Islam in Hungary dates back to the foundation of the state in the late 9th century, with

Muslims Muslims () are people who adhere to Islam, a Monotheism, monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God ...

constituting a portion of the conquering Hungarian tribes. The influence of

Sunni Islam Sunni Islam is the largest Islamic schools and branches, branch of Islam and the largest religious denomination in the world. It holds that Muhammad did not appoint any Succession to Muhammad, successor and that his closest companion Abu Bakr ...

was especially pronounced in the 16th and 17th centuries during the Ottoman period in Hungary.

History

Early history

According to reports in the 9th and 10th centuries, Islam was practiced by a sizeable minority of the conquering Hungarians. In the old form of the Hungarian language, Muslims were often called ''Böszörmény'', cognates with ''Turkish'' Bozulmamış, which in turn descends from , ''Muslim''. This term is preserved as both a

family name In many societies, a surname, family name, or last name is the mostly hereditary portion of one's personal name that indicates one's family. It is typically combined with a given name to form the full name of a person, although several give ...

, and as that of the town

Hajdúböszörmény Hajdúböszörmény is a town in northeastern Hungary with a population of approximately 30,000 people. History It is also home to one of the faculties of the University of Debrecen. It has a unique circular plan (like Paris) to the streets that ...

. Amongst other names of Muslims in early Hungary were Khalyzians,

Saracen upright 1.5, Late 15th-century German woodcut depicting Saracens ''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 Rom ...

and

Ishmaelites The Ishmaelites (; ) were a collection of various Arab tribes, tribal confederations and small kingdoms described in Abrahamic tradition as being descended from and named after Ishmael, a prophet according to the Quran, the first son of Abraha ...

. The first

Islam Islam is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the Quran, and the teachings of Muhammad. Adherents of Islam are called Muslims, who are estimated to number Islam by country, 2 billion worldwide and are the world ...

ic author to speak of this Muslim community was

Yaqut al-Hamawi Yāqūt Shihāb al-Dīn ibn-ʿAbdullāh al-Rūmī al-Ḥamawī (1179–1229) () was a Muslim scholar of Byzantine ancestry active during the late Abbasid period (12th–13th centuries). He is known for his , an influential work on geography con ...

(575-626 AH/1179-1229 CE), he writes about a famous Hungarian student who studied in

Aleppo Aleppo is a city in Syria, which serves as the capital of the Aleppo Governorate, the most populous Governorates of Syria, governorate of Syria. With an estimated population of 2,098,000 residents it is Syria's largest city by urban area, and ...

. According to the student, there were 30 Muslim villages in

Hungary Hungary is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning much of the Pannonian Basin, Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia and ...

. Yaqut writes in his famous geographical dictionary, "Mu'ajam al-Buldan", about his meeting with a Hungarian Muslim youth in Syria who was studying Islam there and brought some details of the history and life of their people in Hungary. The Spaniard Muslim traveler Abu Hamid al Garnati wrote of two types of Muslims in the country, the first being the Böszörmény and the second being the Khalyzians (

Khwarezm Khwarazm (; ; , ''Xwârazm'' or ''Xârazm'') or Chorasmia () is a large oasis region on the Amu Darya river delta in western Central Asia, bordered on the north by the (former) Aral Sea, on the east by the Kyzylkum Desert, on the south by ...

ians). He reported that

Géza II of Hungary Géza II (; ; ; 113031 May 1162) was King of Hungary and Croatia from 1141 to 1162. He was the oldest son of Béla the Blind and his wife, Helena of Serbia. When his father died, Géza was still a child and he started ruling under the guardia ...

