TIRANA, March 22 – The Bektashi Order, one of the four traditional religious sects in Albania that is respected with a national holiday, has marked its most important holiday, Sulltan Novruzi.
A ceremony was held at the Bektashi headquarters in Tirana. The head of the Bektashi religious community, Father Edmond Brahimaj, congratulated all believers on the occasion of this celebration and prayed for more peace and harmony all over the world.
All top leaders in the country make visits to the religious communities’ centers on such occasions.
Albania hosts the world headquarters of the Bektashi, an ultra-liberal mystical Muslim sect with roots in Sufism and Shia Islam.
Its leaders were expelled from Turkey in the 1800s and early 1900s as heretics and found shelter in Albania as refugees because the country already had a strong Bektashi community and was tolerant on matters of religion. Some of Albania’s key figures from the national revival era, like the Frasheri Brothers, where Bektashi.
According to the 2011 census, the Bektashi make up between 2 and 3 percent of Albania’s population.
