A Bektashi Muslim State in Albania: The Perilous Crossroads of Foreign Policy, Heritage, and Geopolitics

How does the political project of a micro Bektashi State within the Albanian territory fit into, break or reinforce the ideals and institutional arrangements that have sustained the long-term historical experience of religious co-existence? This article explores the project of a sovereign enclave of the Bektashi Order at the intersection of Albanian foreign policy devices and the ideological and institutional arrangements that characterize the Albanian historical experience. The analysis highlights that the idea of a Bektashi state departs from the broad socio-political consensus that underpins the country’s secular order, particularly the constitutional principles of religious equality and a unitary state. The related constitutional dilemmas of uplifting one group and a specific ideology to sovereign status, when coupled with the lack of any open democratic debate on the topic, has fed a broad coalition of resistance against it, while also risking flaming social polarization and sectarian divisions. The analysis speaks to timely and pertinent debates on the political, institutional, and ideological underpinnings of religious tolerance, legal models of state-church relations, national heritage and identity, religious pluralism as well as the phenomena of Islamic moderation and liberal Islam in Albania and multi-religious societies more broadly.