The idea that Ottomans brought Islam to Albania is not necessarily true. In the 9th century Arab tribes landed in Kotor, Ragusa, Budva and the city of Roza near Ulqin from the coast of Carthage with 36 ships.

Prof. Moikom Zeqo writes:

“The first contact of the Arabs on the coasts and in the land of the Albanians was made in the year 840. In the 9th century, the Arabs came to Kotor, Ragusa, Budva and the city of Roza near Ulcinj from the coast of Carthage with 36 ships. At this time, the first Arab merchants landed in Durrës, who also brought the “INFLECTIONAL POWER OF THE QURAN.

Nexhat Ibrahimi writes:

“Albanian researchers associate the presence of Islam in the Balkans, including the Illyrian-Albanian lands, with the Ottoman conquests in the Balkans, and this thesis can be found in almost all scientific and school textbooks, but also in magazine and journalistic writings. A small number of them place the first contacts of Islam with our lands during the 14th century.

Almost no Albanian researcher sees the Islamic-Illyrian-Albanian contacts before the 14th century. In this way, the centuries-old contacts between the Arab-Islamic culture and the Balkan, including the Illyrian-Albanian, culture, which we have briefly written about, are ignored. What our researchers did not do, others did.

Thus, the Western researcher G. B. Pellegrini says that “many languages ​​in the Mediterranean still have many Arabic words in their glossary today, which were certainly not spread and brought to Europe by the Turks alone, but they are the result of Europe’s earliest contacts with the Arabs”.

The Serbian orientalist R. Božović sees Islamic-European contacts, especially Slavic-Islamic ones, but also mutual influences, as having developed in three directions:

1) through Byzantium, namely the Byzantine-Arab border and the wars between the two empires.

2) through the Mediterranean basin, namely Spain, Fatimid Egypt and Sicily, in which Arab civilization reached great proportions.

3) through Hungary, namely through the North and the nomadic warriors, the Pechenegs. This observation of R. Bozhovic could be applied almost entirely to the eastern part of the Illyrian-Albanian lands, the circumstances that resulted in the conquests of Byzantium, the Bulgarians, etc. For the western part of the Illyrian-Albanian lands, it would be said that the Mediterranean basin was primary, which resulted from the geostrategic position of these lands.

We do not wish to speak about each contact and case separately, because this would exceed the scope of this article, but we will focus on the most blatant cases, which indicate not “contacts”, but Muslim settlements.

The Arabs, namely the Arab-Islamic culture, have been present in the Adriatic and coastal areas since the 8th century, and with short interruptions we will encounter them until the beginning of the 11th century, or in 1023, when they launched their last attack on the eastern coast of the Adriatic from Sicily.

From these commercial, military, diplomatic, scientific and religious contacts of three centuries, and intensive for about a century and a half, we have great reciprocal influences, especially of the Arab-Islamic ones on the Balkan ones, therefore also the Illyrian-Albanian, as a more advanced and qualitative culture.

We have the Arab-Islamic culture present in the Illyrian-Albanian lands also with the Pechenegs since the 8th century, who at this time we find limited in the South with the territory of Macedonia, Struma, in the Northwest with the Slavs, in the East with the Black Sea, in the North with the Hungarians and Byzantium.

According to R. Bozhovic “The Muslim Pechenegs are possible carriers of the Arab-Islamic culture in the Balkans”. He says: “Considering their excellent education, which many historians emphasize, they were certainly adequate carriers of the Arab-Islamic culture and nature”. Even William of Tyre explicitly states that the “nomadic people” who “are circumcised are the Pechenegs”.

The third example is the “Vardarian Turks”, who were deported from Anatolia by Tsar Theophilus (829-842) because they accepted Islam and settled in Macedonia. Franjo Rački believes that the Vardarian Turks were originally Muslims.

Unfortunately, this topic has not been researched, or rather, we have not come across more complete records, so very little is known about them, although they were numerically considerable and lived in the Dardanian lands and their vicinity.

The fourth example will be the presence of Muslims in the Bulgarian kingdom during the Middle Ages. According to the Albanian historian S. Rizaj, the Bulgarians penetrated beyond the Danube at the end of the 7th century, while Sh. Demiraj places the rule of the Bulgarians in the Illyrian-Albanian lands during the years 815-1018. S. Hill claims that the Bulgarians at the end of the 9th century penetrated almost to Durrës.

The Bulgarians reached their peak during the reign of their emperor Simeon (803-927), when Kosovo was also part of them. We emphasized these data above for the reason that at that time the Bulgarian kingdom also included the Dardanian lands and other Illyrian peoples. It is precisely in this kingdom, in these lands and at this time, that we have the first Muslim settlements. This thesis is argued by many facts and many sources. We will mention only a few.

The Bulgarian Khan Boris in 864 crucified his people, and of course because Byzantium at that time was flourishing and had better prospects compared to other empires of that time. What happened to us would not have been of much importance if it were not for the following problem. With the crucifixion of the population of his kingdom, the issue of the books of the Saracens (Muslims), which had spread throughout the kingdom, arose, while with their Christianization.

References

https://www.iium.edu.my/deed/quran/albanian/temanexhat2.html

Prof. Moikom Zeqo: Islam in Albania, Spektr Magazine 27/02/1999 p. 24.