El-Hamidiyeh (, ) is a town on the Syrian coast. The town was founded in a very short time on the direct orders of the

Ottoman Sultan The sultans of the Ottoman Empire (), who were all members of the Ottoman dynasty (House of Osman), ruled over the Boundaries between the continents, transcontinental empire from its perceived inception in 1299 to Dissolution of the Ottoman Em ...

Abdülhamit II around 1897, to serve as a refuge for the Greek-speaking Muslim Cretan community, forced to leave

Crete Crete ( ; , Modern Greek, Modern: , Ancient Greek, Ancient: ) is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the List of islands by area, 88th largest island in the world and the List of islands in the Mediterranean#By area, fifth la ...

during the 1897–98 Greco-Turkish War and resettled by the Sultan in Hamidiyeh and other coastal areas of the

Levant The Levant ( ) is the subregion that borders the Eastern Mediterranean, Eastern Mediterranean sea to the west, and forms the core of West Asia and the political term, Middle East, ''Middle East''. In its narrowest sense, which is in use toda ...

and as far as

Libya Libya, officially the State of Libya, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It borders the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to Egypt–Libya border, the east, Sudan to Libya–Sudan border, the southeast, Chad to Chad–L ...

. The majority still speak

Cretan Greek Cretan Greek, or the Cretan dialect (, ), is a variety of Modern Greek spoken in Crete and by the Cretan diaspora. Geographic distribution The Cretan dialect is spoken by the majority of the Cretan Greeks on the island of Crete, as well as by ...

in their daily lives. According to the Syria Central Bureau of Statistics, el-Hamidiyeh had a population of 7,404 in the 2004 census.General Census of Population and Housing 2004
Syria Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS). Tartus Governorate.

Cretan community

Cretan Muslims The Cretan Muslims or Cretan Turks ( or , or ; , , or ; ) were the Muslim inhabitants of the island of Crete. Their descendants settled principally in Turkey, the Dodecanese Islands under Italian administration (part of Greece since 1947), S ...

constitute 60% of the population, numbering about 3,000. Records suggest that the community left Crete between 1866 and 1897, on the outbreak of the last Cretan uprising against the Ottoman Empire, which ended with the

Greco-Turkish War of 1897 The Greco-Turkish War of 1897 or the Ottoman-Greek War of 1897 ( or ), also called the Thirty Days' War and known in Greece as the Black '97 (, ''Mauro '97'') or the Unfortunate War (), was a war fought between the Kingdom of Greece and the O ...

. Sultan

Abdul Hamid II Abdulhamid II or Abdul Hamid II (; ; 21 September 184210 February 1918) was the 34th sultan of the Ottoman Empire, from 1876 to 1909, and the last sultan to exert effective control over the fracturing state. He oversaw a Decline and modernizati ...

provided Cretan Muslim families who fled the island with refuge on the

ine coast. The new settlement was named Hamidiye after the sultan. 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.Greek-Speaking Enclaves of Lebanon and Syria
by Roula Tsokalidou. Proceedings ''II Simposio Internacional Bilingüismo''. Retrieved 4 December 2006 Today, the Grecophone residents identify themselves as Cretan Muslims, and not as Cretan Turks as is the case with some in Tripoli.The forgotten Turks: Turkmens of Lebanon
(report). Center for Middle Eastern Strategic Studies. February 2010. Retrieved 8-5-2015. p. 14. "The locals of Hamidiye do not describe themselves as Cretan Turks, but as Cretan Muslims or Ottomans (Kiritlar = Cretans in turkish). Some locals in Tripoli define themselves as Cretan Turks."

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hamidiyah Greek diaspora in the Middle East Greek Muslims Populated places in Tartus District Populated coastal places in Syria Towns in Syria