expressed a great fondness of Muslims. In the 11th century, St. Ladislaus and later Coloman passed laws against the non-Christians ( Synod of Szabolcs). These laws subdued Islam by coercing Muslims to eat pork, go to Church, intermarry, and to forbid them from celebrating Friday. Some of Coloman's laws include: László (Saint Ladislaus) passed the following law: These laws discriminated severely against the small minority. Muslims in Hungary were reported to have often worked in the field of trade and finance. A ring with an Arabic inscription was found in the grave of Béla II of Hungary. Furthermore, Hungarian royal coins from between the 12th and 13th centuries were found to have Arabic inscriptions. Whilst the presence of Arabic inscriptions does not directly imply a connection with Islam, Arabic-speaking populations were predominantly Muslim. Káliz Road, named after the Muslim Khalyzians, was a trade route between

Szeged Szeged ( , ; see also #Etymology, other alternative names) is List of cities and towns of Hungary#Largest cities in Hungary, the third largest city of Hungary, the largest city and regional centre of the Southern Great Plain and the county seat ...

and the

Danube The Danube ( ; see also #Names and etymology, other names) is the List of rivers of Europe#Longest rivers, second-longest river in Europe, after the Volga in Russia. It flows through Central and Southeastern Europe, from the Black Forest sou ...

used for the transport of salt from

Transylvania Transylvania ( or ; ; or ; Transylvanian Saxon dialect, Transylvanian Saxon: ''Siweberjen'') is a List of historical regions of Central Europe, historical and cultural region in Central Europe, encompassing central Romania. To the east and ...

Jenő Szűcs Jenő Szűcs (July 13, 1928 – November 24, 1988) was a Hungarian historian who was born in Debrecen Debrecen ( ; ; ; ) is Hungary's cities of Hungary, second-largest city, after Budapest, the regional centre of the Northern Great Plain Reg ...

states that prior to the

Mongol invasions The Mongol invasions and conquests took place during the 13th and 14th centuries, creating history's largest contiguous empire, the Mongol Empire (1206–1368), which by 1260 covered large parts of Eurasia. Historians regard the Mongol devastati ...

of the 13th century, "the country was pretty much strewn with military and merchant colonies of Muslim religious groups".

Turkish rule in Hungary

From the late 14th century, Hungarians were faced with the growing presence of the

Turkish Empire The Ottoman Empire (), also called the Turkish Empire, was an imperial realm that controlled much of Southeast Europe, West Asia, and North Africa from the 14th to early 20th centuries; it also controlled parts of southeastern Central Euro ...

in neighbouring parts of the Balkans. The Muslim Turks began to establish control in the Kingdom of Hungary after the

Battle of Mohács The Battle of Mohács (; , ) took place on 29 August 1526 near Mohács, in the Kingdom of Hungary. It was fought between the forces of Hungary, led by King Louis II of Hungary, Louis II, and the invading Ottoman Empire, commanded by Suleima ...

in 1526. In 1541, they gained control of the centre of the former kingdom, establishing Macaristan (Ottoman Hungary), beginning with the Budin

eyalet Eyalets (, , ), also known as beylerbeyliks or pashaliks, were the primary administrative divisions of the Ottoman Empire. From 1453 to the beginning of the nineteenth century the Ottoman local government was loosely structured. The empire was a ...

. They later established the Temeşvar, Eğri, Kanije and Varat eyalets, and the Ottoman vassal states of the Principality of Transylvania and the short-lived

Principality of Upper Hungary The Principality of Upper Hungary (; ; ) was a short-lived vassal state of the Ottoman Empire ruled by Emeric Thököly. Background After peace treaty of Vasvár was signed in 1664, loyalty felt by Hungarians towards the Habsburg dynasty was i ...

(present-day Slovakia). In the 16th and 17th centuries, numerous Muslim personalities were born in Hungary. Among them, the most important were the Ottoman

Grand Vizier Grand vizier (; ; ) was the title of the effective head of government of many sovereign states in the Islamic world. It was first held by officials in the later Abbasid Caliphate. It was then held in the Ottoman Empire, the Mughal Empire, the Soko ...

, Kanijeli Siyavuş Pasha (from

Nagykanizsa Nagykanizsa (; , or just ''Kaniža/Kanjiža''; ; ; ; ), known colloquially as Kanizsa, is a medium-sized city in Zala County in southwestern Hungary. It is a city with county rights. It lies not far from Lake Balaton at the meeting point of five ...

