11/18/2015 Greece ­ Oxford Islamic Studies Online ABOUT WHAT'S NEW Search Oxford Islamic Studies SUBSCRIBER SERVICES ADVANCED SEARCH PRINT EMAIL BROWSE CITE Greece By: Stefanos Katsikas Source: The [Oxford] Encyclopedia of Islam and Law Bibliography Bibliography Related Content Law Minorities in Muslim States Ottoman Empire Sharīʿah Ottoman Empire, Islamic Law in QUR'ANIC STUDIES Previous Result TIMELINES Results CONTACT US HELP LEARNING RESOURCES Look It Up Highlight On / Off Next Result Greece In Greece, the corpus of laws regulating the administration of a Muslim minority, defining their collective rights and protecting their cultural autonomy first came into being in 1881. The Ottoman Empire agreed to the Greek annexation of the region of Epirothessaly (the area of Greece comprising the present­day administrative region of Thessaly, with the exception of the district of Elassona, and the inclusion of the district of Arta from the present­day administrative region of Epirus). Prior to 1881 the legal framework specifically available to Muslims living under Greek rule was confined to a few laws providing compensation for lost properties of Muslim converts to Eastern Orthodoxy (also known as “implants” or “new­enlightened [Greeks]”) in the course of the Greek revolution, or ratifications of the Greco­Ottoman treaties that determined the status of Muslim properties in those regions that came under Greek sovereignty after the London Protocol of 3 February 1830. Consisting of Attica, Euboea, Fthiotida, and Thivais, these regions were actually under the control of the Ottoman army in 1830, which enabled the Ottoman state to better negotiate the future status of those lands, including the issue of Muslim properties. Prior to 1881 the cultural autonomy as well as the civil and political rights of Muslims was only protected by the general, and often ambiguous, provisions of international treaties and abstract constitutional articles providing for equality before the law and political and religious freedoms. This is partly explained by the very small number of Muslims living in the newly established Kingdom of Greece. Prior to the Greek war of independence, 1821–1828, between 64,000 and 100,000 Muslims (almost 10 percent of the total population) lived in the territories to become part of the Greek state, with almost one­half to three­fourths of the total arable land of those territories belonging to Muslims. During the war of independence, however, a large number of Muslims were killed, and many others converted to Eastern Orthodoxy to save themselves and their properties from confiscation. Still others fled to areas under Ottoman control. Nevertheless, a small number of Muslims did exist in the Kingdom of Greece of the 1830s, though their exact number is far from clear: for example, some historical sources show that around 400 Muslims still lived on the island of Euboea in 1861, with 300 of them residing in the island’s capital, Chalkida. The legal status of Muslims drastically changed with the annexation of Epirothessaly, which resulted in a huge increase in Greece’s Muslim population. The demographic fact of around 40,000 Muslims residing in the region (12 percent of its total population) at the end of the 1870s, combined with diplomatic pressures from the Great Powers and the Ottoman government, forced Greek authorities to recognize the Muslims of Epirothessaly as a collective legal entity that should enjoy religious and cultural autonomy. The July 1881 Greco­Ottoman Convention of Constantinople, which ceded Epirothessaly to Greece, obliged Athens to respect the lives, honor, properties, religious, and cultural autonomy of Muslims as well as to recognize the validity of Ottoman Shariah law by allowing the functioning of Islamic religious courts in the region. The latter’s jurisdiction would be solely confined to religious matters. These provisions were also confirmed by the 4 December 1897 Treaty of Constantinople, which terminated the Greco­ Ottoman war of that year. Epirothessaly set a legal precedent for the areas that passed under Greek sovereignty after 1912. http://staging.oxfordislamicstudies.com/article/opr/t349/e0123 1/4 11/18/2015 Greece ­ Oxford Islamic Studies Online Those areas, often referred to as Nees Chores (New Territories), included the regions of Macedonia, Epirus, and the Aegean islands, except the Dodecanese insular complex and the island of Gӧkҫeada (or Imvros in Greek) and Bozcaada (or Tenedos in Greek). Muslim communities in these areas were recognized as legal entities that should enjoy religious and cultural autonomy. Greek authorities had to respect the hierarchy of their religious organization and abstain from any interference either between Muslim individuals and their religious leaders or between religious authorities and the Islamic clergy of Istanbul. The application of Ottoman Shariah would continue on issues of religion and property, but the Shariah courts were abolished and their responsibilities were transferred to the local religious authorities (muftis). General clauses on the freedom of worship and religious tolerance can be also found in the 1919 Treaty of Neuilly­sur­Seine, by which western Thrace was ceded to Greece from Bulgaria, as well as in the ill­fated 1920 Treaty of