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The history of the Islamic presence in Poland goes back over 300 years. In the past, Muslim Tatar women played an important role in their communities by preserving and passing on the faith. In the twentieth century their role expanded, with a substantial number of women present at the highest levels of Muslim leadership. The article presents a case study of seven Polish Tatar women who have held the post of official elected presidents of local Muslim communities. These examples are presented in order to research the source of authority on which female leadership is based. The article uses three kinds of authority distinguished by Max Weber: legalrational, charismatic and traditional authority. The article is based on interviews with these female presidents and other members of their communities in order to reconstruct their authority as social and religious leaders and their impact on their respective communities.

Relations between the Austrian state and Islam are quite unique for a European country. They can be divided into two stages marked by two significant events in the development of those relations. The first stage, from 1878 to 1918 was connected with the political events in the Balkans, in which Austria (then Austro-Hungarian Monarchy) was an active player and as a result of this activity Bosnian Muslims were put under its rule. The second stage started in the latter half of the twentieth century and is related to the influx of economically motivated immigrants of Muslim background. The first stage resulted in a legal recognition of Islam as a religion; the second is characterized by the functioning of this legal act either in its original form until 2015 or by the amended bill passed in February 2015.

The legal status of Islam and Muslims in Europe is a complicated matter. On the one hand, it is in the domain of denominational law and state-church relations, and on the other, it is a product of history of Muslim presence in a particular country. There is no single pattern among European countries of regulating the relations between the state and religion, and hence the legal situation of churches and religious organizations, including Islamic ones, in Europe is by no means uniform. These complex legal circumstances are a reality for Muslim communities who try to organize their religious life, that is, establish organizations, build mosques, set up prayer rooms, teach religion, keep cemeteries, organize funerals, and buy halal food.

Relations between the Polish state and Muslims living in its territory have a long history dating back to the fourteenth century, when a Muslim presence was first established in the area. The first Muslims to arrive in Poland were Tatars from the Golden Horde. Their influx continued for a few centuries and they were granted land in exchange for military service. The nature of mutual relations changed with time, along with changes in the structure of the state. Initially, there was a Polish-Lithuanian monarchy, but after 1795 the area inhabited by the Tatars fell under the rule of the Russian Empire. In 1918–1939, the reborn Polish state granted its inhabitants religious freedom and, even though Catholicism was privileged, Islam was officially recognized in 1936. The socialist state, in existence between 1944 and 1989, took an ideological stance against all religions. Since 1989, Poland has been a democratic state under the rule of law characterized by separation of state and religion. Thanks to the centur...

Until the middle of the twentieth century, Muslims living in European countries were mainly indigenous people, completely assimilated with the rest of the population. Both their religion and their representative organizations enjoyed legal recognition, sometimes centuries long. A significant influx of immigrants of Muslim origin to Europe began in the mid twentieth century and a need for legal regulations sanctioning the status of Muslims within largely Christian societies became apparent. Their situation in this respect differs from country to country, sometimes due to a lack of an organization that would represent all the Muslims in a particular country, sometimes because of legal technicalities. In some countries, it is not even possible for Muslim immigrants to become citizens. The legal situation of Islam and its adherents exerts an important influence on their attitude towards their new country of residence and towards Europe, as well as significantly influencing their loyalty.

Polish-Lithuanian Muslim Tatars are one of the traditional Polish minorities. They were the first Muslims to settle within the borders of Poland and Lithuania – countries united since 1385 by the ruler i.e. the king. In the fourteenth century, Tatars came to their new homeland from territories ruled by the Golden Horde which had been an Islamic state since the thirteenth century (Borawski & Dubinski, 1986, 15). First invited to Lithuania as mercenaries, they settled there as political refugees and war captives (Konopacki, 2010, 25f), and since the fifteenth century Tatars settled more systematically near the important political and economic centres (Tyszkiewicz, 2002, 16-17). Some Tatar craftsmen settled in cities, while others served at magnates’ courts or as translators of oriental languages (Kryczynski, 2000 [1938], 17).

Islam has been present on the territory of the modern-day Poland for over 330 years, which makes it one of the traditional, officially recognized religions, even though the number of Muslims in Poland is not large. At present, the estimated number of Muslims in Poland is 15,000–30,000, which amounts to 0.04-0.08 per cent of the total population (Nalborczyk and Grodź, 2012, p. 456). Tatars, traditional Polish Muslims (numbering ca. 4,000–5,000), no longer constitute the majority in this group as was the case before the 1980s. The immigrant Muslim minority in Poland consists of Arabs, Turks, Bosnians, and Chechens. The majority of them are not migrant workers, but former students and their families, businessmen, and refugees.1