Albania plans to create sovereign micro state for Sufi Muslim order

Albania is planning to create its own Vatican City. This one, however, will be a Muslim one.

The New York Times reported that Albania’s prime minister, Edi Rama, will announce plans for a sovereign microstate within its capital, Tirana, that will follow the practices of the Bektashi Order — a Shiite Sufi order founded in the 13th century in Turkey.

If all goes to plan, the so-called “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 women 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. “We should take care of this treasure, which is religious tolerance and which we should never take for granted,” he told The New York Times.

A long mystic tradition in Albania

The history of the Bektashis dates back to the 13th century Ottoman Empire, but nearly a century ago, the Order’s headquarters moved to Tirana after being banned from Turkey by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founding father of the Turkish Republic.

The Bektashi Order has a long mystic tradition in Albania. Espoused by the Janissaries, the elite soldiers of the Ottoman Empire largely recruited from Christian areas of the Balkans. The Sufi faith does not force devotees to observe the basics of traditional Islam.

Tolerance has not led to protection from persecution, however. For hundreds of years, the faithful have found themselves under pressure — whether their overlords were Christian, Muslim or atheist — which led them to neighbouring countries such as Kosovo and Macedonia since the Ottoman Empire’s conquest of the Balkans in the 14th and 15th centuries.

Bektashis are devoted to wise men, known as dervishes. Dervish Baba Mondi is the current spiritual leader of the order. He is known by followers by his official title, His Holiness Haji Dede Baba.

Baba Mondi is set to be the leader of the Sovereign State of the Bektashi Order. He says 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 United States and other Western powers would recognise his state’s sovereignty. “We deserve a state,” he told 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.”