Cyprus-Forum.com

[insan]

Although I don't care what my ethnic origins r, let's discuss the issue just to see who believes what, regarding the origins of Turkish Cypriots.



With the Ottoman conquest in 1570, the ethnic and cultural composition of Cyprus changed drastically. Although the island had been ruled by Venetians, its population was of Greek origin. Turkish rule brought an influx of settlers speaking a different language and entertaining other cultural traditions and beliefs. In accordance with the decree of Sultan Selim II, some 5,720 households left Turkey from the Karaman, Içel, Konya, Alanya, Antalya, and Aydın regions of Anatolia and migrated to Cyprus. The Turkish migrants were largely farmers, but some earned their livelihoods as shoemakers, tailors, weavers, cooks, masons, tanners, jewellers, miners, and workers in other trades. In addition, some 12,000 soldiers, 4,000 cavalrymen, and 20,000 former soldiers and their families stayed in Cyprus.

According to Ottoman historian Professor Ronald Jennings, up to one third of Muslims in Cyprus listed in court records in the early sixteenth century were converts to the religion from Christianity. Jennings as well as other historians notes that a majority of Muslim later to become Turkish Cypriot villages were formerly either the estates of Latins or Maronites, suggesting that conversion to Islam was from Catholicism and not Greek Orthodoxy in the initial period of Ottoman rule. This persecution caused a considerable number of Christians, including a good number of Maronites, to adopt Islam as a survival mechanism (Cirilli 1898 11, 21; Palmieri 1905 col. 2468) [7]. Conversions took place in Tellyria, Kambyli, Ayia Marina Skillouras, Platani and Kornokepos" (Jennings 1993 367). The Maronites who adopted Islam were centered in Louroujina in the District of Nicosia and were called Linobambaci -- a composite Greek word that means men of linen and cotton (Palmieri 1905 col. 2468). However, these Maronite who had converted in despair did not fully denounce their Christian faith. They kept some beliefs and rituals, hoping to denounce their 'conversion' when the Ottomans left. For example, they baptized and confirmed their children according to Christian tradition, but administered circumcision in conformity with Islamic practices. They also gave their children two names, one Christian and one Muslim (Hackett 1901 535; Palmieri 1905 cols. 2464, 2468) [7].

Travelling pilgrim Rev. Jerome Dandini noted during his visit to the island that these converts formed a Muslim-Christian Sect of Crypto-Christians, the derogatory local name of which is "linobamvaki" meaning "Cotton-Linen Sect" owing to the uncertainty of whether these people were Christians or Muslims. In terms of language, the community, which it is claimed formed one third of Muslim Cypriots in the 19th century [7] spoke Greek in preference to Turkish, which was the lingua franca on the island as indeed in Anatolia and the Pontus for all Eastern Christians.

https://www.amazines.com/Turkish_Cypriots_related.html