Muslims – The Only Recognized Minority in Greece

Greece is home to approximately 140,000 Muslims, that is a total of 1.24% of the small South-East European nation. Interestingly, Muslims are the only explicitly recognized minority in Greece. Although there are only a handful of Muslims in the Mediterranean nation, they are of diverse ethnic origins. Most Muslims in Greece are of Turkish origin because of its close proximity with the Muslim nation, and the fact that the Ottoman Empire, not too long ago, ruled over Greece. Besides Turks, other indigenous Muslim groups include native Greeks who converted in the 17th and 18th century and the Pomaks.

Besides the 140,000 native Muslim Greeks, it is estimated that anywhere between 200,000 and 500,000 Muslims have immigrated to Greece for work purposes. The first wave of Muslim immigrants came to Greece in the 1950s, mostly from Egypt. In the past two decades, however, a considerable number of Muslims have made their way to Greece from as far as India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Somalia and Afghanistan. Most significantly, however, a lot of Muslim immigrants came to Greece from Albania, Macedonia and other Yugoslavian republics after the collapse of communism in eastern Europe.

Muslims have had to face a number of difficulties in recent times. Despite a large number of Muslims living in Athens, it took the Greek government until 2005 to allow them to construct a mosque in the metropolis. In 2006, in a move towards developing interfaith harmony, the Greek Orthodox Church announced that it would donate 300,000 square feet of land worth $20 million for a Muslim graveyard. Unfortunately, however, despite assured funding for the mosque from the Government of Turkey, neither the mosque nor the cemetery have been constructed to date.

Although the treatment of Muslims in Greece has a notoriously poor record, many non-governmental organizations claim that their condition is improving. The government has criminalized public encouragement of violence against any specific groups of people. This has helped deter native Greeks from targeting Muslim immigrants. Like many other European countries, however, Muslims report incidents of police bias towards them because of their religion. The police, however, argue that they are justified in their stance against Muslims because a significant proportion of illegal immigrants in Greece are of the Muslim faith.

About the author

Human. Pakistani. Law Student. Muslim.

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