Bulgaria’s Muslims are celebrating Ramazan Bayram, the feast at the end of the holy month of Ramazan. Muslims make up 10.8% of the Bulgarian population, according to the 2021 census. That totals 638,708 people.
The largest Muslim communities live in southern and northeastern Bulgaria.
The Ramazan Bayram feast lasts for three days here. Tradition in the Bulgarian Muslim community requires that people visit their parents and older relatives to celebrate together, to show them their respect and ask for forgiveness.
In Haskovo, southern Bulgaria, the town’s two mosques, Eski Camii and Carsi Camii, couldn’t accommodate all the people wanting to attend prayer service and many performed the Bayram ritual in the open space outside the mosques.
By tradition, local Christian and Muslim clerics came together over coffee to celebrate Bayram.
In the northern town of Targovishte, tens of Muslims attended the morning prayer in the Sahat Camii mosque. Outside the mosque was a chest for donations with a sign reading “Donate if you can, take if you are in need”.
Earlier on Wednesday, greetings to Muslims on Ramazan Bayram were extended by President Rumen Radev, National Assembly Chair Rosen Zhelyakov, and caretaker Prime Minister Dimitar Glavchev.
