KLLAPIA E TESAVVUFIT - El-Hikmeh

Summary 2192. The traveling Sufis settled in Balkans in the pre-Ottomanperiod. The first seeds of the Islamic faith in an organized andsystematic manner have been planted in Balkans by the Sufitravelers long before the arrival of the Ottomans. Love towardman, the unconditional service and the Sufi tolerance havecreated a catalytic settings between the Muslims and theChristians in the Balkans, so that the tekkes that were erected indifferent regions of the Balkan Peninsula were surrounded byhouses, that latter extended to become villages and cities andhave served as religious, educative, cultural and artistic centers.The most important representative in this region of the Tesavvufis Sari Salltuk (d.1264). He has a special place in Balkan’sculture both for Muslims and Christians and still continues to bea vivid myth in these regions.Since the beginning the Ottomans brought the awareness oftolerance and justice in the Balkan region. In contrary with theByzantine experience of the previous leadership, the Ottomanstried to establish the ontological and social equity amongpeople. For this reason a good part of the inhabitants of theBalkans embraced the Mawlawiyya, Khalwatiyya, Rifaiyya,Malamiyya, Bektashiyya, Sadiyya and other tariqats, that despitegiving people the possibility to preserve the freedom of worshipand thought, they have had also the chance to preserve their ownauthentic culture, due to the fact that the freedoms and tolerancetoward the Christians is an imperative and a Qur’anic manner ofbehavior. Whereas after the disputes that started in the XVIIIcentury, the non-Muslims have not demonstrated the sametolerance toward the Muslims. The Muslims of the Balkansregion in that period have been considered as traitors who havedeserved capital punishment and have been persecuted andtortured everywhere and in every situation, while every thingthat reminded of Islam and Ottoman State was banished.Following the Mawlawi tekkes established in Anatolia a largenumber of such tekkes have also been set up in the Balkans.Since the XV century the Mawlawi tekkes were build inSarajevo, Mostar, Konjic, Belgrade, Nis, Skopje, Bitola, Elbasanetc., among which the most active being the tekkes of Sarajevo,.