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Some Muslim Albanians, meanwhile, view Islam as a force that maintained Albanian independence from Christian countries like Greece, Serbia and Italy, and united Albanians. [74] [124] Some Albanian Muslims also hold the view that unlike them, Christian Albanian communities of the Orthodox historically identified with the Greeks. [123]
Albanian Sunni Muslim clergy however views the conversion of Albanians as a voluntary process, while sidelining religious controversies associated with the Ottoman era. [103] Sufi Islam in Albania interprets the Ottoman era as promoting a distorted form of Islam that was corrupted within a Sunni Ottoman polity that persecuted them. [105]
In the center and south, however, Catholicism was not as strong and by the end of the 17th century the region had largely adopted the religion of the growing Albanian Muslim elite. The existence of an Albanian Muslim class of pashas and beys who played an increasingly important role in Ottoman political and economic life became an attractive ...
The Bektashi Order is a Sufi order, originating in the 13th-century Ottoman Empire. [5] Origins of the community point towards the Kızılbaş and Alevism.As the Janissaries became a dominant force in Ottoman politics, they adopted Bektashism as the corps' religion, while Sunni Islam dominated the Muslim millet.
Of the Muslim Albanian population, the Italians attempted to gain their sympathies by proposing to build a large mosque in Rome, though the Vatican opposed this measure and nothing came of it in the end. [47] The Italian occupiers also won the sympathy of Albanian Muslims by causing their working wages to rise. [47]
Muslims, Catholic and Orthodox Christians have always lived in harmony and coexisted without divisive religious confrontations. [1] The understanding of secularism in the Republic of Albania has strong influences from the French laïcité. [2] Currently Albania is a secular parliamentary republic, in which the state guarantees freedom of belief ...
Many Albanians identified as Muslims or Christians have been found to practice only few or none of their faith's observances. Based on studies conducted in 2008, 2009 and 2015, Albania was found out to be the 20th least religious country in the world, with 39% of the population being religious. [14]
Albanian oil and gas is one of the most promising, albeit strictly regulated, sectors of its economy. Albania has the second-largest oil deposits in the Balkan peninsula after Romania, and the largest oil reserves [227] in Europe. The Albpetrol company is owned by the Albanian state and monitors the state petroleum agreements in the country.