Sports are supposed to provide an escape from the everyday grind. Unfortunately, the real world has been all too prevalent in the issues that have dominated the news cycle in college football of late.

It should come as some relief, then, that there are actual games to watch this weekend. There aren’t any marquee contests on the week 0 slate, but hopefully a couple of the televised offerings can remind us why this game is fun.

Hawaii at Colorado State, 7:30 p.m. ET, CBSSN

The season’s first clash of FBS opponents has the added value of being a conference game. Neither team is expected to claim the Mountain West title, but an opening win could prove extremely important to both teams’ bowl aspirations.

 

Each programs have dealt with non-football related distractions in the days leading up to kickoff. The visiting Warriors arrived on the mainland with Hurricane Lane bearing down on the islands. The Rams’ concerns were for coach Mike Bobo, who was able to rejoin the team after a hospital stay as he was treated for peripheral neuropathy.

PREDICTIONS: The best, worst and sleeper team in each conference

HOT SEATS: Ranking job security in each college football conference

STANDOUT PLAYERS: USA TODAY Sports preseason All-America team

On the field, both squads will be installing a lot of new pieces. Warriors coach Nick Rolovich would like to restore the high-flying attack that gave Hawaii its identity, but he’ll be asking a first-time starter at QB to run it. The choice will most likely be sophomore Cole McDonald, but freshman Chevan Cordeiro could also see the field. The Rams boasted the league’s most productive offense in 2017, but most of its top producers are gone. Washington transfer K.J. Carta-Samuels will take over at QB. He might not be as prolific through the air as predecessor Nick Stevens, but his footwork will make him hard to contain.

Wyoming at New Mexico State, 10 p.m. ET, ESPN2

The Aggies begin life as a football independent upon separation from the geographically inconvenience Sun Belt. On the plus side, NMSU is coming off a bowl appearance, the program’s first since 1960, and hopes to maintain some of that momentum. Now the bad news — the offense that was the key to the team’s success last year must be almost completely rebuilt. The job will be particularly difficult for new starting QB Matt Romero as he faces a Cowboys’ defense that returns eight starters, including potential all-America safety Andrew Wingard. The Wyoming offense in 2017 was something of a puzzle, struggling through the air despite the presence of highly drafted QB Josh Allen. Redshirt freshman Tyler Vander Waal was named the new starter by coach Craig Bohl, and he’ll be backed up by fifth-year senior Nick Smith.

The Week 0 schedule also includes a couple of FBS post-season long shots seeking strong starts against FCS competition.

Rice, with new coach Mike Bloomgren, plays host to Prairie View A&M. The Owls are looking to change the program’s fortunes after just nine wins in three seasons that were preceded by three consecutive bowl berths under David Bailiff. Rice won a 65-44 shootout two years ago in the only prior meeting between these teams, so there’s definitely some fun potential.

Massachusetts hosts Duquesne in what would be a conference clash if indoors and on hardwood. The two Atlantic-10 basketball members will meet on the gridiron for the first time. The Minutemen have steadily improvement since joining the Bowl Subdivision in 2012. Last year, they posted a program-best four wins since the move. All  of them came in the last half of the season, including defeats of Appalachian State and Brigham Young. There were also close losses at Tennessee and Mississippi State that demonstrated their competitiveness. QB Andrew Ford is poised for a big year and has the potential to be drafted by the NFL.

 

 

Image: lili sams/mashable

Mistakes happen. But on the iPhone, they can be undone very easily.

While the Mac has Command-Z, the iPhone has its own unique way of fixing mistakes: Shake to Undo. Shaking your device to go back or undo a mistake has been around since 2009 and iOS 3 (called iPhone OS back then). And it’s one of the most overlooked features on iOS.

Rather than a system-wide button or symbol for undo on iOS, you just shake your phone. For most iPhone users it’s a forgotten feature, but writer John Gruber recently gave it newfound attention with a thoughtful analysis and the revelation that it was actually originally conceived as a joke.

