KLLAPIA E TESAVVUFIT - El-Hikmeh

SUMMARYThe Balkan region has always played the role of the connectingbridge in the transference at the beginning of the eastern andwestern culture and latter in the setting of the cultural relationsbetween the Ottoman State and western world. At the same timethe Balkan arena has witnessed the internal migration of largenumber of peoples and cultures from east to west and vice versa.As a consequence this region gained the quality of shapingdifferent nations, cultures and civilizations under the same sky.The Sheikhs of the tariqats (mystic branches of main stream)and the dervishes have played an important role in the setting ofthe Ottoman State in the Balkan territories and at the same timehave been the architects of the liberation process of theseterritories by the Ottomans. The Balkan’s territories have beenliberated through dervishes long before the soldiers stepped inor, in other words, Balkan’s indigenous population waspsychologically prepared by the dervishes to accept the newreligion and the new leadership.Among other things, two facilitating factors have played animportant role in the spreading of Islam and Ottoman leadershipin the Balkan area, especially in the massive acceptance of Islamby the Albanians and Bosnians,:1. The Bogumilism and the mystical worldview of thismovement. The tortures and oppressions by Catholic andOrthodox churches against the Bogomil followers through thestate mechanisms, on one hand, and the theoretical, practical andorganizational similarities of bogomils with Islam, especiallywith the Islamic Sufi worldview of the first Muslim missionariesin Balkan on the other, have been a major factor in theacceptance of Islam by the Bosnians and partly by Albanians.