Islam in the Czech Republic and Slovakia

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According to an estimate by Imam Mohamad Safwan Hasna in Bratislava , around 5,000 Muslims lived in Slovakia in 2003 , which is less than 0.1% of the total population. At 0.1%, the proportion of at least 10,000 Muslims in the Czech Republic is hardly larger (data from the Islamic Center in Prague). According to other estimates, however, there are 15,000 ( Radio Praha ) to 20,000 ( Christian-Islamic Society ) Muslims in the Czech Republic and thus a proportion of the population of up to 0.2%.

The community of Czech Muslims is also divided, Muslim influence on Czech or Slovak culture and politics was and is therefore comparatively small, although a small part of today's south-western central Slovakia was part of the Ottoman Empire in the 16th and 17th centuries (northern border of the empire) and Z. B. Turks had been settled in Novohrad in the meantime.

Mosque in Brno

Czech Republic, Slovakia and Islam: History

Even after the dissolution of Czechoslovakia, there are linguistic and historical similarities between the Czech Republic and Slovakia , partly also in relation to Islam. Muslims in both states continue to maintain ties with one another.

Islam in Slovakia

The first Muslims came to Slovakia with the Pechenegs as early as the Middle Ages . Like the Cumans , they had strengthened Hungarian armies at least three times as auxiliary troops and fought against a Czech- Bohemian conquest (1260 Ottokar II Přemysl , 1300–06 Wenceslas II and Wenceslaus III , 1427–34 Hussites ). The Muslim minority under the Pechenegs helped defend Slovakia for the Hungarian crown .

In the decades after the Hungarian defeat at Mohács , Ottoman Turks occupied most of today's Hungary within the former Kingdom of Hungary around 1541. In today's Slovakia they originally conquered (1542) only the area around today's town of Štúrovo (later the western area up to Fi bisakovo (1554) and Divín (1575) were added, but these areas fell to the Habsburgs until 1606) . In 1664 ( Peace of Vasvár ) the eastern area up to and including Neuhäusel was conquered. In the following period until the Ottoman defeat near Vienna , d. H. from 1664 to 1683, the Ottoman Turks also plundered and in some cases demanded tax payments in the Habsburg border areas in the west to the river Waag (including Nitra ), in the north to the city of Levice and in the east northeast of Fiľakovo. The Habsburgs practiced recatholization and counter-reformation in their sphere of influence . The Ottoman governors supported Hungarian and Slovak Protestants against Austrian and Slovak Catholics in the religious conflict. In 1683 the Ottoman Empire was defeated by the Habsburgs near Vienna, until 1685 the former Ottoman areas in today's Slovakia were annexed to the Habsburg Empire (Kingdom of Hungary).

Islam in the Czech Republic

In contrast to occupied Slovakia, the Czech heartland never experienced anything more than the passage of Muslim fighters (Turkish attacks on Austria and Vienna in the 16th century). In the winter of 1600/1601, 1605 and 1609, delegations of Persian Muslims stayed in Prague to negotiate an anti-Ottoman alliance between the Habsburgs and the Safavids . In the Thirty Years' War the Hungarian-Transylvanian Prince Gábor Bethlen hurried to the aid of the Czech Protestants with Turkish- Tatar auxiliary troops, but only got as far as Mikulov . Again Turkish troops penetrated on their campaign to Vienna and Imre Thököly's Kuruzen 1680–83 as far as Moravia . Last in the 18th century, during the Silesian Wars and the War of the Bavarian Succession , “Tatar regiments” (e.g. Volontaires de Saxe ) and “Bosniak” lancers who fought on the side of Prussia and his opponents also passed through Bohemia and Silesia. Bosniaks were also the first Muslims to permanently settle in the Czech Republic and Slovakia after Austria-Hungary occupied Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1878 and annexed it in 1908 . In 1912 in Austria (Bohemia and Moravia) and in 1916 in Hungary (Slovakia), Islam was recognized as a religious community by the state, and after the independence of Czechoslovakia in the 1920s, more Muslims came to the country with Russian-Tatar civil war refugees .

