Talk:Albania

Does Albania still have a monarch? Is this Jashar Zogu related to *here*'s Zog I? Nik 21:50, 31 March 2007 (PDT)

No, because it is a REPUBLIC. Seth 6:18, 1 April 2007

Religion in Albania

Does anyone mind if I make some proposals for the state of religions in Albania, including a breakdown of the percentage of each faith in the country? I did some work on Bektashi Islam when I was an underclassman so this order of Sufism fascinates me, and it'd be interesting to figure out if there's an Albanian Orthodox Church or if the Orthodox Christian populace is connected to Constantinople. Misterxeight 21:39, 12 July 2016 (PDT)

Given that those who have edited in the past are either lost to antiquity, hibernating, or otherwise distanced from the project, I don't see a problem with the carefully and respectfully fleshing out the religious side of Albania. Kyrmse is active on Facebook, you could confirm with him there, but I really don't know as he'd mind, so long as you consider Xliponia. BoArthur 10:15, 13 July 2016 (PDT)

He's in my friends list, and you should be able to see him. :)

Thanks. So, before I contact him, I think I'll run my scenario over here first.

One huge difference is that Albania never went communist. Ever. So even the article says "most Albanians are pretty secular," that doesn't need to mean "most Muslims are non-practicing and non-religious." That could just mean they don't seek a sharia state and are content with the republic. There was also a lot more Italian rule than there was OTL. I feel like that will almost sort of alienate non-Catholics from Catholics much like being the dominant religion of an occupier would alienate non-Muslims from their Muslim compatriots. I imagine that at least for awhile, all Orthodox Christians would be Uniates, forced to be Catholic on paper. Once the Two Sicilies and Albania are completely cleaved apart, they could go back to being openly Orthodox, kind of like the renaissance Orthodoxy in Albania is experiencing today. There was also never a Janissary revolt in the Ottoman Empire like in our world in 1826 (well, it's never been discussed). Albania always lent itself to Sufism because many Christian and pre-Christian rites and beliefs could be more easily subsumed into Bektashism. I imagine that for that reason, in IB, Bektashi Sufi Twelver-Imami Sunnis would outnumber mainstream, Hanafi ones, unlike in our world where it's maybe 55%-60% mainstream Sunni and .5%-5% Bektashi Sufi. Lastly, just for added fun, I thought I'd throw in some other groups into the mix. I remember someone in the Yahoo Group asked if Albania could be Protestant. I figure, in the vein of our world, what if Scottish Protestant-missionaries set up shop in northern Albania at a time when Catholic communities were undergoing social upheaval? Also, in our world, an English convert to Ahmadiyya Islam was offered the throne of Albania, as a mediary between the Western and Muslim worlds. He was the one to introduce the denomination into the country, although he never took up the position of king. I feel like, with Ahmadiyya's almost sort of syncretism and desire for anti-sectarianism and world peace, it would really fit well into Albania's pluralistic society. So how about these demographics; 58% Muslim, 40% Christian, 1.5% non-religious and other (neo-pagans, Zoroastrians, maybe even a Hindi or two), .5% Jewish?

Within the Muslim community, let's say nearly 46% is Bektashi Sufi Twelver-Imami Sunni, 12% is non-denominational Muslim, 3% is properly Shia, 7% is Ahmadiyya, and 32% is mainstream (Hanafi school of jurisprudence) Sunni.

Of the Christians, it's probably a bit less pluralistic. Let's say 19% of all Albanians are Orthodox, 4% are members of the Reformed Church of Albania, a denomination tied to the Reformed Church of Scotland, 17% are Catholics (14% of all Albanians are Latin Rite, 3% are Greek Catholic).

So, even though I think 7 million people for Albania is way too high, I'll roll with that figure for now. That means that 4,060,000 are Muslims, 2,800,000 are Christians, 105,000 are anything from agnostics registered to no religious group to Zoroastrians and everyone in between, and there are 35,000 Jews, most of which I bet are Sephardic, with a couple thousand Romaniote (Greek-speaking) Jews.

Of the 4,060,000 Muslims, 1,867,600 are Bektashi Sufis (still technically Sunni), 487,200 are Muslims but are neither registered to the Shia or Sunni or Ahmadiyya denominations, 121,800 are Shi'a and proud of it, 284,200 believe in the Ahmadiyya message, and 1,299,200 are just regular ole' Sunnis of the Hanafi school of jurisprudence.

