A new trend is growing among ethnic Albanians after Kosovo saw the emergence of a new movement calling Kosovars to abandon Islam, as a recent census affirms that Muslims are no longer the majority in Albania for the first time in over 200 years.
https://t.co/Ln6HFx9HSJ Albania’s Muslim population drops below 50% for first time in centuries
— SASSYCHICK (@KT07500539) June 29, 2024
The 2023 Albanian census showed a remarkable change in the country’s religious composition. For the first time, the percentage of the country’s population who identify as Muslim dropped to 45.7% in recent census figures, a clear departure from previous years when Muslims accounted for the majority of Albania’s population.
On the other hand, the number of non-religious people in Albania has grown steadily, accounting for 23.4% of the country’s population. The country’s significant Orthodox Christian minority has also increased to 20%.
The census also noted a decrease of 15% in the country’s population throughout the last ten years, from 2.8 million in 2011 to 2.4 million last year. Experts point to emigration, decreasing birth rates, and changes in the country’s changing religious scene as factors affecting Albania’s population decline.
BREAKING
For the first time since the 17th century, Muslims are no longer the majority in Albania. pic.twitter.com/NFNsapIoV5— Dr. Maalouf (@realMaalouf) June 28, 2024
Meanwhile, in nearby Kosovo, the provocatively named Movement for the Abandonment of the Islamic Faith has gained attention in the country of around 2 million, where 93% of the population identify as Muslim. The movement’s founder, Vesel Lekaj, claimed that he did oppose its adherents since he and his fellow founders also came from Muslim families. The real target, he said, is the religious extremism in any form "has been operating in Kosovo for more than two decades."
"We, as a sign of dissatisfaction with this phenomenon -- that is, extreme and political Islam, but also with Serbian Orthodox extremism -- have taken a measure...[with the aim] of stopping it," Lekaj told a meeting of the movement’s founding council last year in the town of Decan, in the country’s mountainous west.
The movement has received strong indignation from the local Islamic community council, and district prosecutors have launched an investigation into whether the movement has committed the crime of incitement to hatred or religious intolerance.
I'm glad that Albanians are rejecting Muslim culture. Islam is total nonsense and should be universally rejected in the 21st century. https://t.co/bCsZu4J4qU
— Adam Lowisz (@AdamLowisz) June 30, 2024
At its inaugural meeting, the movement was formed with the slogan "Let's Just Be Albanians." An Albanian TV reporter described the three dozen or so supporters - all of them men - as "personalities from different fields from all over Kosovo."
One of the speakers described the movement as an effort to stop those who embrace “anti-national values,” with other speakers suggesting that Albanians’ true religion is “Albanianism.”
