Beliefs and rituals of birth, marriage and death in Macedonian muslims

It is a fact that some exceptional times such as birth, marriage and death give rise to ceremonies and rituals aimed at sharing mutually the sense of bliss or grief. This study focuses on describing and evaluating the beliefs and practices of Muslims in Macedonia concerning birth, marriage and death. As a method of study, in addition to the relevant literature, we actually participated in ceremonies and rituals in given districts end engaged in observation and survey in order to establish different beliefs and practices conected with our study. In this context, we examined, with respect to birth, the period of pregnancy, the moment of birth, determinaty of sexuality, methods of preventing undesired pregnancy, giving gifts related with marriage, looking for chance of marriage for a girl, practices for magic and talisman, at the end we handed believes related with death and moment of death, equipping and interment of the death, Iskat-devir (alms given as compensation for the religious duties wich the deceased failed to perform during his lifetime) and mourning, especially we tried to show religious and traditional aspects of these practices. It is possible to say that Muslims in Macedonia, in general, are remaining loyal to their religious values and rich/wide cultural legacy/heritage. Meanwhile, it is attractive that they are ratherly/deeply affected by the other ethnic and religious communities living at the same area. In this context, while their some practices are institutionalized in the historical process, the others are nearly forgotten or changed its nature in respect of the new conditions. Though some beliefs are being stronger or transformed from ordinary worldly ones into religious practices, the others can be observed as dangerous for the health of people or society. They became complicated ceremony needs much more expences, so, everyone can not arrange these ceremonies easily. In this study, we tried to examine all these beliefs and practices comparatively and present them with examples.