Meanwhile, 1,330,000 people are Eastern Orthodox Christians of the autonomous Albanian Orthodox Church under the Ecumenical Patriarchate, 280,000 are Reformed Protestants of the Scottish variety (although I doubt that after two hundred years of being on their own there's anything Scottish about them), and 1,190,000 are Catholics (of which 980,000 are Latin Riters under the Archbishop of Tirana directly reporting to the Pope of Rome, and 210,000 are Eastern Catholics under the Eparchy of Tirana, itself a part of the Greco-Sicilian Catholic Church whose Metropolitan Bishop resides in Naples). There's a slight difference between the administrations of the Orthodox and Eastern Catholics, I took creative liberties in that. I figured that unlike in OTL, at one point or another, all Christians who use the Byzantine Rite would be forced to be Catholics (de-jure, not necessarily de-facto; try enforcing religious orthodoxy in those mountains, pfft) by Neapolitan rule. Only in the advent of the Ottoman conquest could they be allowed to rejoin Constantinople's jurisdiction. Then, when the Sicilians take over again, it's back across the dividing line, and when the Sicilians have been kicked out, it's back into the embrace of Constantinople. Combine that with an Albanian renaissance and the Orthodox playing their cards right and allowing an Albanian language liturgy earlier instead of enforcing Greek only, they could get converts from other denominations. Also, in our world, the Italo-Albanian Greek Catherine Church doesn't have a Metropolitan Bishop; it's three eparchies in Italy and one specially-administered monastery near Rome, with the Albanian Byzantine Catholic Church completely separate administratively and only have 3,825 members. Here, I streamlined the jurisdictions and shuffled them all under a sui-juiris Catholic Church based in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, to demonstrate that the Two-Sicilies still has (have? Do we count this as a collective noun? I would) some clout in the Catholic world in Albania. Thoughts, questions, comments, criticisms? Misterxeight 16:59, 18 July 2016 (PDT)

Why is 7,000,000 too much? Without the upheavals had in that area in our world, that would be a likely population, IMHO. I don't see a problem with this, and you've tried really hard to work with the QSS. Sounds good to me, given the cursory review I've made of your missive. :) BoArthur 12:44, 19 July 2016 (PDT)

I'd just like to say first that I spoke with a Bulgarian friend and he thinks that 7 million for an Albania with those borders is more than realistic. My apologies; population statistics is not really my thing! Misterxeight 23:33, 19 July 2016 (PDT)

I'll have to concur with M. Leganopoulos's previous opinion, to be honest, since the region díd suffer incredibly large amounts of upheaval. I can see it perhaps happening if the borders of Albania including parts of Kosovo (what M. Leganopoulos seems to be indicating right now), but again I think we need to try not to inflate population too much.

Also, IMO there should be more Uniate Catholics in the country; maybe flip the Latin Rite and Uniate ratios? (I don't think the Duosicilians would go as far as to impose their rite on the Albanians; they're not Fascist Italy!) Juan Martin Velez Linares 14:02, 22/07/2016 (EDT)

Albania's borders are noticeably bigger than our world's; they control most of the coast, more of the north into our world's Kosovo, and the Albanian majority areas of our world's FYROM. They don't seem to be the poorest country in Europe, either, judging by just how much aid and investment they no doubt received from the Neapolitans, and Hoxha never got the chance to shut the country down and make it a hermit kingdom. I'm been thinking about comparisons between countries in our world/that world, and I figured IB-Greece is like our Bulgaria (emerging from a batshit insane ideological regime, committed to increasing commerce by simplifying the way to do business there, industrialization, and the attraction of foreign investment, still kind of poor), IB-Bulgaria is like Albania because it's so isolated and probably poor, Dalmatia is Croatia or Slovenia (whichever one is richer in our world), IB-Croatia is whichever one Dalmatia isn't, and Romania seems kind of the same only Uniatism survived along the Hungarian border and not crushed by successive regimes and less than 1% of the population. Here's the map I treat as gospel here: http://steen.free.fr/ib/maps/cee_2003.png.

This one I used to like, but a quick glance at Mr. Van Steen's work shows how inaccurate it is. http://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/attachments/ill-bethstad-final-map-png.260180/

Anyway, back to religion. IB seems much more Christian, so we could swap the 60/40 ratio of Muslims-to-Christians or move it to a more even playing field, like 55/45, 50/50, 45/55, etc. I don't know who the caretaker of Albania really is these days to ask for input from, so this idea might be limbo for awhile. How about we meet half-way in the middle; if 17% of IB-Albania is Catholic, we could make the ratio split down the middle of 8%-9% one or the other or even 8.5% to 8.5% of Eastern Riters to Latin Riters. I just like that I'm able to have some fun and make the Orthodox overall bigger than Catholics after decades of counter-proselytization of dissatisfied Uniates and the Protestant missionaries coming in to convert the Bektashi and settling for the low-hanging fruit of Catholics. I'm going to have a lot of fun designing an Albanian Reformed Church. Misterxeight 22:07, 26 July 2016 (PDT)

Script(s)

So what'll it be for not-so little Albania: Arabic, Latin, or Greek? How about all three? I vote for all three concurrently at once. It's actually possible to make the characters present have dots and tildes. My friend typed this up in unicode for me: Ρ̇ ρ̇, Γ̇ γ̇, Ζ̇ ζ̇, Λ̇ λ̇, Ν̇ ν̇, Χ̇ χ̇, Κ̇ κ̇, Σ̈ σ̈ ς̈, Ε̰ ε̰. Misterxeight 23:33, 19 July 2016 (PDT)

Ati ynë që je në qiell, u shënjtëroftë emri yt. arthtë mbretëria jote; u bëftë dëshira jote, si në qiell, edhe mbi dhe. bukën tonë të përditëshme jepna neve sot; edhe falna fajet tona, sikundër edhe ne ua falim fajtorëvet tanë; edhe mos na shtjerë në ngasje, po shpëtona nga i ligu; sepse jotja është mbretëria e fuqia e lavdia në jetët të jetëvet.

Ατι υνε̰ κ̇ε̰ jε νε̰ κ̇ιελλ,