Polonya’da İslam

Islam is one of Polish traditional religions and is officially recognized by the state. The first Muslims to emerge within the borders of Poland were Tatars who settled in Podlachia in the seventeenth century. However, they did not arrive from a Muslim state, they came from the Grand Duchy of Lithuania where they had started to settle as early as the fourteenth century and their place of origin had been the Muslim state of Golden Horde. Thanks to this long presence Islam was officially recognized by the Polish state as early as 1936 by a special act of Parliament recognizing the first Islamic organization, the Muslim Religious Union (MZR), the second oldest Islamic organization in Europe. Muslim minority in Poland is not very sizeable. We have no exact data on the number of Muslims living in Poland, their population is estimated at 20-30 thousand, what amounts to 0,06-0,08 percent of the total population. However, the today’s religious life of Muslims in Poland is characterized by a peculiar transitional phase between the past (until the second 1980s), when almost all Muslims living in Poland were Tatars, and the present, with Tatars as a minority when compared to the immigrant Muslims. Along with the demographic changes in the Muslim minority in Poland, the organization of their religious life also underwent a transformation. Until late 1980s the MZR was the only Islamic organization in Poland. In 1980s students from Arab countries were welcomed by its members and allowed to join the religious activities. However tensioned between these two groups arose and in 1989, the students formed an association, the first Islamic organization since the establishment of the MZR, though of course with a different legal status. Since then more Islamic religious organizations were established, first as associations and later as denominational organizations. However, legislative means allowing and officially recognizing more than one Islamic organization may destroy the positive image and strong position of Muslims, which they have earned for centuries of their presence in Poland. Thanks to the long tradition of Islamic presence in Poland, there are no special logistic problems and there exists a working religious infrastructure. There are four purpose built mosques and several prayer rooms, three traditional Muslim cemeteries and special sections in communal cemeteries are allotted to Muslims. Islamic religious instruction was introduced to public schools in 1992. However there is a lack of well trained local imams and Muslim theologians. The Roman Catholic Church, the biggest Christian denomination in Poland, is more and more interested in an interreligious dialogue with Islam. Since 2000 the Day of Islam in the Roman Catholic Church in Poland has been celebrated sixteen times, and Muslims two years ago started to organize a Day of Christianity. Poland with its long tradition of Islamic presence, but still with a tiny Muslim minority is in a good position to learn from the experience of other European countries, whose history in the last years has been marked by a great influx of Muslim immigrants.