Travels in Southeastern Europe

The burden of the Balkans / by M. Edith Durham.

246 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS. Mohammedanism, too, seems to have had but little effect upon him. Many of the people are extraordinarily lax about it; in no place that I know have the Albanians taken the trouble to build a really fine mosque, and there are whole districts where the women are unveiled. Oddly enough, where they are veiled they are veiled extra thickly. A good Mohammedan should turn Mecca-wards and pray five times a day. I have spent day after day with Moslem gendarmes and horse-boys, and never seen an attempt at a prayer. But, on the other hand, once, when passing some soldiers of an Anatolian regiment who were devoutly praying by the wayside, my mounted escort pointed them out to me and laughed as though it were the best of jokes. Under the veneer of Mohammedanism often lies a thin layer of Christianity. In many villages 'Moslems ' still give each other red eggs at Easter, and I have seen them making pilgrimages to a Christian shrine. I am told that some swear by the Virgin. There are often Christians and Moslems in the same family. If a Moslem charm fails to cure they try a Christian one, or vice versd. The cross or the verses out of the Koran are simply amulets. Under all lies a bed-rock of prehistoric paganism, which has, perhaps, more influence in their lives than either of the other two. The Northern Moslems are Sunnites, or profess to be; but the Moslems of the South all belong to a very unorthodox sect of Dervishes, the Bektashites. SHadji Bektash, variously reported to have come
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Title
The burden of the Balkans / by M. Edith Durham.
Author
Durham, Mary Edith, 1863-1944.
Canvas
Page 246
Publication
London :: Nelson,
[1905]
Subject terms
Eastern question (Balkan)
Balkan Peninsula -- Description and travel.

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"The burden of the Balkans / by M. Edith Durham." In the digital collection Travels in Southeastern Europe. https://name.umdl.umich.edu/ans3900.0001.001. University of Michigan Library Digital Collections. Accessed April 30, 2025.
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