ASPEKTE TË ISLAMIZIMIT NË SHQIPËRINË E VERIUT NË SHEK.XVII
ASPECTS OF THE ISLAMIZATION IN NORTH ALBANIA IN THE XVII-th CENTURY

Summary/Abstract: The author starts the article with the results of the Albanian historiography on the religious situation at the end of the XVI-th century. According to them in the Albanian lands there were two great religions and three faiths: Orthodox, Catholic and Moslem. At the end of that century 80% of the population was Christian. Certainly, in the Albanian towns the degree of spread of the Islamic religion was greater. About 38% of the population had embraced the Islamic religion. Basing on these data the author sets up the structure of the article, which is drawn from a monograph which will come out soon. With data of the Catholic relators he follows the evolution and the great extension of the Islamic religion. He starts with the situation in the Albanian towns, from Tivar and Ulqin in the north-west, in Kosova in the East, in the Western Macedonia up to Elbasan and Oher in the south. Analysing a lot of data the author has arrived at the conclusion that since the 30-ies of the XVII-th century in a part of the towns of North Albania the population was entirely islamized as in Lezhe, Kruje, Shkoder, while in some others as in Prizren, Gjakove, Shkup, Prishtine, Suhareke, etc., over 96% of the population was islamized. Up to the year 1611 in the villages of this zone the process of islamization was as at the end of the XVI-th century. In other words, the change had not begun yet.

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