) who held the function three times between 1582 and 1593, the Ottoman historian İbrahim Peçevi (Ibrahim of Pécs), and the famous

Mevlevi The Mevlevi Order or Mawlawiyya (; ) is a Sufi order that originated in Konya, Turkey (formerly capital of the Sultanate of Rum) and which was founded by the followers of Jalaluddin Muhammad Balkhi Rumi, a 13th-century Persian poet, Sufi ...

dervish Dervish, Darvesh, or Darwīsh (from ) in Islam can refer broadly to members of a Sufi fraternity (''tariqah''), or more narrowly to a religious mendicant, who chose or accepted material poverty. The latter usage is found particularly in Persi ...

Pecsevi Árifi Ahmed Dede, also a Turk native of

Pécs Pécs ( , ; ; Slovak language, Slovak: ''Päťkostolie''; also known by #Name, alternative names) is List of cities and towns of Hungary#Largest cities in Hungary, the fifth largest city in Hungary, on the slopes of the Mecsek mountains in the c ...

. Most Islamic studies in Hungary were taught according to the

Hanafi The Hanafi school or Hanafism is the oldest and largest Madhhab, school of Islamic jurisprudence out of the four schools within Sunni Islam. It developed from the teachings of the Faqīh, jurist and theologian Abu Hanifa (), who systemised the ...

madhhab A ''madhhab'' (, , pl. , ) refers to any school of thought within fiqh, Islamic jurisprudence. The major Sunni Islam, Sunni ''madhhab'' are Hanafi school, Hanafi, Maliki school, Maliki, Shafi'i school, Shafi'i and Hanbali school, Hanbali. They ...

, or Hanafi school of thought, of

. Churches in Hungary were repurposed as mosques, which sometimes involved architectural changes, although Islamic architectural features were removed from the vast majority of churches following the Ottoman retreat. Turkish rule in the Hungarian lands ended definitively in 1718, with the signing of the

Treaty of Passarowitz The Treaty of Passarowitz, or Treaty of Požarevac, was the peace treaty signed in Požarevac ( sr-cyr, Пожаревац, , ), a town that was in the Ottoman Empire but is now in Serbia, on 21 July 1718 between the Ottoman Empire and its ad ...

. The Ottoman period left behind a legacy of Turkish architecture such as mosques,

türbe ''Türbe'' refers to a Muslim mausoleum, tomb or grave often in the Turkish-speaking areas and for the mausolea of Ottoman sultans, nobles and notables. A typical türbe is located in the grounds of a mosque or complex, often endowed by the ...

s, and public baths (

hamam A hammam (), also often called a Turkish bath by Westerners, is a type of steam bath or a place of public bathing associated with the Islamic world. It is a prominent feature in the Islamic culture, culture of the Muslim world and was inherited ...

s), as well as changes in the local cuisine, such as the popularization of coffeehouses and the introduction of

paprika Paprika is a spice made from dried and ground red peppers, traditionally ''capsicum annuum''. It can have varying levels of Pungency, heat, but the peppers used for hot paprika tend to be milder and have thinner flesh than those used to produce ...

, an essential spice in Hungarian dishes.

Modern era

In the 19th century, after the collapse of the revolution of 1848-9, more than 6,000 emigrated Poles and Hungarians followed General

Józef Bem Józef Zachariasz Bem (, ; 14 March 1794 – 10 December 1850) was a Polish engineer and general, an Ottoman pasha and a national hero of Poland and Hungary, and a figure intertwined with other European patriotic movements. Like Tadeusz Kościus ...

