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Muslims have lived within the borders of modern Greece since the Emirate of Crete era (824-961). These earliest followers of Islam were either killed, enslaved or converted to Christianity by missionaries such as Nikon the Metanoeite. Their settlements, mosques and walls were torn down after the Byzantine reconquest of Crete in 961 AD. [33] [34]
Greek non-Muslims were also subjected to practices like Devşirme (blood tax), in which the Ottomans took Christian boys from their families and later converted them to Islam with the aim of selecting and training the ablest of them for leading positions in Ottoman society. Devşirme was not, however, the only means of conversion of Greek ...
For example, the Arabs translated Opisthen (Οπισθεν "after" or "following" Greek) or Opiso (Οπισω "to follow after" Greek), one of the original Greek names for the brightest star in Taurus, as Aldebaran (الدبران), which means "the Follower" in Arabic, because the star always follows behind the Pleiades as both move across the ...
Religions with smaller numbers of followers include Islam (comprising 2% [2] of the population), Western Catholicism (comprising 1% [2] of the population), Greek Catholicism, Judaism, Evangelicalism, Hellenic paganism, and Jehovah's Witnesses. A number of Greek atheists exist, not self-identifying as religious.
The Vallahades' preservation of their Greek language and culture, and adherence to forms of Islam that lay on the fringes of mainstream Ottoman Sunni Islam, explains other traits they became noted for; such as the use of an uncanonical call to prayer (adhan or ezan) in their village mosques that was itself actually in Greek rather than Arabic ...
Saracen was a term used both in Greek and Latin writings between the 5th and 15th centuries to refer to the people who lived in and near what was designated by the Romans as Arabia Petraea and Arabia Deserta. The term's meaning evolved during its history of usage. During the Early Middle Ages, the term came to be associated with the tribes of Arabia. The oldest known source mentioning ...
Some modern Muslims have objected to the term, [11] saying that the term was not used by Muhammad himself or his early followers, and that the religion teaches the worship of God alone (see shirk and tawhid) and not Muhammad or any other of God's prophets. Thus modern Muslims believe "Mohammedan" is a misnomer, "which seem[s] to them to carry ...
Cretan Muslims constitute 60% of Al Hamidiyah's population. The community is very much concerned with maintaining its culture. The knowledge of the spoken Greek language is remarkably good and their contact with their historical homeland has been possible by means of satellite television and relatives. [35]