By building mosques, Turska seeks to strengthen its influence in the Western Balkans and promote conservative Islam. At the same time, these religious buildings are part of the government's broader geopolitical agenda Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
The namazgah-mosque in Tirana, the capital of Albania, with its 50-meter-high minarets and space for about 8.000 worshipers, is among the most impressive Islamic places of worship in the Balkans. Its construction was financed, among others, by the Turkish religious administration, Diyanet, with around 30 million euros. The architectural model was Istanbul's Ahmadiyya or Sultan Ahmed Mosque, also known as the Blue Mosque, reminds Deutsche says.
In October 2024, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan came to Tirana for the opening of the mosque, after ten years of construction. On that occasion, he signed an agreement on cooperation with Albania in the fields of agriculture and education, and presented the country with several Turkish-made drones. Diyanet was also given influence in the board of directors of the new mosque, and a Turkish imam was appointed - which caused dissatisfaction in Albanian society.
Before that mosque, after the fall of communism in 1990, representative Catholic and Orthodox churches were already built in Tirana in 2001 and 2014. Under dictator Enver Hoxha, Albania declared itself the first atheist state. Since 1967, religions have been banned, and all religious institutions have been closed.
"The example of the Namazgah mosque shows how Turkey acts as a regional power in the Balkans and tries to expand its influence through the construction of mosques," says Nathalie Claye, a sociologist at the Ecole High School of Social Sciences (EHESS) in Paris. The construction of mosques as a form of "soft power" is closely related to economic, political and military interests. "However, local actors have a certain room for maneuver and use it," adds Kleier.
Turkey consistently represented its interests: for example, from 2017 to 2019, the work on the Namazgah mosque was suspended, because Turkey asked Albania to extradite several people who were said to be close to the Fethullah Gulen movement. After the 2016 coup attempt, Erdogan blamed the now-deceased preacher Gulen's movement for the failed coup and persecuted its members both at home and abroad. Only after those persons were extradited to Turkey, the work continued.
Turkey replaced Saudi Arabia
Today, Turkey is the leading financier of the construction of mosques in the Western Balkans. This was not the case in the first years after the breakup of the former Yugoslavia.
During the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, from 1992 to 1995, about 600 mosques were completely destroyed, and hundreds of others were damaged, according to expert Robin Konje in his study on the construction of mosques in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
After the end of the war in 1995, Saudi Arabia was the main sponsor of the renovation and construction of new mosques in Bosnia and Herzegovina. It was only after the attacks of September 11, 2001 and Erdogan's rise to power in 2002 that Turkey gradually assumed a leading role.
Nationalism instead of religion
Saudi Arabia, on the other hand, under Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, is retreating more and more. Saudi-funded mosque projects were left to local communities. In his "Vision 2030", which defines the priorities of Saudi policy until the end of the decade, Bin Salman emphasized the restoration of historic mosques in Saudi Arabia itself and the preservation of its own cultural heritage.
"Today in Saudi Arabia, the focus is less on Wahhabi Islam and more on nationalism," says Christine Smith Daywan of the Gulf States Institute in Washington. Bin Salman has distanced himself, at least officially, from the Wahhabi Islam that has long been a Saudi Arabian export: in a televised speech in 2021, he called it outdated.
Erdogan's "infrastructural imperialism"
Turkey sees itself as the successor of the Ottoman Empire in the Balkans and emphasizes its status as a regional power. This is not just about the religious politics of Erdogan's Workers' Party (AKP). Building mosques is just one part of Turkey's infrastructure policy – not only in the Western Balkans, but also in the Caucasus, Central Asia, North Africa and sub-Saharan Africa, says Rebecca Bryant, professor of cultural anthropology at Utrecht University. The construction of mosques should be seen in a wider geopolitical context.
Be it railways, ports, hotels or shopping centers - Turkish investors are present on a large scale from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia and Kazakhstan, to Northern Cyprus and Senegal. In many tenders, jobs were awarded to companies close to Erdogan. Bryant calls this type of political influence "infrastructural imperialism."
Mega-projects like the complex in the Turkish part of Nicosia, Northern Cyprus, which Erdogan opened in May 2024 after five years of construction - and which includes the presidential palace, the parliament building, large hotels and a mosque (which was not yet finished at the time of opening) - are "geopolitical spaces where Turkey expresses its vision of the future".
Erdoğan goes for ethnic, religious or historical similarities and uses the rhetoric of "brotherhood" and "common destiny" that connects Turkey with those countries. The projects should send a message: "We are the future. We are more modern than the West," explains anthropologist Bryant. Thus, the construction of mosques, but not only mosques, are part of the Turkish vision of a future in which the West is no longer the end point of progress.
