George Grigore. „Muslims in Romania”, ISIM Newsletter (International Institute for the Study of Islam in the Modern World) no. 3, Leiden. 1999: 34.

Annals of the University of Bucharest - Philosophy Series, 2012

This paper aims at pointing out the actual situation of the Muslim community in Bulgaria and Romania and their religious life. It also deals with the phenomena of immigration and migration of people due to various historical and political reasons and the State policy concerning minorities.

Marmara University Journal of Political Science (Marmara Üniversitesi Siyasal Bilimler Dergisi), 2018

In my study I approached Turkish and Tatar communities in Dobruja (Romania) in the context of the ethnic and religious diversity in the Balkans, which Maria Todorova considers to be as the only continuous traces of a common continuous Ottoman heritage. Using the field research and documentary research, I tried to identify the political, economic, cultural and social factors that have determined the evolution of the collective mentality of the Muslim Turks and Tatars in Dobruja from perceiving themselves as a religious community to a self-perception as ethnic community throughout the 20th Century. Finally, I tried to identify the present overlays between the two hypostases (religious and ethnic) in the collective imaginary of the Turkish and Tatar Muslims in Dobruja. Öz Bu çalışmada Dobruca' daki (Romanya) Türk ve Tatar topluluklarına, Maria Todorova'nın Balkanlardaki ortak Osmanlı mirasının süreklilik arzeden yegane izleri olarak dikkate aldığı etnik ve dinsel çeşitlilik bağlamında yaklaşılmıştır. Saha çalışması ve belgelere dayalı araştırma kullanılarak 20. yüzyıl boyunca Dobruca' daki Müslüman Türk ve Tatar kollektif zihniyetinin, kendilerini bir dini topluluk olarak algılamaktan, etnik topluluklar olarak algılamaya doğru evriminde belirleyici olan siyasal, ekonomik, kültürel ve sosyal faktörler tespit edilmeye çalışılmıştır. Son olarak Dobruca' daki Türk ve Tatar Müslümanların ortak imgesindeki iki hipotez (dini ve etnik) arasında kalan mevcut katmanlar tespit edilmeye çalışılmıştır.

RESEE, 2025

This article is focused on relationship between the Orthodox Christian Churches (Greek and Bulgarian), and the secular administration in the late 1870s. After the annexation of the region by the Romanians, the Ottoman raya become Romanian citizen. The Greeks in the cities of Constanța, Tulcea, and Sulina sought to ensure the exclusive property and possession of their churches that had belonged to the Eastern Orthodox Christian community in the Ottoman Empire.

Revista Română de Studii Eurasiatice, 2011

"Romanian-Bulgarian diplomatic relations were established in 1879, at the level of diplomatic representative bureau. Soon, the diplomatic representation was bilaterally upgraded to the rank of consulate, general consulate, legation, and after 1944, embassies. The two main problems between Romania and Bulgaria were, first of all, the problem of Dobruja, and to a lesser extent, the problem of the Aromanians in Macedonia. We must say that the moment during which these problems took essence coincides with the very moment of the establishment of modern diplomatic relations between the two countries, meaning the signing of the Treaty of Berlin (1878), which stipulated the founding of an autonomous Bulgarian Principality, and an autonomous province of Eastern Rumelia (united in 1885 with the principality). Furthermore, the same treaty consecrated the annexation of Southern Bassarabia to the Russian Empire., a province which until then belonged to Romania, who in turn received Dobruja as compensation. This paper has been presented during the international scientific symposium „Overlapping Territories”, Central European University of Budapest, 25-26 May 2010. The author is extremely thankful to the organizers for the travel and participation grant offered by the History Department of the Central European University, which allowed him to present this research."

Chronica, 2023

In his Oğuznāme ("Book of the Oghuz"), the 15th-century Ottoman historian Yazıcıoğlu ʿAlī wove into the narrative of his main source, Ibn Bībī's Persian history of the Rūm Seljuks, a set of interpolations tracing the fate of a large group of Anatolian Turkmens. They reportedly followed the Seljuk Sultan ʿIzz al-Dīn Kaykāʾūs II (r. 1246-61) after his flight to Byzantium in 1262 and settled in the region of Dobruja in the Northeastern Balkans under the leadership of the famous mystic Sarı Saltuk. This story has become the cornerstone of a longstanding historiographic discussion since the early 20th century, not least because of its supposed relation to processes of greater historical significance such as the formation of the 14th-century Principality of Dobruja and the genesis of the Gagauz, a population of Turkish-speaking Christians, in the area. As a number of questions remain unanswered in the light of the increasing acceptance of the truthfulness of Yazıcıoğlu ʿAlī's account in recent research, the present study aims to reignite the discussion and challenge some unfounded yet widespread conclusions by revisiting the relevant pre-Ottoman evidence, both written and material. It highlights the Tatar (Golden Horde) context of Sarı Saltuk's presence in late 13th-century Northern Dobruja and in the town of Sakçı (Isaccea) in particular, but casts serious doubt on his connection with the alleged Anatolian migrants as well as with Babadag, a town that was (re)established and associated with him in Ottoman times.

