Not enough people, was Norman H Gershman’s answer to this question and this is why he spent six years tracing the stories of Albanian Muslims who gave refuge to Jews during the Second World War and photographing those who still live there. These Muslims were enacting the Albanian code of honour called ‘Besa’ – giving shelter and protection to anyone who asks for it and doing so unquestioningly. 

Last night Gershman spoke at an event organised by the City Circle and the Exploring Islam Foundation, the last of a series he has given across the UK. He spoke of the long history of coexistence between Muslims and Jews that is so little-known today.

One photograph shows two brothers standing proudly next to a hand-painted sign attached to their well. The sign proudly states the names of the Jews who the brothers’ family took into their home and who drank from that well.

The Albanian story was lost for so long because of the communist regime that smothered all contact with the outside world. Gershman, an American Jew who also studies Sufism, is now hoping that his book, Besa, and the documentary that will follow later in 2011 will bring the story the Muslims and Jews of Albania to a much wider audience in our world where such stories are rarely heard.

Gershman’s talk stirred some emotional responses from the audience that gathered in a hall just off Edgware Road last night. Young listeners were astounded not only by the photographs, but by the fact that they had never been told the stories before. One man drew the photographer’s attention to the fact that giving help to those in need, no matter what their religion, is key to Islam universally, not just the Albanian principle of Besa. He told the story of the Muslims of Algiers who safeguarded the homes of Jews imprisoned during the Second World War. Another audience-member, a Jewish man who had grown up in the UK but spent two years evacuated to the USA as a small child, contrasted the Albanian story with the actions of the British establishment, which was much less liberal with the sanctuary it offered to Jews fleeing Nazism. 

To close the discussion Rabia Malik, the chair of the City Circle, described an impression of Albania and her Muslims and Jews as the traces of something which has largely been lost, thanks to colonialism. In so many countries across the world colonialism has destroyed the heart and soul of Islam, which can be expressed through indiscriminate kindness, and has left only, as Rabia put it, ‘a political crust’. 

You can find out more about the shared history of Muslims and Jews on the Missing Pages website. Information on Norman H Gershman’s upcoming documentary, God’s House, can be found here.