Profile pic credit: Mustafa Kamacı/Anadolu Agency – Pic 2: Mete and the Editor of The Muslim News, Ahmed J Versi, in a private meeting in London on September 24, 2009. (Credit: The Muslim News)

Ahmet Mete: 1965-2022

The elected mufti of Xanthi, Ahmet Mete, 57, died at his home in the early hours of July 14. Cancer-stricken Mete was regarded as a leading figure in the Turkish minority community in Western Thrace, Greece.

Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, extended his condolences to Mete’s family and the Turkish minority living in the region.

“I wish God’s mercy on Ahmet Mete Hocaefendi, the Elected Mufti of Xanthi. I convey my condolences to the family (and) loved ones of our deceased teacher and all my brothers and sisters living in Western Thrace.” said Erdoğan. Turkey’s Foreign Minister, Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, hailed Mete as a person who “devoted his life to the just struggle of the Western Thrace Turkish minority. His services will always be remembered fondly.”

Mete, who was born in Yanioren, a village in Xanthi and educated in Turkey and Saudi Arabia at undergraduate and graduate schools before returning to Western Thrace, was elected mufti for the region upon the death of the previous one in 2006 by just over 9,500 faithful attending prayer services.

Mete, who was recognised by Turkey but not by Greece as the elected mufti for the Muslim population in the Xanthi region, was prosecuted for actions like officiating over a funeral for a second time following the state-appointed mufti.

The election of muftis by Muslims in Greece was regulated in the 1913 Treaty of Athens with the Ottoman Empire and was later included in Greek law. However, Greece, annulled the law in 1991 and started appointing muftis itself.

The majority of Muslim Turks in the cities of Komotini (Gümülcine) and Xanthi do not recognise the appointed muftis and instead elect their own, who are not recognised by the Greek state.

He served as a Qur’an teacher and imam under the region’s former mufti, Mehmet Emin Ağa.
Mete served as an imam in his village between the years 2000-2007. Mete, who was elected Mufti of Xanthi in 2007, also served as the Deputy Chair of the Turkish Minority Sermon and Guidance Committee.

Western Thrace is home to a Muslim Turkish minority of around 150,000 people, where muftis, who are Muslim scholars and legal experts, have legal jurisdiction to decide on family and inheritance matters in the local community.

The Muslim minority is multiethnic, consisting of Turks, Bulgarian-speaking Pomaks, and Roma, and has long faced discrimination from the Greek state, including restrictions on movement. Turkey has long decried Greek violations of the rights of Muslims and the Turkish minority, from closing mosques and shutting schools to not letting Muslim Turks elect their religious leaders.

The measures violate the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne as well as European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) verdicts, making Greece a state that flouts the law, Turkish officials say.

Mete’s funeral was attended by thousands of people, including Mustafa Şentop, the Speaker of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey. In his speech at the cemetery, Şentop conveyed the greetings and condolences of President Erdoğan.

Stating that Mete had many services for the Western Thrace Turkish minority, Şentop said, “The large crowd here is witnessing his goodwill, Islam, and being a conscious litigant.”. Mete is survived by his wife and three children.

Elham Asaad Buaras