ASPEKTE TË ISLAMIZIMIT NË ÇAMËRI
ASPECTS OF ISLAMIZATION IN ÇAMËRI

Summary/Abstract: The ancient Hellenic historians as Herodotus, Scymnus, Thucydides etc., studying the population of Epirus arrived at the conclusion that the Epirote tribes were considered as non-Hellenic. So, for example, the tribe of the Thesprotyans, who inhabited the today’s Çamëri, by Herodotus, who was considered the father of Greek history, was believed to be barbarian (read: non-Hellenic) (VIII-47) and by Scymnis, too, (443-444). The ethnic structure of the Albanians in Çamëri finds its reflection in the defteri Nufasal of the Ottoman administration, of the kaza of Delvine, where are registered the names of the heads of families of the inhabited centres, of the towns and villages in the year 991 Hegira (1583). Leafing through the Defter one can observe that many of the heads of families have Christian names in the onomastic field: Lekë, Gjin, Zhupë etc. Christian names of the albanianized form as Pal, Vasil, Kol etc. In any case, the presence in the Ottoman registers of the names which are characteristic and exclusively Albanian confirm the general conclusion that the Albanian ethnos at that time was present and dominated in Çamëri. The Ottomans occupied Janina in 1424 and accompanied it with a cruel massacre erecting a pyramid with 2000 cut heads of Christian people. The occupiers found in the occupied territories a population of Christian faith, mainly Roman Catholic. The Christians in Çamëri (in the ancient Thesprotia), before and after the occupation had an unprepared and unorganized clergy to face the pressures of the occupier.[...] In Çamëri the relations between the Moslems and the Christians were never characterized by religious hatred. The islamized knew not only their origin, the kinship ties they had with the Christians, but nearly even the time when they were islamized. It is this a reason why the good relations and the harmony between the Moslems and the Christians in Çamëri didn’t never extinguish.

• Details
• Contents