International Balkan Annual Conference (IBAC). Book Series (4), 2016

The present discussion addresses the question in what manner did the Sufi tariqa (Order) Rifa’iyya interact with the Christian populations in Dobrudja and the mainly Romanian inhabited eyalets of Temesvar and Varat, previously held by the Kingdom of Hungary, in the 13th-14th and the 16th-18th centuries, respectively.

Aslan E., Rausch M. (eds) Religious Education. Wiener Beiträge zur Islamforschung. Springer VS, Wiesbaden, 2018

Considering the Islamic religion as one of the main items of common identification between Turkey as a mother/protective state and the Muslim local community in Dobruja (Romania), in this study I demonstrate that Islam constitutes one of the main fields of interaction between the Turkish state and the local community, primarily through the actions of Presidency of Religious Affairs from Turkey (Diyanet İşleri Başkanlığı). Consequently, based on qualitative methods, I analyze the Diyanet’s modes of operation, plans of action, and interaction with the Muslim community in Dobruja, including daily life, and their effects at the local level, from the religious elite and down to the members of the community, on the daily religious practice of Muslims living in Dobruja, but also on the education of religious personnel.

The paper gives an overview about the five historical stages of the Hungarian history featured by significant Muslim influence. Ethnic background, social status and geographical distribution are the main points are dealt in the study. In the mediavel period the Muslims were Asiatic origin people joined the Hungarian tribes and became strong mainstay of the royal power as financial experts and soldiers. In the Ottoman era (1541-1699) islamised Southern Slavic and Vlach people from the Balkans migrated to the middle third, occupied part of the Hungarian Kingdom. They gave military service and played a fundamental role in the administration of the state. After 1878 occupation of Bosnia and Herzegovina by the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy Bosniaks and Turks migrated to the country. The legal status of the Muslim community was settled in 1916. During the First World War and the uprising against the Austrians in the western border areas of Hungary (now Burgenland) the Muslims earned serious legitimacy and laid the cornerstones of a favourable relationship with Hungarian centre-right, revisionist, and also far-right political groups. When the communists took power after the Second World War, they terminated Muslim community activities, and many Turks and Bosnians left the country. In the very last hours of the Communist era, students from Arabic countries and Hungarian Muslims began to establish religious organisations. Muslims settled in Hungary from farther areas of the Islamic world, including especially Arabic countries, and also Turkey, Central and Southern Asia. Geographical distribution has changed a lot since the beginning. During the Middle Ages their communities settled in the royal estates in different places countrywide. The Ottomans lived in the fortified settlements mainly in the hilly or montanous areas. In the modern period the Muslims are concentrated in the capital city and a few regional centres.

Romanian and Western scholars have long studied the medieval juridical status of the Romanian principalities of Wallachia, Moldavia, and Transylvania in relation to Ottoman rule. A point of contention has been whether the Romanian countries were juridically considered part of the Ottoman Empire as dār al-Islām (Islamic territories) 87 or, on the contrary, a component of dār al-harb (non-Islamic territories) 88 . With rare exceptions 89 , scholars have not based their analysis on the religious law that Ottomans adopted, known as the Sunni Hanafī School of law 90 . Instead, they have incorporated concepts that were common to another Sunni School of law, the Shāfi'ī 91 , which was never adopted or even considered to be adopted by the Ottomans. The most important of these concepts was the dar al-'ahd (territory of the covenant) 92 , which fulfilled the role of intermediary zone between the Islamic and the non-Islamic territories. Usually, this category of territories consisted of tributary countries of Islamic states, and historians felt comfortable to include the Romanian countries within it, as they were well known for their tributary status. However, historical and juridical sources of the period indicate that Wallachia, Moldavia, and Transylvania were not part of the dār al-'ahd territories. On the contrary, their historical evolution made them at separate times parts of both dār al-Islam and dār al-harb territories in 87 "Dār al-Islam", EI 2 , II, p. 127-128. 88 "Dār al-harb", EI 2 , II, p. 126. 89 Viorel Panaite, Pace, război şi comerţ în Islam.Ţările române şi dreptul otoman al popoarelor (secolele XV-XVII), Bucharest, 1997, (published in a revised form in English as The Ottoman Law of War and Peace: the Ottoman Empire and Tribute Payers, Boulder, 2000). 90 "Hanafiyya", EI 2 , III, p. 162-164. 91 "Al-Shāfi'iyya", EI 2 , IX, p. 185-189. 92 "Dār al-ahd", EI 2 , II, p. 166.

K. Popek, The Principality of Bulgaria, the Sublime Porte, and the Muslim Minority (1878–1885), “Krakowsko-Wileńskie Studia Slawistyczne” (Kraków), 2021, t. 18: Słowianie a Imperium Osmańskie. Konflikty, koegzystencje, dziedzictwo, red. M. Dyras, K. Stachowski, J. Stradomski, pp. 187–205. | The Principality of Bulgaria was founded in 1878 as a vassal of the Ottoman Empire. The matters of the Muslim population living in Bulgaria (there were 527,000 at that time, which constituted 26% of the population) were closely linked to relations with the Sublime Porte, which had a multidimensional impact on the Bulgarian minority policy. Decisions regarding the return of Muslim war refugees, agrarian reform, the school system, and the pacification of Muslim resistance in the east of the country were made not only concerning the Bulgarian national interest, but also the position of the Sublime Porte.