(Murat Paşa) into Turkish exile. Among them were such Hungarian officers such as Richard Guyon (Kurşid Paşa), György Kmety (Ismail Paşa) and Maximilian Stein (Ferhad Paşa). These personalities were afterwards raised to the post of General. Guyon is described in the

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography The ''Dictionary of National Biography'' (''DNB'') is a standard work of reference on notable figures from History of the British Isles, British history, published since 1885. The updated ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' (''ODNB'') ...

as "the first Christian to obtain the rank of pasha and a Turkish military command without being obliged to change his religion", a sign of modernizing meritocracy under the 19th-century Ottomans. In 1913, Austria-Hungary annexed Ada Kaleh, which should have meant Hungarians would administer it. Ada Kaleh was inhabited by Turkish Muslims, and some Turkish Families of them settled in Mainland Hungary. The increasing number of Muslim soldiers in the Austro-Hungarian army in WW1 also necessitated new measures. Since 2007 Romanian Citizens went to Hungary as workers including also Tatars-Turks and Muslim Roma from Dobruja in Romania. The council of Újbuda has given permission for the Muslim community in Hungary to build the first Islamic centre in Budapest. The new Islamic centre will hold a library containing 50,000 volumes. In 2013, the Hungarian Islamic Council requested for the

Grand Mufti A Grand Mufti (also called Chief Mufti, State Mufti and Supreme Mufti) is a title for the leading Faqīh, Islamic jurist of a country, typically Sunni, who may oversee other muftis. Not all countries with large Sunni Muslim populations have Gra ...

of Bosnia and Herzegovina Husein Kavazović to also become Grand Mufti of Hungary.

Religious law

Hungary's new "Law on the Right to Freedom of Conscience and Religion, and on Churches, Religions and Religious Communities" was enacted 12 July 2011 and recognizes only 14 religious groups. Islam is not included in this list and Muslims have to apply to get official recognition under the new law. Under the law, only 14 of 358 registered churches and religious associations will be granted legal recognition, while others will have to reapply for legal registration after two-thirds approval in parliament. On 27 February 2012, Hungary's parliament amended the country's controversial law on religious organizations by expanding the list of officially recognized organizations to include the Hungarian Islamic Council.

Demographics

According to the 2011 Hungarian census, there were 5,579 Muslims in

, making up only about 0.057% of the total population. Of these, 4,097 (73.4%) declared themselves as ethnically Hungarian, while 2,369 (42.5%) declared themselves as ethnically

Arab Arabs (, , ; , , ) are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the Arab world in West Asia and North Africa. A significant Arab diaspora is present in various parts of the world. Arabs have been in the Fertile Crescent for thousands of years ...

. In Hungary people can declare more than one ethnicity (which explains why the sum of these percentages is greater than 100%), Data from 2011 does not show the Turkish population (which was 1,565 in the 2001 census). However, the majority of Muslims in Hungary are of Arab or Turkish origin. Moreover, there is also a growing number of ethnic Hungarian converts to Islam. The actual number of Muslims in Hungary is likely to be above 5,579 Muslims. Following the war in Syria, an important influx of

asylum seekers An asylum seeker is a person who leaves their country of residence, enters another country, and makes in that other country a formal application for the right of asylum according to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights Article 14. A pers ...

arrived in 2014, 2015 and 2016 where more than 200,000 asylum applications were filed in Hungary. However, from 2017 and onwards, Hungarian authorities have registered less than few hundred applications.

Notable people

Gyula Germanus Gyula Germanus (6 November 1884, in Budapest – 7 November 1979, in Budapest), alias Julius Abdulkerim Germanus, was a Hungarian professor of oriental studies, writer and Islamologist, member of the National Assembly of Hungary, Hungarian Parl ...

, writer and politician, islamologist * István Horthy Jr., physicist and architect, grandson of Admiral

Miklós Horthy Miklós Horthy de Nagybánya (18 June 1868 – 9 February 1957) was a Hungarian admiral and statesman who was the Regent of Hungary, regent of the Kingdom of Hungary (1920–1946), Kingdom of Hungary Hungary between the World Wars, during the ...

