Islam in Slovakia
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History
Decades after the Hungarian defeat of Mohacs (1526) Turkish troops controlled Štúrovo (Párkány) and other parts of today's southern central Slovakia and encouraged the Protestant Christian groups while Habsburg Austrian troops occupied and recatholized the northern and western parts. Later on the Turks seized some further territories in southern central Slovakia and pillaged in territories up to Nitra. Finally, however, when the Turks lost the Battle of Vienna and the Ottoman vassal Emeric Thököly was defeated in Slovakia, between 1687 and 1699 Turkish Ottoman rule in Hungary was finally broken.
In 2015, amidst the European migrant crisis, Slovakia agreed to admit 200 Christian asylum seekers, but refused to accept Muslims under an EU scheme to share migrants between member states. Slovak Ministry of Interior Affairs explained this decision by the absence of Muslim places of worship in Slovakia which will allegedly complicate the migrants' integration in Slovak society. The decision was criticized by the EU, which doubted the decision's legality, and expressed concern for its discriminatory nature.
In November 2016, Slovakia passed legislation requiring religious denominations to have at least 50,000 adherents to gain state recognition, hence preventing Islam from becoming an official religion in Slovakia. In 2022, the Public Defender of Rights (ombudsperson) stated that the registration requirements were unreasonable, discriminatory, and unnecessary; the Ministry of Culture refused to initiate a legal change.
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Muslim demographics
Most of the Muslims in Slovakia are refugees from former Yugoslavia (Bosnians and Albanians) or workers from modern Turkey (Turks), beside them a few Arab students and migrant workers from South and Southeast Asia. Most of the Muslims live in the capital Bratislava, smaller communities also exist in Košice and Martin.
In the 2021 census, 3,862 persons self-identified themselves as Muslim, though representatives of the Muslim community estimated their number at 6,000. Slovakia currently has seven unofficial Muslim places of worship within its territory. In 2000, a dispute about the building of an Islamic center in Bratislava erupted: the capital's mayor refused such attempts of the Slovak Islamic Waqfs Foundation.
Cordoba Culture Center in Bratislava
The Cordoba Culture Center (Kultúrne Centrum Culture Center Córdoba) is a place of worship for Muslims in Slovakia, located on Obchodná street in Bratislava. It is the only place of Muslim worship in the country under Islamic foundation in Slovakia. The musalla or prayer room is not open for Fajr prayer and, therefore, is not officially considered a mosque. Friday sermon is held in Arabic, English, and Slovak, and starts Friday at 01:00 pm. The center is small but can hold a congregation for prayers and includes a wooden podium that is used for jumu'ah or Friday sermons. There are no decoration with elaborated patterns as it is situated in a commercial area adjacent to businesses and shops. The Kultúrne Centrum Córdoba has tried to attain an official mosque permit from the government, but had its proposal rejected.