mohalla

is an Arabic word variously translated as district, quarter, ward, or " neighborhood" in many parts of the Arab world, the Balkans, Western Asia, the Indian subcontinent, and nearby nations.

History

Historically, mahallas were autonomous social institutions built around familial ties and Islamic rituals. Today it is popularly recognised also by non-Muslims as a neighbourhood in large cities and towns. Mahallas lie at the intersection of private family life and the public sphere. Important community-level management functions are performed through mahalle solidarity, such as religious ceremonies, life-cycle rituals, resource management and conflict resolution. It is an official administrative unit in many Middle Eastern countries.

The word was brought to the Balkans through Ottoman Turkish ''mahalle'', but it originates in Arabic محلة (''mähallä''), from the root meaning "to settle", "to occupy".

In September 2017, a Turkish-based association referred to the historical mahalle by organizing a festival with the title "Mahalla" in the frame of parallel events of the 15th Istanbul Biennial. The festival in Istanbul features cultural initiatives of civil society took place 2018 in Valletta, Malta, in the frame of European Capital of Culture under the title "Generating New Narratives". The third Mahalla Festival took place in 2020 under the title
Wandering Towers
with online and physical events due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The 2021 edition,
Murmuration
, took place ino the Istanbul district of Kadiköy at the Yeldeğirmeni Sanat Merkezi.

Origins

The word is used in many languages and countries to mean neighborhood or location and originated in Arabic (''maḥalla''), from the root meaning ‘to settle’, ‘to occupy’, derived from the verb halla (to untie), as in untying a pack horse or camel to make a camp. In ancient cultures, hospitality involved welcoming a stranger at the host location and offering him food, shelter and safety. That demonstration of hospitality centred on the belief that strangers should be assisted and protected while they travel. A mahala was a relatively-independent quarter of a larger village or a town, usually with its own school, religious building or buildings, mayor's representative etc. Mahalas are often named after the first settler or, when ethnically separate, according to the dominant ethnicity.

In the Ottoman Empire, the "mahalle" was the smallest administrative entity. The mahalle was generally perceived to play an important role in identity formation, with the local mosque and the local coffee house as the main social gathering institutions.

Mahalle lay at the intersection of private family life and the public sphere. Important community-level management functions were performed by mahalle solidarity, such as religious ceremonies, lifecycle rituals, resource management and conflict resolution.sözlük (vbulletin dictionary)
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Today, the mahalle is represented in the municipality and government by its muhtar. The muhtarlık, the office of the muhtar, has been designed as the smallest administrative office, with representative and enforcement powers at the local level. In some cases, however, the muhtar acts as not only the representative of the government towards the community but also the head of the community toward the government and subverts official government policies by intricate face-to-face mahalle-level relationships.

Use of the term

Bangladesh

A ''mahalla'' ( ''mo-hol-la''), is an Islamic congregation or parish. Typically, a mahalla supports a single mosque. An imam is seen as the spiritual head of a mahalla. Mahallas are directly subordinate to a city or town, especially an electoral district, for ritual and representative purposes. Unlike a ward, it is an optional and non-elective unit of a city corporation or municipal corporation. ''Mahalla'' also means an urban neighbourhood.

Bulgaria

In Bulgaria, ''mahalas'' were historically considered a separate type of settlement administration on some occasions. In rural mountainous areas, villages were often scattered and consisted of relatively separate mahalas with badly developed infrastructure. Today, settlements are divided into towns or villages, and the official division of towns is into quarters. It today is used almost always to refer to the Roma neighbourhoods of towns such as Arman Mahala.

Greece

In Greece, ''mahalas'' () is considered a neighborhood. Sometimes it is considered a quarter of a small town or a gypsy neighborhood.

Hungary

The township of Szentendre lost most of its population during the Ottoman era, and was repopulated by various migrant groups from the Balkans - Serbs, Dalmatians, Bosniaks and the like. They built their own churches and created their own neighborhoods around them. They called them ''mahala'' or ''m