ABSTRACT
Thessaloniki’s Muslims, who were the city’s masters for five centuries before 1912, are generally ignored in efforts to trace Thessaloniki’s historical course during the 20th century. The 1912 change was especially painful for Muslims, many of whom emigrated. The Muslim population coexisted with the now-dominant Christian element for a decade, until the Greek-Turkish compulsory population exchange in 1923. Until then, a series of administrative measures and legal devices were deployed by the Greek state to incorporate but also to control the city’s Muslim population during continuous wars and domestic harsh political confrontations. The Muslim character of Thessaloniki became invisible if not forgotten. The commonly shared past of the city was cleared from non-Greek elements. Likewise, scientific research avoided research topics related to the Muslim community of Thessaloniki: its social characteristics, community organisation, and laws and policies regarding foundations, Turkish-language schools, and Islamic courts. When by the early 2000s a new Muslim population passed through or started living in Thessaloniki, Islam became a new element of the city, in need of basic structures: a mosque or an Islamic cemetery. Muslim migrants and refugees brought up questions and concerns that a hundred years ago were confronted in an inhumane fashion.
