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Proselytes of a New Nation analyzes questions such as: Why did many Muslims convert to Greek Orthodoxy? What did conversion mean to the converts? What were their economic, social, and professional profiles? And how did conversion affect the converts' relationships with Muslim relatives in Greece and the Ottoman Empire?
Stefanos Katsikas maintains that in the era of nationalism--when Sharia law and the Ottoman legal system could keep converts from inheriting family property; when converts were regarded as either "traitors" or "heroes"--conversion more drastically affected the social fabric of communities and more often led to violence and conflict.
List of contents
- Acknowledgements
- Names and Dates
- Transliteration
- Introduction
- Chapter 1: The Greek War of Independence
- Chapter 2: Muslims in War and Post-War Hellas
- Chapter 3: Muslim Converts to Christian Orthodoxy
- Chapter 4: Neophytes in the Kingdom of Hellas
- Conclusion
- References
- Index
About the author
Stefanos Katsikas is Associate Director of the Center for Hellenic Studies and Assistant Instructional Professor at the University of Chicago. He holds a PhD in History and Political Sciences from the School of Slavonic and East European Studies at University College London. His research interests lie in the field of modern and contemporary history of Europe, with focus Southeastern Europe, on issues such as democratization, minority-state relations, regional security, the emergence of nationalism and its impact on religious and national identities, Islam, Christianity and Judaism as well as religious conversions. He is the author of Islam and Nationalism in Modern Greece, 1821-1862 and Negotiating Diplomacy in the New Europe: Foreign Policy in the Post-Communist Bulgaria, which received a Scouloudi publication award from the Institute of Historical Research in London. Katsikas is also the editor of Bulgaria and Europe: Shifting Identities; and co-editor of State Nationalism in
the Ottoman Empire, Greece and Turkey: Orthodox and Muslims (1830-1945).
Summary
Proselytes of a New Nation analyzes questions such as: Why did many Muslims convert to Greek Orthodoxy? What did conversion mean to the converts? What were their economic, social, and professional profiles? And how did conversion affect the converts' relationships with Muslim relatives in Greece and the Ottoman Empire?
Because Sharia law and the Ottoman legal system could keep Muslim apostates--Muslims who had converted to other religions--from inheriting family property, Stefanos Katsikas examines the ways in which conversion complicated family relations and often led to legal disputes. This volume also discusses the method used by the Greek state to adjudicate legal disputes on property issues between neophytes (converts) and their Muslim relatives.
Proselytes of a New Nation maintains that religious conversion in the era of nationalism was far more consequential for the convert, their family, and their social relations. Converts received not only community attention, but also national. Depending upon the religious affiliation and nationality of an individual, they regarded neophytes as either "traitors" or "heroes." Against this sociopolitical backdrop, conversion more drastically affected the social fabric of communities than in the pre-modern era, and more often led to violence and conflict.
Additional text
Katsikas's detailed analysis of these rare documents is an invaluable contribution not only to the study of ethnoreligious communities of Greece but also to the larger field of transitions to nation-states.