Sèvres, by which Greece extended its territorial control over the regions of eastern Thrace and the district of Izmir (Smyrna in Greek). At the 1919 Paris Peace Conference that followed World War I, Greece was allowed to occupy the sancak (province) of Izmir. The occupation was seen as temporary and did not prejudice the final disposition of the region. After consolidating their hold on Izmir, the Greek army began an advance beyond the boundaries that had been assigned to it at the peace conference. They justified this as a response to attacks on the Greek forces by Muslim irregulars from outside the sancak. The Greek army began to lose the war in August 1921, when it was held at the Sakarya Line by Turkish nationalists led by Mustafa Kemal. The war ended in October 1922 and the subsequent Lausanne treaty of 1924 called for an obligatory population exchange. This drastically changed the anthropography of Greece. The expulsion of almost 500,000 Muslims and the influx of around 1.5 million Greek Orthodox from the Republic of Turkey transformed Greece into a more religiously homogenous country than it had been in the past. After World War I the Muslims of Greece were composed of four major ethnic groups: 1) the Turkish­speaking Muslims of western Thrace, who lived predominantly in the Rodopi and Xanthi districts and numbered around 60,000 people; 2) Slav­speaking Muslims (known also as Pomaks), who lived predominantly in western Thrace and included about 35,000–40,000 people; 3) Albanian­speaking Muslims, mostly the Çams, who lived in the region of Thesprotia, but there is evidence for Albanian­speaking Muslims elsewhere (estimates put the number of Çams in Greece during the interwar period at 20,000–25,000); and 4) Muslim Roma, who lived in western Thrace, mostly in the district of Evros and numbered about 10,000–15,000 people. This picture remained mostly unchanged until the country’s entrance into World War II on 28 October 1940. For the administration of its Muslims during the period, the Greek state recognized the existence of a Muslim community as a legal entity whose head was a mufti (pl. muftis). The powers of the muftis were not restricted to religious matters, as was the case in Ottoman times, but they were extended to secular issues such as the management of the communal property of the Muslim community, the provision of justice on issues relevant to Shariah law, the supervision of Muslim children’s education and others, which in Ottoman times were conducted by civil servants. In their tasks the muftis were assisted by Muslim community councils whose members were elected by the members of the Muslim communities and who were chaired by the muftis. This pattern was in line with Greek law and the provisions of international treaties that had been signed by the Greek state and, prior to 1923, had been in operation in areas with large Muslim groups that had been ceded to Greece. With the unification of the Dodecanese islands to Greece in 1947, around 3,000 more Muslims— the majority Turkish­speaking with some Greek­speaking descendants of Cretan Muslims—added to the Muslim population of Greece. This small community, strongest in the islands of Rhodes and Kos, had not been subject of the obligatory exchange of populations between Turkey and Greece in 1923 because the Dodecanese islands were part of the Kingdom of Italy between 1911 and 1947. The fact that the Dodecanese islands were annexed to Greece from Italy and not from the Ottoman Empire or Turkey led to the creation of a legal status for the Docedanese Muslims that differed from that of the Muslims of western Thrace, the only former Ottoman Muslim subjects who remained in Greece. For the Muslims of the Dodecanese and for any other Muslim who lived or would live in Greece outside the region of western Thrace, Ottoman Shariah law did not apply. http://staging.oxfordislamicstudies.com/article/opr/t349/e0123 2/4 11/18/2015 Greece ­ Oxford Islamic Studies Online These Muslims were to be subjected exclusively to the provisions of the Greek Civil Code. As a result, today aspects of the Ottoman Shariah law applies to the Muslim communities that live within the confines of the region of western Thrace in the northeastern region of the Greek mainland. Such an application, which is based on bilateral agreements that the Greek state signed with the Ottoman Empire and Turkey in the past, has introduced a dual judicial system for the Muslims of the region: the application of Ottoman Islamic law and the Greek Civil Code. Legally, the muftis of the region have jurisdiction over Muslim Greek citizens of western Thrace on issues related to marriage, divorce, alimony, custody, guardianship, emancipation of minors, Muslim wills, and inheritance disputes as long as these relationships are ruled by Shariah law, but for the very same legal issues, the Muslims can opt between Greek civil courts or the muftis’ legal services. This judicial duality has often created problems, some of which will be difficult to solve without new bilateral agreements between Greece and Turkey. On the one hand, there is a need to protect the religious freedoms of the Muslim minority, in line with its own cultural and traditional values. On the other hand, it is necessary to ensure conformity with human