Please Follow us on Gab, Minds, Telegram, Rumble, GETTR, Truth Social, Twitter, and Facebook
Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama has unveiled plans to create a micro-state for Sufi Muslims in the country's capital, Tirana. Speaking before the United Nations General Assembly last week, Rama announced that the enclave for the Muslim-minority would be “like the Vatican” and act as a “new center of moderation, tolerance and peaceful coexistence.” If Rama’s plan is realized, the new entity would become the world’s smallest sovereign state.
Muslims make up about half of Albania’s population, with Bektashi accounting for about 10 percent of that group, according to the 2023 census. Bektashi are the fourth largest religious group in the country after Sunni Muslims, Catholics, and Orthodox Christians.
The Order of the Bektashi was originally established in the thirteenth century and combines a free interpretation of the Koran with mysticism, elements of Turkey’s pre-Islamic religions, and devotion to their deceased sages, known as Dervishes.
The movement was once spread throughout the Ottoman Empire, but after Mustafa Kemal Ataturk established the secular Turkish republic in 1923, the Bektashi moved their base to Tirana. It is from the Albanian capital that the leader of the sect, Edmond Brahimay, known among his followers as the Baba Mondi, governs the community. He would head the Albanian microstate if it is created. Members of the sect were seen as heretics by conservative Shiites and Sunnis and were subjected to centuries of persecution in Muslim lands.
Rama’s plan is to create a 27-acre microstate comprising an existing residential neighborhood in eastern Tirana. Despite being only a quarter of the size of the Vatican, residents of the new state will have their own passports, administration and borders. Only members of the clergy and administrative staff would live in the micro-state. Rama also said religious rules of life will not be enforced within the new state – drinking alcohol will be allowed and women will be allowed to wear what they like.
The new state “will not have an army, border guards, or courts,” although the Baba Mondi pointed out that “there may be a need for an intelligence service.”
Legal experts are drafting legislation for the creation of the new microstate, which will require parliamentary approval. Recognition of the microstate on Albania’s territory would also require a constitutional amendment, as the Albanian constitution currently defines the country as “one and indivisible.” Many observers label the plan dangerous and say that it could further destabilize the Balkans. Rama’s scheme, if adopted, could increase religious tensions within the country. Besnik Sinani, a research fellow at the Center for Muslim Theology at the University of Tuebingen, Germany, told Deutsche Welle that the plan was unreasonable and would disrupt relations between religious groups in Albania. “At the moment, the Albanian government has not offered a single convincing argument to justify such a move,” Sinani said, adding that the plan contradicted “the vision of the founding fathers of Albanian statehood, many of whom were be-subjects.”