* Ibrahim Muteferrika,

publisher Publishing is the activities of making information, literature, music, software, and other content, physical or digital, available to the public for sale or free of charge. Traditionally, the term publishing refers to the creation and distribu ...

, economist, historian, Islamic theologian, sociologist

Gallery

File:Gül baba türbéje.JPG, The

Gül Baba Gül Baba (died 1541), also known as Jafer, was an Ottoman Bektashi dervish poet and companion of Sultan Suleiman I () who took part in a number of campaigns in Europe from the reign of Mehmed II onwards. Biography A native of Merzifon ...

, several works of Islamic art can be visited File:Idrisz Baba türbéje (1780. számú műemlék).jpg, The

of Idrisz Baba in

File:Minaret in Érd. S. - Hungary.JPG,

Érd minaret The Érd minaret (Hungarian language, Hungarian: Érdi minaret) is an Ottoman Hungary, Ottoman era minaret tower situated in Érd near capital Budapest in Hungary. It is one of only three Ottoman Empire, Ottoman era minarets still surviving in Hun ...

seen in 2015 File:Pécs - Yakovali Hassan Mosque 01.jpg, The

Yakovalı Hasan Paşa Mosque The Yakovalı Hasan Paşa Mosque (, ) is an early 17th-century mosque in Pécs, southern Hungary. It was constructed when the region was part of the Turkish Ottoman Empire, together with the main mosque of Pécs, the Mosque of Pasha Qasim (which ...

in Pécs File:GaziKaszimFotoThalerTamas1.jpg, Former mosque of Pasha Qasim in

, now used as a Catholic church File:Zelesny Károly Pécs 1880s.jpg, Mosque of Pasha Qasim in the 1880s File:Eger 16. század.jpg,

Eger Eger ( , ; ; also known by other #Names and etymology, alternative names) is the county seat of Heves County, and the second largest city in Northern Hungary (after Miskolc). A city with county rights, Eger is best known for Castle of Eger, its ...

city in 16th century with mosques and minarets File:Minaret (5528. számú műemlék) 4.jpg,

Eger minaret The Eger minaret ( Hungarian: Egri minaret or Kethüda-minaret) is an Ottoman-era minaret tower located in Eger city, northern Hungary. It is one of the most northern minarets left from Ottoman rule in Europe. The minaret is 40 metres (131 feet ...

File:Malkocs bég dzsámija belső.jpg, Interior of Malkoç Bey Mosque in Siklós File:Esztergom.Dzsami-Nyugat.jpg, The ruins of the mosque in

Esztergom Esztergom (; ; or ; , known by Names of European cities in different languages: E–H#E, alternative names) is a city with county rights in northern Hungary, northwest of the capital Budapest. It lies in Komárom-Esztergom County, on the righ ...

File:Rác Gyógyfürdő, Budapest 02.jpg, The Turkish bath in the

Rác Thermal Bath The Rác Thermal Bath, located in Budapest, Hungary, is an 8000-square metre bath and is renowned for its Turkish bath dating back to the 16th century, and its imperial pools and shower corridor built in the age of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. T ...

File:Rokusdomb well.jpg, Idrisz Baba's well File:Dunafoldvar-Var6-a.jpg, Transformed

Dunaföldvár Dunaföldvár is a town in Tolna County, Hungary. Its residents are Hungarian people, Hungarians, with minority of Serbs. History A Bronze Age gold hoard of jewellery was found between Paks and Dunaföldvár on the banks of the Danube in the n ...

church fortress File:Yakovali Hassan minbar.jpg,

Minbar A minbar (; sometimes romanized as ''mimber'') is a pulpit in a mosque where the imam (leader of prayers) stands to deliver sermons (, ''khutbah''). It is also used in other similar contexts, such as in a Hussainiya where the speaker sits and le ...

of the

, Pécs, Hungary File:SzolnokFahíd.jpg, The remains of the Ottoman wooden bridge pile marks in Szolnok

References

External links

Islamic history in HungaryHistory of Islam in Hungary
{{Hungary articles