Shqiptarët_në_Siri
Shqiptarët
Inkorporimi i Sirisë në Perandorinë Osmane solli ushtarët Jeniçerë në qendrat urbane të Sirisë, të tilla si Damasku, nga të cilat shqiptarët e rekrutuar nga Ballkani në shekullin e shtatëmbëdhjetë ishin një prani e dukshme krahas trupave të tjera osmane nga etni të ndryshme. Gjatë asaj kohe, shqiptarët shërbenin edhe në kapacitete të tjera të tilla Sinan Pasha nga Topojani i cili ishte për një kohë guvernator në zonë. . "Though not as famous as Egypt as a home for Albania's exiled community in the Eastern Arab world, Syria (and to a degree Lebanon) was to become a significant centre for Muslim Albanians, so that today the tiny Arnā’ūṭ community in Damascus, as elsewhere, is not only respected but has already made a significant contribution to modern Arabic literature and cultural life in Syria. Damascus has for centuries acted as a magnet for Albanian Muslim scholars and students, and it is not uncommon to meet imāms of mosques in Yugoslavia, a few of them Yugoslav Albanians, who have perfected their Arabic in Damascus. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries a number of Ottoman governors and administrators were of Albanian origin. Among the most famous of these was Sinān Pasha, whose achievements as a builder were distinguished in many parts of the Ottoman empire. He was born about 1500 in the region of Topoyani, in Central Albania, and rose to importance through the devshirme system… Students who came to Damascus stayed longer, some of them for good. They would settle in such quarters as Sūq Sārūja and Sūq al-Muhājirīn. If they returned, they would teach in Qur'ān schools in Kosovo and elsewhere. Others, of a Ṣūfī spirit, acted as human bridges between Albania and the centres of the Ṣūfī orders in the Middle East, Syria included. One specific order, the Sa’diyya, founded by Sa’d al-Dīn al Jibāwī and his successors in about 1335, was especially associated with Damascus, although it later spread to Turkey and Egypt, and in the eighteenth century gained a foothold in Kosovo and Yugoslav Macedonia… Damascus and its Albanian circles were centres of Muslim orthodoxy. The Syrian influence on Muslim Albanians is characterised by its support for traditional orthodox Islam, freed from any taint of heterodoxy or excess, and it is therefore not surprising that studies in Arabic by Albanians published in Damascus, should reflect this preference. Examples of such books are a study of the thought of Imām Abū Ḥanīfa by Wahbī Sulaymān Ghāwijī al-Albānī, published in Damascus and Beirut in 1973, an edition of ‘al-Tadhkira fī faḍl al-adhkār, by Abū Abdallāh Muhammad al-Ourṭubī al-Andalusī (d. 671/1273), edited by ‘Abd al-Qādir al-Arnā’ūṭ and Ibrāhīm al- Arnā’ūṭ, published in Damascus in 1972, and Riyāḍ al-Ṣāliḥīn, by the Imām al-Nawawī, edited by Muhammad Nāṣir al-Dīn al-Albānī, and published by the Islamic Office in 1398/1978. These typify the serious scholarly work that has recently characterised the Arnā’ūṭs in Syria. Potentially Syria has offered a scope and ambiance for their efforts that is rarely to be found, elsewhere, in the Arab world in recent years. Syria is the home of a very active family of Arnā’ūṭ novelists, short story writers, poets, dramatists, literary critics and artists, still active, names such as Abdylkader Arna’ūṭi, the sisters Ajshe and Hatixhe...." Shqiptarët megjithëse në numër më të madh migruan në Siri gjatë fund të shekullit të 19-të dhe në fillim të shekullit të 20-të. Vala më e madhe e emigrantëve në Siri ishte gjatë viteve 1912-1913, kur shqiptarët u larguan nga luftërat ballkanike. Nga epoka osmane deri në kohët bashkëkohore ka vazhduar tradita e emigracionit, ku dijetarët dhe studentët muslimanë emigruan në Damask, disa për ta përsosur arabishten e tyre. Disa nga këta individë qëndruan dhe u vendosën në lagje të tilla si Suk Saruxha dhe Suk al-Muhaxhirin . Disa individë brenda bashkësisë shqiptare ishin Sufitë dhe gjithashtu shërbenin si një urë për përhapjen e sufizmit në atdhe.