Islam in Moldova & Transnistria: history and Muslim population data

History of Islam in Moldova & Transnistria

The Republic of Moldova gained its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991 and has an area of 33,851 sq km, including the Autonomous Territorial Unit of Gagauzia (1,832 sq km) to the south and the de facto independent territory of Transnistria (4,163 sq km) to the east. The map of Moldova is presented in Figure 4.2.5. The lands of current Moldova came under control of the Golden Horde Empire in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, then Ottoman Empire from 1538 to 1812, after which it was ceded to the Russian Empire in the Treaty of Bucharest. However, Islam did not spread in these lands. In 1991 Moldova gained its independence from the Soviet Union but the Moldovan land east of the Dniester River, known as Transnistria, declared its independence as the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic. PMR however is internationally unrecognized and is still claimed, but uncontrolled by Moldova.

The 1897 Russian Empire census indicated that the Muslim population was 347 or 0.03% of the total population of Moldova in its current borders. This estimate is based on the data from the Governorates of Bassarabia excluding the Uyezds of Akkerman, Izmail and Khotinsky which are in Ukraine. There were 36 Muslims in Chisinau amd 34 in Orhei.

Moldova was part of Romania from 1918 to 1940. It was named Bessarabia and included the extra regions of Ismail and Cetatea Alba which are in current Ukraine. So, the total Muslims in the region covered by current Moldova was 119 or 0.01% in 1930.

The Soviets carried out censuses since 1926 that collected ethnic affiliation demography of the population. The top fifteen Muslim ethnicities in Moldova from largest in number are Tatar, Azerbaijani, Uzbek, Turk, Arab, Kazakh, Turkmen, Tajik, Bashkir, Chechen, Albanian, Lezghin, Kyrgyz, Avar and Karachay. The number of members of each of these ethnicities since 1926 is provided in Table 4.2.5a. However, in 1926 the Moldovan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic was mostly in current Ukraine and included Transnistria.

Based on ethnic censuses, the Muslim population increased from 2,500 or 0.1% in 1959, to 4,000 or 0.1% in 1970, to 6,500 or 0.2% in 1979, to 12,000 or 0.3% in 1989. Census data after the independence started collecting information on religious adherence. Accordingly, the Muslim population increased from 1,667 or 0.05% in 2004 to 2,009 or 0.08% in 2014. The decrease from 1989 to 2004 is due to some leaving the country after its independence in 1991, but also due to the discrepancy when trying to infer religious data from ethnic data. For example, the ethnic data of the 2004 census shows 3,896 people from traditionally Muslim ethnicities, which is more than double of the number of those declaring themselves as Muslims in the same census.

Thus, assuming that the percentage of Muslims will increase by 0.05 of a percentage point per decade; then the Muslim population is expected to remain less than 10,000 or 0.5% of the total population throughout this century.

Historical Muslim population dataset for Moldova & Transnistria

The figures below are from the CoMPS historical dataset. Population values are expressed in thousands; 2100 is a modelled projection, not a present-day count.

For the full time series and visualisation, use the interactive map above.