Travels in Southeastern Europe

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

OF THE ALBANIAN. 247 from Bokhara and Khorassan, founded the order early in the fourteenth century. But the Dervish spiritual principles are far older than Mohammed's time, and Hadji Bektash, in so far as he was a Moslem, was a follower, it is said, of the Kaliph Ali. The present Bektashites, I am told, do not observe the Mohammedan fasts, and trouble very little about the prophet. They are very tolerant of other religions. Jella-a-din, nephew of Ali Pasha, and formerly Governor of Ochrida, had a Christian wife, whom he allowed to go regularly to church, stipulating only that she Should be veiled. The teaching is said to be highly mystical and of a pantheistic nature, with a flavour of Omar Kayyam. Lately, I am told, it has been a good deal persecuted, and the Sultan has been working a Sunnite propaganda. A Governor who went only to the Bektashite 'tekieh,' and not to mosque, would lose his post now. At one place I was told, ' It is better not to talk about it. We are afraid of trouble.' In the event of a free Albania, it seems probable that many of the sect will turn Christian. For the lower classes, as do most religions, Bektashism supplies a quantity of miracles, and large numbers of lambs are sacrificed at the shrines of popular saints. Khizi, a mythical character, who is said to figure largely in Oriental spiritualism, is identified by many with St. George of dragon fame, and the Bektashites keep St. George's Day with ceremony. The Albanian, in short, stands out in marked contrast to all the rest of the Sultan's subjects.
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Title
The burden of the Balkans / by M. Edith Durham.
Author
Durham, Mary Edith, 1863-1944.
Canvas
Page 247
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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