Authored by Petrit

Albanians have never been fanatically religious, in comparison to Greeks and Slavs whom largely identify with the Orthodox faith. Bernard Lewis, a renowned British-American historian specializing in Oriental studies and Islam, published a book in 1982 titled “The Muslim Discovery of Europe”, where he explores the religious tolerance of Albanians, combining Islam and Catholicism and even Orthodoxism.

This book explores the perceptions and interactions of Muslims with Europe, including historical observations on how Muslim and Christian communities interacted in various regions, such as those mentioned in the text (Albania, Macedonia and Lemnos). This particular passage is found in the section where Lewis quotes the observations of European travelers, such as Lady Mary Wortley Montagu and Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq, to ​​illustrate the religious and cultural fluidity of Albanians during the Ottoman and European periods.

“… “The Mohammedans here are not true Mohammedans,” observed a Turkish telegraph operator in early twentieth-century Albania, “and the Christians are not true Christians.” Lady Mary Wortley Montagu noted: “People who live between Christians and Mohammedans, and are not acquainted with the controversies, declare themselves absolutely incapable of judging which is the better religion: but to be sure that they are not rejecting the truth, they very prudently follow both, and go to the mosque on Friday and to church on Sunday.”

When asked what their religion was, the cautious peasants of western Macedonia would make the sign of the cross and say: “We are Mohammedans, but of the Virgin Mary.”

Centuries earlier, struck by the presence of the Turks in Greek rites on the island of Lemnos, Busbecq had heard similar sentiments: “If you ask them why they do this, they answer that many customs have survived from the antiquity, the usefulness of which has been proven by long experience; the ancients, they say, knew and could see more than we do, and the customs they adopted should not be unduly disturbed…”