bektashis have a few clerical training centres though no schools for religious instruction.
Ahmadiyya The
Ahmadiyya movement has also established recently a presence in Albania and owns one mosque in Tiranë, the
Bejtyl Evel Mosque. == Demographics ==