Islam in Czechoslovakia

In 1934 the first “Muslim Religious Congregation for Czechoslovakia” ( Moslimské náboženské obce pro Československo ) was officially registered in Prague and in 1935 an application was made to build a mosque in the capital. A Muslim magazine was published from 1937 and further Muslim societies were established in Moravia ( Brno ) and Slovakia (Bratislava) in 1938 . Funding came from Egyptian and Bosnian Muslim foundations - 700 Czechs and Slovaks, mostly members of the petty bourgeoisie and the working class , converted to Islam at that time. Although the Muslim community in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia achieved its recognition under German occupation in 1941, was allowed to set up a further branch in Olomouc in 1944 and was supported by Berlin imams , but it was precisely this proximity that earned it the unofficial prospect of collaboration after the Second World War , and Under the rule of the atheist communists , the Muslim Society, including all Muslim communities, was dissolved in 1949. Even during the liberal “ Prague Spring ” in 1968, a re-admission application failed, but the Czech and Slovak Muslims were reinforced by Muslim students from those Arab states in which Czechoslovakia and the Eastern Bloc were increasingly involved ( Syria , Iraq , Egypt , Yemen , Algeria , Libya , Sudan ).

Only after the fall of communism was a “Coordination Center for Muslim Communities” ( Ústředí muslimských náboženských obcí ) established for all of Czechoslovakia and an “Islamic Waqf Foundation” established in Brno, and in 1992 its counterpart in Prague. Muslim association magazines appeared again and Muslim cemeteries were established. A “General Union of Muslim Students” was also established in Prague; Refugees from Afghanistan , Pakistan , Iran , Iraq and other Afro-Asian countries further strengthened the Muslim community. But although today barely 700-2,000 of the ethnic Muslims in the Czech Republic can be regarded as active believers, after the split in Czechoslovakia, the split within the Czech Muslim community also deepened.

Summary (timetable)

  • 12th century: Settlement of Pechenegen in Petržalka ("Pechenegen Island ") and on the Great Schüttinsel , among them Muslims
  • 13th century: During his campaigns in Slovakia, Bohemia's king Ottokar encounters Cuman auxiliaries in the Hungarian army and complains to the Pope about the Muslims among them.
  • 14th century: Christianization of the Pechenegs and Cumans, beginning to merge with the Hungarians
  • 15th century: Cumans, among them still Muslims, fight as auxiliary troops of King Sigismund in Bohemia and Slovakia against the Hussites .
  • 16th century: Hungary and the Hungarian-Slovak border area become Ottoman provinces, Turks settle in Novohrad
  • 17th century: Even the south of Slovakia ( Nové Zámky ) is briefly occupied Ottoman Turkish, there is pro-Turkish Kuruc -Aufständen the east ( Kosice ), but the Turkish occupation breaks together quickly, and the Muslims are marketed.
  • 18th century: During the Silesian Wars there are also Muslim regiments (Bosniaks, Tatars) in Bohemia.
  • 19th century: first immigration of Muslim Bosnians to Bohemia
  • 20th century: Founding of Muslim organizations in Czechoslovakia, immigration of Tatars, Turks, Kurds , Arabs , Albanians and other Bosnians

Muslims in the Czech Republic and Slovakia: Present

In the Czech Republic and Slovakia, most of the Muslims are refugees from the civil war from the former Yugoslavia (more Bosnians in the Czech Republic , more Albanians in Slovakia ), others are mainly Arab students or immigrants from Turkey ( Turks and Kurds ). Some immigrants have taken Slovak or Czech citizenship, plus around 150 Slovaks and 500 Czechs who have converted to Islam since the end of communism (1990) and independence or dismembration (1993) .

There are four prayer rooms throughout Slovakia , but it is the only country in the EU that does not have a mosque. There are two mosques in the whole of the Czech Republic . In both EU countries, Muslims and Protestants are not officially equal in the Catholic Church.

Today the small Muslim communities in both EU countries are confronted with restrictions on the construction of mosques. Representatives of Slovak and Czech Muslim organizations, but also international refugee and migrant associations, criticize the fact that anti-Muslim circles in both the Slovak and Czech public tend to suspect Muslims in general as foreign bodies and equate Arabs with terrorists . Right-wing extremists and nationalist groups are increasingly spreading xenophobic and Islamophobic propaganda.

Situation in Slovakia

The majority of Slovak Muslims live in the capital Bratislava , but there are also smaller Muslim communities in Košice and Martin .

The Islamic Waqf Foundation of Slovakia and the mayor of Bratislava have been fighting for a permit to build an Islamic center and a mosque in the Slovak capital for years . The chairman of the foundation, the Syrian Mohamad Safwan Hasan , who is married to a convert , also repeatedly criticized the Slovak commitment on the side of the USA and the “ coalition of the willing ” in Iraq .

