Hayriye

Hayriye is a village in İnegöl district, province of Bursa, in the Marmara region of Turkey, 13 km towards the east of the town of Inegöl. Number of permanent residents according to the census of the year 2000 is 381. The current mayor is Mehmet Ceylan. Hayriye was founded in 1877-78 by Georgian families of Muslim faith who migrated to Turkey from the border area between Georgia and Turkey (near Artvin) (situated in the province of Adjara in today's Republic of Georgia). They are Sunni Muslims of the Hanafi denomination. 250 people had left their native land, fleeing from the war between Tsarist Russia and the Ottoman Empire. Haci Mehmet Efendi from the neighboring village of Maden led them to the place called Hayriye where they finally...