The New York Times has devoted an article to the possibility of creating a Vatican-style state in Albania.
According to the NYT, Prime Minister Edi Rama wants to give Bektash members their own Vatican-style enclave as a way to promote religious tolerance.
The Muslim cleric preparing to lead what, if all goes as planned, will become the world's smallest country has dim plans for the tiny new country.
His Muslim state in Tirana will be a Vatican-style sovereign enclave that will control territory the size of five New York City blocks and will allow alcohol, allow women to wear whatever they want and not set lifestyle rules.
“God forbids nothing; that's why he gave us his mind," said cleric Edmond Brahimaj, known to followers as Baba Mondi, explaining how he intends to rule over a 27-hectare piece of land that Albania wants to turn into a sovereign state with its own administration, passports and borders . Prime Minister Rama says that in the near future he will announce plans for the entity, which will be called the Sovereign State of the Bektashi Order.
"All decisions will be made with love and kindness," said Baba Mondi, 65, a former Albanian Army officer who is revered by millions around the world by his official title, His Holiness Haxhi Dede Baba. He is the main leader of the Bektashis, a Shiite Sufi order founded in 13th century Turkey but now based in Albania.
In an interview, Prime Minister Rama said that the goal of the new state was to promote a tolerant version of Islam that Albania is proud of. "We must take care of this treasure, which is religious tolerance, and which we must never take for granted," he said.
A moderate Islamic microstate, the prime minister said, would send a message: "Don't let the stigma of Muslims define who Muslims are."
The territory of the proposed new Islamic state is a compound in a low-rent residential neighborhood in eastern Tirana. It is only a quarter of the size of Vatican City, currently the smallest country in the world governed by the Pope, an absolute monarch.
Baba Mondi said that "size doesn't matter," adding, "I don't need to be a dictator," though he acknowledged that the only meaningful limit on his authority will be God.
"Only God," he said, "makes no mistakes."
The Bektashian compound contains a domed meeting and prayer hall, a museum that tells the history of the order, a clinic, an archive and the administrative offices of Baba Mondi, a jolly man with a white beard and shameful disdain for rigid dogma. Muslim extremists who plant bombs and use violence to spread their version of the faith, he said, "are just cowboys."
Combining a loose interpretation of the Koran with mysticism, elements of Turkey's pre-Islamic beliefs and devotion to their dead sages, known as dervishes, the Bektashi moved their headquarters to Tirana from Turkey nearly a century ago.