波蘭的Tatar穆斯林簡介
The
year was 1395.
Tokhtamysh
and his
Tatar Muslim army were rushing to the northeast across the vast steppes of
Ukraine,
unsure of what was to come.
The
journey was long and strenuous, but the warriors were disciplined nomads
skilled in horsemanship and accustomed to hardship.
Tokhtamysh's
army was escaping the battlefield of the Terek river, looking for safety after
a humiliating defeat at the hands of Tamerlane, the ruler of the Timurid
Empire.
For
the Golden Horde - Tokhtamysh's khanate, this was the beginning of a prolonged
decline.
The army
was heading to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, which under Vytautas the Great was in a
period of its greatest territorial expansion, looking to take control of lands
in the east.
In
exchange for military support in the fight against Tamerlane, Tokhtamysh
offered Vytautas the rights to rule the entire Kievan Rus, including Moscow.
While the joint campaign to regain power over the
Golden Horde eventually failed, Tokhtamysh's army and their descendants
remained in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.
They
settled in the centre and the state's borderlands and became its loyal
defenders. In the following centuries, Tatars took part in all major battles in
the region.
In
1385, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland
formed a union which later transformed into the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, one of the
largest and most populous states in the 16th and 17th century Europe.
But
it was only John III Sobieski, King of Poland and Grand Duke of
Lithuania, who invited Tatars to the territories of the Polish-Lithuanian
borderland in the second half of the 17th century.
In
exchange for fighting alongside the Polish-Lithuanian army, he granted
Tatars lands stretching over 150km in an area around the city of Białystok, inhabited
by various cultures and religions, including Jews, Orthodox Belarusians, and
Catholic Poles.
Tatars largely belonged to the privileged class and many
received noble titles and coats of arms in return for their service.
As
they were allowed to marry local women, Tatars soon lost their
language, but they retained their faith.
"In
the 17th and 18th centuries, the Tatar community was unique within Christian
Europe, excluding Russia. It was a Muslim group which was in minority, but
was tolerated," Adam Balcer, lecturer at the Warsaw University's Centre
for Eastern European Studies at Warsaw University, told Al Jazeera. "At
the time, in Spain Muslims were forced to convert to Christianity or
expelled."
In
Poland, Tatars were not only allowed to practise their faith, but acted as
intermediaries between East and West.
A recent discovery by a team from the University of
Nicolaus Copernicus in Torun, led by Joanna Kulwicka-Kaminska and Czeslaw
Lapicz, found that as early as in the second half of the 16th century, Polish
Tatars translated the Quran into the Polish language.
The
Tatar translation for years remained a mystery for scientists, since the Slavic
text - the northeastern borderland variety of Polish, was written with Arabic
alphabet and it took several years of research to decipher the original
text.
According
to Kulwicka-Kaminska, it was the third - after Italian and Latin - translation
of the Quran into a European language.
"It
was most likely in the second half of the 16th century that the first
translations of religious writings into Slavic languages - spoken by the Tatar
community - appeared, as only in these languages it was possible to introduce
Muslims to the rules and teachings of their faith," Kulwicka-Kaminska told
Al Jazeera. "It was to ensure for the Tatars their continued ethnic
separation and cultural identity, which already in the 16th century was
identified only by Islam."
The
authors of the translations remain unknown, but they were certainly part of an
educated clergy elite, maintaining ties with the Muslim East and speaking both
oriental and Slavic languages.
In the following centuries, Tatars continued to be
present within Polish elite circles and, as Balcer explains, in the
interwar period, they were overrepresented among judges, in the army, and
politics.
In
1919, at the request of the chief of state Jozef Pilsudski, a Tatar
regiment was formed and its soldiers hoisted symbols of the star and crescent.
Today,
there are 35,000 Muslims overall in Poland and at least 2,000 Tatars.
Their
faith, physical appearance and cuisine are among the only features they have
inherited from their ancestors.
The
architecture of two old mosques located in the villages of Kruszyniany and
Bohoniki resembles Catholic and Orthodox churches. (在地化的現象)
"We
are Muslims who grew up among Christians", said Maciej Szczesnowicz, the
head of the Muslim parish in Bohoniki. "Together with Catholics and
Orthodox Christians, we organise joint prayers for peace and justice in the
world. Priests and bishops come over here and pray together in our
mosque."
Although
Tatars maintained their identity for 600 years, there is a fear that
they will gradually abandon their culture.
"I
would compare Polish Tatars to the Catholic Church in the West. It is a light
version of Islam," Tomasz Miskiewicz, Mufti of Poland and
Chairman of Poland's Muslim Religious Association, told Al Jazeera.
"There
are places where Friday prayers do not take place at all and places which are
increasingly becoming history. It is a drift away from our identity."
Inter-religious
marriages are becoming common among the younger generation.
"It
used to be unthinkable, there were such situations, but it was a taboo",
says Dagmara Sulkiewicz, a Tatar religion teacher from Białystok. "Two
weeks ago, I was invited to a real Tatar wedding. But it is a relic".
Growing Islamophobia affects the community, although
some Tatars say they do not experience discrimination in their daily lives.
"Tatars
experience Islamophobia less than other Muslim communities in the country,
partially because of their historic presence and also due to the fact that there are few
religious signs that would make them easily recognisable as Muslims,"
Konrad Pedziwiatr from the Cracow University of Economics told Al Jazeera.
"Therefore,
the strategy of not recognising Islamophobia is partly connected with the
secularisation of the group".
Yet,
over
the past years mosques were vandalised several times with images of the Celtic
cross, a pig or even a symbol of the Kotwica - a World War II emblem of
the Polish Underground State often used by the far right.
"People
who paint those things lack basic awareness. In the Polish history, for 600 years
Tatars have always fought for Poland, from the Battle of Grunwald to
September 1939 as separate Tatar units of the Polish army," Krzysztof
Mucharski, a Polish Tatar, told Al Jazeera.
"I
found the Kotwica symbol particularly surprising as in the past it was used by
Tatars fighting in the Polish underground."
But
despite problems, Polish Tatars are not only proud of their Muslim heritage,
but also their Polish roots.
"We
are a bit of a rabbit pulled out of a hat to surprise the world that there is a
group like us, that is assimilated and devoted as citizens," Miskiewicz
says. "We are Poles."
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