A mosque in Madan in the Rhodopes, a region largely populated by Muslim Bulgarians

The Bulgarian Muslims or Bulgarian-Mohammedans (Bulgarian: българи-мохамедани; locally called pomak, ahryan, poganets, marvak, poturnak) are Bulgarians of the Islamic faith. They are descendants of Eastern Orthodox Bulgarians who converted to Islam during the period between the 16th and the 18th century through the Ottoman empire influence. Image File history File linksMetadata Download high-resolution version (600x800, 100 KB)A mosque in Madan, Bulgaria in the Western Rhodopes, a region largely populated by Muslim Bulgarians. ... Image File history File linksMetadata Download high-resolution version (600x800, 100 KB)A mosque in Madan, Bulgaria in the Western Rhodopes, a region largely populated by Muslim Bulgarians. ... Madan is a mountainous town in Bulgaria, situated in the Yellow Share of the Rhodopi mountains. ... Muslim Bulgarians (also Bulgarian Mohammedans, bul:Българи-мохамедани; local: Pomak, Ahrian, Poganets, Marvak, Poturnak) are descendants of Christian Bulgarians who were forcibly converted to Islam by the Turks, during the 16th and the 18th century. ... Islam (Arabic:  ) is a monotheistic religion based upon the Quran, its principal scripture, whose followers, known as Muslims (مسلم), believe God (Arabic: الله ) sent through revelations to Muhammad. ... ... Islam (Arabic:  ) is a monotheistic religion based upon the Quran, its principal scripture, whose followers, known as Muslims (مسلم), believe God (Arabic: الله ) sent through revelations to Muhammad. ... (15th century - 16th century - 17th century - more centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 16th century was that century which lasted from 1501 to 1600. ... (17th century - 18th century - 19th century - more centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 18th century refers to the century that lasted from 1701 through 1800. ... Imperial motto (Ottoman Turkish) دولت ابد مدت Devlet-i Ebed-müddet (The Eternal State) The Ottoman Empire at the height of its power (1683) Official language Ottoman Turkish Capital Söğüt (1299-1326), Bursa (1326-1365), Edirne (1365-1453), Constantinople (modern-day Istanbul) (1453-1922) Imperial anthem Ottoman imperial anthem Sovereigns Padishah...

Muslim Bulgarians live mostly in the Rhodopes – Smolyan Province, the southern part of Pazardzhik and Kardzhali Provinces and the eastern part of Blagoevgrad Province in Southern Bulgaria, as well as the Xanthi and Rhodope Prefectures in Northeastern Greece. They also live in a group of villages in Lovech Province in Northern Bulgaria. The Rhodopes (also spelled Rodopi) are a mountain range, with over 83% of its area in southern Bulgaria and the remainder in Greece. ... Smolyan province shown within Bulgaria Smolyan is a province in southern Bulgaria. ... Pazardzhik region shown within Bulgaria Pazardzhik is a province in southern Bulgaria. ... Kurdzhali province shown within Bulgaria Kardzhali (Cyrillic: Кърджалийска област Kŭrdzhaliyska oblast) is a province of southern Bulgaria, neighbouring Greece with the Greek prefectures of Xanthi and Rodhopi to the south and east. ... Blagoevgrad Province (Bulgarian: област Благоевград, oblast Blagoevgrad or Благоевградска област, Blagoevgradska oblast), also known as Pirin Macedonia (Bulgarian: Пиринска Македония, Pirinska Makedoniya), is a province (oblast) of southwestern Bulgaria. ... Xanthi (Greek: Ξάνθη) is one of the fifty-one prefectures of Greece. ... Rhodope (Greek: Ροδόπη, Rodopi) is one of the prefectures of Greece. ... Lovech region shown within Bulgaria Lovech is a province in central Bulgaria. ...

The name Pomak is strongly pejorative in Bulgarian and is resented by most members of the community, especially by non-practising Muslims. The names adopted and used instead are Bulgarian Mohammedans or Bulgarian Muslims.

