Albania will transform the Tirana-based Bektashi Muslims, an Islamic Sufi order, into a sovereign state to promote moderation, tolerance and peaceful coexistence, Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama said Sunday.
If all goes to plan, the Sovereign State of the Bektashi Order will become the world's smallest state, just a quarter of the size of Vatican City.
The 10-hectare patch of land will have its own administration, passports and borders.
The new state would allow alcohol, permit everyone to wear what they want and impose no lifestyle rules, reflecting the Bektashi Order's tolerant practices.
Rama said the aim of the new state was to promote a tolerant version of Islam on which Albania prides itself.
Speaking at the United Nations, Rama pointed out that Albania, a tiny Western Balkan country, saved Jewish refugees from the Nazis during World War II and sheltered Afghans after the Taliban came to power three years ago.Albanians are also proud of giving to the world the Catholic Church's famed humanitarian, Mother Teresa — born in neighbouring North Macedonia — who “embodied love for humanity,” he said. The Bektashi represent about 10% of Albania's Muslim community, according to the latest census.
The Balkan country of some 2.8 million is known for its religious tolerance in an otherwise divided region.
Decisions made with 'love and kindness'
An offshoot of Sufism, the Bektashi movement or Bektashiyya originated in Turkey's region of Anatolia and soon became the official order of the elite military units, the Janissaries.
However, over time, the order came under fire for its liberal approach to faith and growing political influence, and it was reduced in size and limited to Albania, Kosovo, and North Macedonia.
The order was officially banned twice: first, in the 17th century, by the Ottoman Sultan Mahmud II. Then, in 1925, the founding father of the Turkish Republic, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, shut down all of the Bektashi lodges or tekke after he banned all branches of Islam not recognised by the Directorate of Religious Affairs from Turkey.
The Sufis, the mystic branch of Islam, do not enforce the religion's more stringent tenets, and the Bektashi are one of its most liberal branches.
Dervish Baba Mondi, the current spiritual leader of the order, is set to be the leader of the Sovereign State of the Bektashi Order. He said decisions will be made with "love and kindness".
In an interview with Euronews in 2018, he said: "being a Bektashi means being human. We have built our community basing it on the principles of peace, love, and mutual respect."
A team of experts is working on legislation defining the new state’s sovereign status inside Albania. Rama’s governing Socialist Party will also need to endorse it.
Baba Mondi expressed hope that the US and other Western powers would recognise his state’s sovereignty. “We deserve a state,” Mondi said in a recent interview with The New York Times.
“We are the only ones in the world who tell the truth about Islam (and) don’t mix it up with politics.”
According to some estimates, there are between 7 and 20 million Bektashis worldwide, including some 12.5 million in Turkey.