In any case, it’s a useful reminder that the feature exists: When you want to undo something on your iPhone, just shake the darn thing.

Shake to Undo is turned on by default. You can turn it off under Settings>General>Accessibility, but be warned: There is no other undo function for iOS. Select apps may have an undo button (usually with a counterclockwise-pointing arrow), but the line stops there. 

In iOS 11 on the iPad, Apple introduced undo and redo arrows for the keyboard but didn’t take it farther or expand it to the iPhone. Last year’s software update also brought native drag and drop, and since then I’ve been using this feature even more. 

With Shake to Undo turned on, iOS users can quickly fix mistakes. Amongst my friends, I have my own unique language that swaps out understandability for laugh-ability. One particularly horrific autocorrect was when iOS changed necklace to “neck ass” — luckily, Shake to Undo was there to fix it.

While I do use Shake to Undo quite a bit, there is always the question of whether I should, as it’s just to easy to slam on the backspace key. You might be someone who gets the undo pop-up by accident on a frequent basis, and that can be a nuisance.

I am a frequent user of Shake to Undo on my iPhone, whether it be for texts, accidentally deleting an email, or moving a photo to the wrong spot. It is a universal way to fix something, something that Windows Phone didn’t have, and Android still doesn’t have. 

So if you forget, just give your iPhone or iPad a shake. It just might make you fall in love with this aging gesture.

Pope Francis has arrived in Ireland for the first papal visit to the country in nearly four decades.

The pontiff’s arrival at Dublin airport on Saturday comes amid declining religious observance in the traditionally Catholic country and anger over the Catholic Church’s record on tackling sexual abuse by priests.

When Pope John Paul II visited Ireland in 1979, divorce and contraception were illegal in the country.

Pope Francis’ visit comes at the back of referendums, in which the Irish electorate overwhelmingly voted to legalise abortion and gay marriage.

Both are positions the Vatican has traditionally opposed.

“The Catholic Church is still very much part of our society but not at the centre of it as it was 40 years ago,” Prime Minister Leo Varadkar, who became Ireland’s first gay leader last year, told the BBC in advance of the pope’s visit.

“Ireland has become a very different place in the last 40 years and our relationship with the Church has changed principally because of so many revelations that have occurred around child sex abuse.”

Hundreds of thousands are set to greet the leader of world’s Catholics during his two-day visit.

Pope Francis signs the visitor book in Dublin Castle. While the Pope is visiting a very different Ireland to his predecessor in 1979, 78% of people here still identify as Catholic and faith remains an important part of many people’s lives. #popeinireland pic.twitter.com/EWMUcLwWn4

— Leo Varadkar (@campaignforleo) August 25, 2018

Pope Francis met Varadkar in the capital Dublin. The Irish leader called the abuse scandal a “stain on the state” and called on the pontiff to do more in dealing with the abuse crisis.

The pope said he shared the outrage over the cover-up of “repugnant crimes” committed by clerics.

“I cannot fail to acknowledge the grave scandal caused in Ireland by the abuse of young people by members of the Church charged with responsibility for their protection and education,” Francis said in a speech at the state reception.

“The failure of ecclesiastical authorities – bishops, religious superiors, priests and others – adequately to address these repugnant crimes has rightly given rise to outrage and remains a source of pain and shame for the Catholic community.” 

Ireland has one of the worst records for clerical sex abuse in the world, with more than 1,300 priests accused of sexual violence since 1975.

Al Jazeera’s Neave Barker, reporting from Dublin, said the visit was a moment of great celebration for many but also “consternation” for others.

“The appeal, the power, and the draw of the Catholic Church in Ireland has waned in recent years. But I think it would be wrong to say that this is a post-Catholic country,” he said.

“The last religious census in 2016 suggested that more than 70 percent of Ireland identified itself as Catholic, while 40 percent go to church on a regular basis.”

Barker said that while many had renounced the faith, others saw the Catholic religion as part of the culture of the country.

Paddy Agnew, a Dublin-based journalist , said the sex abuse scandal was a problem which is doing Pope Francis and the Catholic Church “a great deal of damage”.