In 2008, the first complete translation of the Koran into Slovak was published in Slovakia . Work has been going on since 1995 on the translation, which is provided with detailed linguistic explanations for almost every sentence.

Situation in the Czech Republic

The head of the Muslims in Prague is the convert Vladimir Sanka , who also deplores his country's ties to the US and Islamophobia in the media. His competitors are the Sudanese student leader Abbas Mu'tasima in Prague and Mohamed Ali Šilhavý and Muneeb Hassan Alrawi (El-Rawy) in Brno , where the majority of Czech Muslims live. After a long legal dispute, however, they succeeded in building their first mosque and an Islamic center in Brno in 1998, and after 64 years of struggle, another mosque followed in 1999 in the Czech capital. However, since both mosques have to do without a tower according to a building requirement, South Moravia today has a mosque without a minaret in Brno and a minaret without a mosque in Lednice (near Mikulov). In addition to the larger Muslim communities in the two largest cities, Prague and Brno, there are also smaller communities in Olomouc , Teplice and Hradec Králové , but the construction of mosques there has been prevented by authorities and collections of signatures.

It was not until 2004 that Islam was officially recognized as a registered religion in the Czech Republic. In 2006 an alleged plot of Islamist terrorists was uncovered in Prague, which led to tightened security measures by the Czech authorities. As the newspaper Mladá fronta Dnes reported, the terrorists had planned to take Jewish hostages in a Prague synagogue , to make unsatisfactory demands and then to blow themselves up with the hostages.

The Islamic Center in Prague is dominated by Czech converts, to whom the government and the media seem more willing to talk than the immigrant-dominated Islamic Waqf foundations in Brno and Bratislava or the Arab-dominated student union. Since then, the Czech converts have been prematurely labeled as moderate, the Moravian and Slovak foundations as conservative and the Arab students as Salafist . The debate about the Iraq war and the cartoon dispute showed, however, that these classifications are imprecise and inaccurate.

Remarks

  1. ↑ According to the US Department of State (US State Department) International Religious Freedom Report 2005 for Czech Republic , some representatives of Muslims even give the number of Muslims as 30,000 (0.3%).
  2. ↑ a b c Encyclopaedia of Islam VIII 320-324, Article Magyaristan (Hungary) and Turks ( Memento from December 6, 2005 in the Internet Archive )
  3. ↑ The proportion of Muslims among the Pechenegs and the Cumans in the Kingdom of Hungary remains unclear. However, it is mentioned in Arabic sources that the Muslims won an internal Pecheneg civil war in 1068. Petschenegen later settled z. Sometimes also in what is now southern Slovakia, the Cumans did not settle in Slovakia, but in the neighboring Hungarian areas.
  4. ↑ Encyclopaedia Iranica : Article about Austria
  5. ↑ Their power base was in the area of ​​Košice , which was under Turkish- Transylvanian sovereignty.
  6. ↑ Henrich, Alica (2015): Multiculturalism and Religious Tolerance Politics Concerning Muslims in Slovakia. Hamburg: Verlag Dr. Kovac.
  7. ↑ Only in 2004 were Muslims recognized as a religious group in the Czech Republic; this has not yet happened in Slovakia. In the Czech Republic, 10,000 believers or 0.1% of the total population (10.2 million) must be proven to be able to register, in the smaller Slovakia even 20,000 (out of 5.4 million).
  8. ^ US Department of State International Religious Freedom Report 2005 for Czech Republic and Slovakia
  9. ↑ Interview with MSHasan: Muslims in Slovakia work for positive integration
  10. ↑ International Religious Freedom Report 2009 on Czech Republic
  11. ^ In 2006 the Czech Republic and Slovakia each had 100 men in Iraq. The Czech soldiers (originally over 300 men) are not due to be withdrawn until the end of the year, and the Slovak government has announced similar plans.
  12. ↑ Online version of the Slovak Koran
  13. ↑ 200 years ago an Austrian prince had the northernmost and highest minaret in Europe built in the Lednice castle park . However, the minaret never belonged to a mosque and was never used by Muslims, according to legend, it was due to a provocation by the builder. Alois von Liechtenstein had apparently not received a building permit for an originally planned church and then had the minaret built on his own property as a widely visible symbol of defiance.
  14. ↑ Czech newspaper reports on terror plan against Jews , in: Spiegel Online , October 6, 2006

See also

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