rights, both on EU and international levels, including the right to religious tolerance. The bottom line of most international legal documents on human rights, such as the European Convention on Human Rights, is that all human beings should be regarded and valued equally, regardless of gender, religion, or race. However, Ottoman Shariah law provides special benefits to men and disfavors women in legal cases of family disputes, divorce, inheritance, and child custody. In divorce cases, for example, a man can simply divorce his wife without any judicial proceedings being necessary, while Muslim women do not have the same right. Also, in cases of inheritance, unlike the practice in the EU, including Greece, where male and female children should enjoy equal treatment when they inherit, Shariah law provides that daughters are entitled to half the share of sons. These provisions and practices are in contradiction to Greek law and family law elsewhere in Europe. In June 2000 the mufti of the prefecture of Xanthi in Western Thrace issued a marriage license for virgin women in line with Shariah law (No. 157/22 June 2000). Among others, the license provides: " Donations due to the social union through marriage: one dress, one golden chain (1 meter long), a pair of earrings, five golden bracelets, one golden ring, one watch, a mattress, a quilt and forty kilos of copper […] Donations due to dissolution of marriage: one hundred and one golden pounds [...]Since we have settled the above cultural wedding differences, we do not see any religious or other impediment to the marriage between the virgin woman […], who is a Greek citizen and lives in […], and […] who is a Greek citizen and lives in […] This contract was executed by me, the Mufti of Xanthi." The wife’s representativesThe husband’s representatives Licenses with similar terms are issued for a legal act of this kind between Muslim citizens of western Thrace and are not in conformity with Greek law, the Greek constitution, or EU legislation, as well as with the practice in the rest of Greece and elsewhere in the EU. As long as the Greek courts authorize the enforcement of legal actions like the one already mentioned or any other Muslim legal action by the muftis, these actions become valid. Ratification of these actions by the Greek civil courts is required in order for the actions to gain legal validity, in line with the bilateral treaties that Greece signed with the Ottoman Empire and Turkey, but in the vast majority of cases, the Greek civil courts provide authorization of these legal actions. In general, the Greek civil courts control the limits of jurisdiction of the muftis’ legal decisions, without examining the merits of the case. If a member of the Muslim minority, for example, decides to appeal against the mufti’s decision to the Greek civil court, the judge would control only the application of this particular decision. What is more, the civil court and the court of appeal can control the constitutionality of the mufti’s decision, but the judges working in these courts are not members of the Muslim minority and are not familiar with the content of Shariah law or rules and are therefore unable to evaluate the mufti’s decisions. Statistics show, for example, that from 1991 http://staging.oxfordislamicstudies.com/article/opr/t349/e0123 3/4 11/18/2015 Greece ­ Oxford Islamic Studies Online to the present day fewer than 1 percent of the decisions taken by the mufti have been found unconstitutional by the Greek civil and appeal courts. Greek judges do not essentially examine the essence of a decision when deciding whether the decision is unconstitutional or not. Though officially in legal issues mentioned above, the Muslims of western Thrace can choose either the civil court or the mufti’s legal services, nonetheless the mufti’s jurisdiction becomes mandatory, since members of the Muslim minority in Western Thrace are entrapped by social stereotypes: in case of an application for judicial review to the Greek civil courts, this legal action would be criticized as it would be received as a lack of loyalty toward the minority. State officials, scholars, and Muslim minority institutions such as the Federation of Western Thrace Turks in Europe (ABTTF), which has its headquarters in Germany, have often criticized the existing legal system for Muslims in western Thrace as anachronistic and requested its reform to reflect life realities and legal practices in the rest of Greece and the EU. See also European Union, subentry INTRODUCTION and OTTOMAN EMPIRE, ISLAMIC LAW IN. Bibliography Bibliography D’Esperay, F. “Les Musulmans en Thessalie.” Review du Monde Musulman. 13 (1911). Katsikas, S. “Millets in Nation States: The Case of Greek and Bulgarian Muslims, 1912­1923.” Nationalities Papers 37, no. 2 (2009): 177–201. Tsitselikis, K. Old and New Islam in Greece, Nijhoff: Brill, 2012. Tsitselikis, K. “The Legal Status of Islam in Greece.” Die Welt des Islams, 44/3, pp. 402–431. Sign up to receive email alerts from Oxford Islamic Studies Online PRINT EMAIL CITE Previous Result Results Look It Up Highlight On / Off Next Result Your access is brought to you by: © 2015. All Rights Reserved. Privacy policy and legal notice http://staging.oxfordislamicstudies.com/article/opr/t349/e0123 4/4