Tentera Almahdi

1) Forbidding of the Muslims from practising their religious rites except at a very restricted level.

2) Forbidding of marriage according to the Islamic Sharia and the exercising of pressure on young Muslim men and women to marry non-Muslim Bulgarians.

3) Coercing the Muslims to change their Islamic names to those of their ancestors. Thus in 1959 a resolution of the secular code known as the April resolution obliging the changing of the names of the Muslims to names of their ancestors was passed. This resolution came into force from the beginning of 1962 when the names of the Muslims of Ghajr were changed and at the beginning of 1972 the changing of the names of the Pommak Muslims was completed. In 1984 the Turkish-speaking Muslims were forced to change their names, likewise to those of their forefathers. This campaign of enforced change of name was not only carried out against the living but also applied to those Muslims who had already died.

4) Forbidding that the Muslims acquire any books connected with their deen or aqeeda or any copies of manuscripts, indeed many works were destroyed; prohibition from purchasing or acquiring copies of the Quran.

5) The Muslims were prohibited from teaching their children the deen of Islam, even the reading of the Quran or teaching them the Arabic language.

6) The Turkish speaking Muslims were forbidden from speaking in their language and anyone caught violating this prohibition was punished.

7) Circumcision was expressly forbidden and any violation punished; its practise was declared a crime and the village people were forced to attend meetings and clubs in which the supposed harmful effects on children who had been circumcised were explained;

8) The wearing of the Islamic veil or women's head covering was forbidden and any woman who contravened thus would have the salary or wage she was legally entitled to stopped - until she ceased wearing it;

9) Fasting was forbidden during the month of Ramadan and any person known to have fasted this month was persecuted and was stripped of his job

10) the Muslims were forbidden to celebrate the Eid al-adha and the Eid al-fitr and they were forbidden to sacrifice for the Eid al-adha;

11) The Muslims were prohibited from having their own cemeteries and so they were obliged to bury their dead in public cemeteries alongside the christians, jews and non-believers. They were not permitted to erect gravestones bearing Islamic names just as they were not permitted to accompany the coffin cortege in accordance with Islamic sharia nor to wash the body or to wrap it in a shroud

These measures were accompanied by suppressive methods and persecution which extended to killings, imprisonment, torture and banishment from the country. This reached its peak during the period between 1984-89. In order to put an end to the existence of Islam and the Muslims the Bulgarian authorities expelled hundreds of thousands of Muslim Turks to Turkey. The number of those expelled in 1989 amounted to more than 300,000 within less than two months.

______________________________________________________________________

1) The deliberate demolishing of all major Islamic landmarks in all towns in Bulgaria - mosques were destroyed and by way of just a single example - there exist the remains of a demolished mosque in the capital Sofia near the College of Civil Engineering: a complete wall still stands in which the mihrab is clearly visible. The area around it is a public market. In the town of Pleven, there are pictures painted be Russian and Bulgarian painters of the town in 1877 in which about eleven mosques are clearly to be seen and now there exists only one small mosque in the town.

2) Many mosques have been changed into museums, restaurants or dancehalls after their form has been changed by the removal of minarets or domes, like for example the Grand Friday Mosque in Sofia which was the largest in Bulgaria, the mosque of Starazaghora, one of the mosques of Plovdiv and many other mosques.

3) Many mosques were burnt down, like the Manolik mosque near the town of Burgas and the Khaskovo mosque and others.

4) All the other mosques have been closed down and it is no longer permitted to carry out religious rites in them. As a result they have often degenerated into places where rubbish has collected, or which people use as public toilets - and there is no strength and no power but by Allah the mighty.

5) All Islamic schools and colleges have been closed like the Islamic secondary school in the town of Sofia and the Islamic school in the town of Shoman and others.