Geographic distribution

Bulgaria

Muslim Bulgarians do not represent a homogenous community. The ones living in Pirin and on the western fringes of the Rhodopes (in the provinces of Pazardzhik and Blagoevgrad) are, however, strongly religious and have preserved the Muslim name system, customs and clothing. Whereas the majority of the community has identified itself as Bulgarian in the population censuses in 1992 and 2001, a certain minority in the Western Rhodopes has opted for Turkish ethnicity although its mother tongue is also Bulgarian. Vihren from the south The Pirin Mountains (Bulgarian: Пирин) are a mountain range in southwest Bulgaria, with Vihren (2,914 m high) the highest peak, situated at , . The range extends about 40 km northwest-southeast, and about 25 km wide. ...

Muslim Bulgarians in the Rhodopes speak a variety of archaic Bulgarian dialects. Under the influence of mass media and school education, the dialects have been almost completely unified with standard Bulgarian among Muslim Bulgarians living in Bulgaria.

Greece

As Greece has tended to regard its Muslim minority as only Turkish-speaking and has allowed only education in Turkish, the Muslim Bulgarian community in Greece has become largely bilingual and the mother tongue of some of its members now is Turkish. The spoken language of those members of the community who have preserved the dialect as their mother tongue has been influenced to a large extent by Turkish and Greek and shows many aberrations from standard Bulgarian. Turkish (Türkçe) is a Turkic language spoken natively by the Turkish people in Turkey, which also has speakers in Cyprus, Bulgaria, Greece, Republic of Macedonia and other countries of the former Ottoman Empire, as well as by several million emigrants in the European Union. ...

The Muslim Bulgarian community in Greece has been largely Turkified. Since the 1990s Greece has made tentative attempts to promote a separate Pomak identity, partly because of the advanced Turkification of the non-Turkish members of its Muslim minority (Muslim Bulgarians and Roma) and partly for fear of the growing percentage of Muslims in Thrace in the past couple of decennia. A Greek-Pomak dictionary has been issued and Muslim Bulgarians have frequently been described by Greek authorities as an amalgamation of Bulgarians, Greeks and Turks or Muslim Slavophone Greeks. Turkification is a term used to describe a cultural change in which something or someone non-Turkish is made to become Turkish. ... This article is becoming very long. ... Thrace (Bulgarian: , Greek: , Latin: , Turkish: ) is a historical and geographic area in southeast Europe. ...

Turkey

There is also a substantial Muslim Bulgarian community in Turkey, estimated at some 120,000 people. These are not recognized by the Turkish government as an ethnic minority and have been largely Turkified. Some of them have Turkish or distinctive Pomak self-consciousness. An ethnic group is a human population whose members identify with each other, usually on the basis of a presumed common genealogy or ancestry (Smith, 1986). ...

See also

• Islam in Bulgaria
• Cheveneburi
• Ajarians
• Greek Muslims
• Pomaks
• Pontian Greeks
• Hamshenis
• Gagauz
• Torbesh

Banya Bashi mosque, built in 1576 by the great Ottoman architect Sinan, is the only functioning mosque that remains of 500 years of Ottoman domination in Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria The Muslim population of Bulgaria, including Turks, Muslim Bulgarians, Gypsies, and Tatars, lives mainly in northeastern Bulgaria and in... Cheveneburi means ours an ethnic identity for Georgian immigrants who came from Acharia in 1877 after the Ottoman-Russo wars. ... Official language Georgian Capital Batumi ISO code GE.AJ Head of the Government Levan Varshalomidze Area  - Total  - % water 2,900 km² n/a Population  - Total (1989)  - Density 392,432 135. ... The term refers to a religious minority in western Thrace, in north-east Greece. ... The Pomaks (Помаци, Pomaci) or Bulgarian Muslims (Българи мюсюлмани, Bălgari myusyulmani), also known locally as ahrjani, are Slavs of the Islamic faith. ... The Pontian Greeks are Greeks from the shores of the Black Sea, the Pontus. ... Hamshenis (also known as Hemshinlis or Khemshils; Õ€Õ¡Õ´Õ·Õ«Õ¶Õ« in Armenian; HemÅŸinli in Turkish; Кхэмшыл in Russian) are a distinct ethnic group of Armenian origin that inhabit the Black Sea coastal areas of Turkey, Russia, and Georgia (Abkhazia). ... The Gagauz are a Turkic people minority of southern Moldova (in Gagauzia) and of southwestern Ukraine (in Budjak) that numbers around 250,000. ... The Torbesh are a Muslim Slav Macedonian peoples. ...