“But for him to come up with a plan to deal with this problem, it requires a fundamental reassessment of basic Catholic Church teaching … and I dont think they want to go there,” Agnew told Al Jazeera.

“He is not going to even begin to attempt to change fundamentally the Catholic doctrine … the message the church is teaching is the same,” he added. 

SOURCE: Al Jazeera and news agencies

Saturday’s Premier League live – Live – BBC Sport

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Image: Jeffrey McWhorter/AP/REX/Shutterstock

Let this be a lesson to all big-name athletes: Fame carries a heavy price. 

Take it away, Dr. Evil.

The Houston Astros made a ton of enemies in Los Angeles when they knocked out the city’s Dodgers in a World Series win last year. Justin Verlander, one of Houston’s all-star pitchers, learned that the hard way on Friday when he went out for lunch in Beverly Hills.

When the bill arrived for Verlander’s lunch at the Beverly Hills Hotel, it featured some truly troubling numbers: A $1,000,181 lunch charge, plus another $95,017.20 in tax. Total cost: $1,095,198.20.

The source of the extremely jacked up price was noted in black and white on the bill, an “Open Miscellaneous” charge attributed to “Dodger Killer.” Verlander, killer of Dodgers, earned himself a $1 million surcharge for daring to show his face in a Los Angeles eatery.

The whole thing was a joke, obviously, and one that Verlander took in stride. He’s also one of the highest-paid players in baseball, and surely could have paid this bill no problem. He should be more up in arms over paying $42 for a salad. I don’t care how famous it is.

ISIL has taken a group of at least 27 people hostage in the sparsely populated Sweida desert in southern Syria, according to Human Rights Watch (HRW).

Among those kidnapped, who are mostly of members of the minority Druze community, are at least 16 children aged between seven and 15, the human rights group said on Saturday, citing witnesses and relatives.

Local residents told HRW that ISIL (also known as ISIS) is planning to use the hostages as leverage in negotiations with the Syrian government and Russia, one of Syria’s closest allies.

“For a month now, families of the kidnapped Sweida have been calling for the release of their loved ones,” Lama Fakih, HRW’s deputy Middle East director, said in a statement. 

“Civilian lives should not be used as bargaining chips, and ISIS should release all the hostages immediately.”

The children were taken during attacks in late July on several villages in the eastern parts of Sweida, HRW said.

Several witnesses told the human rights group that 57 people were killed in the attack, after which 27 were taken by members of ISIL.

Following the attacks, the armed group released videos showing kidnapped women, with one stating that they would be killed if the Syrian government did not stop its assault on Yarmouk, a besieged Palestinian refugee camp held by ISIL in the south of Damascus.

In the weeks following the attacks, local media reported the beheading of 19-year-old Muhannad Abu Ammar at the hands of his ISIL kidnappers.

A woman named Zaya, also taken hostage by ISIL, died of unknown causes several days later.

Sweida province has largely been spared most of the violence that Syrian cities have witnessed in the years since the conflict started in 2011. 

In less than a month, Syrian government forces, backed by Russian air power, have been able to seize control of most of southwestern Deraa province, including the provincial capital of the same name.

Alongside the military offensive, the government has also struck “reconciliation” deals, essentially a negotiated capitulation of a number of villages that have been in rebel hands for years, to restore government control there.

Challenge Cup final: Catalans v Warrington – TV, text & radio coverage from Wembley – BBC Sport

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If you judged by how Apple presented the Blackmagic Design external graphics processing unit (eGPU) at its coming-out party for the latest MacBook Pro, turbo-charging your Mac with faster graphics performance was easy. Improving speed for things like exporting high-resolution video looked as simple as connecting the Blackmagic eGPU into one of the laptop’s Thunderbolt 3 ports.

Take it from me: It’s not.

After weeks of frustrated testing, I learned that there’s actually a very specific “correct“ way to use the $700 external graphics processor and I had been using it all wrong. 

But could you really blame me? None of the info to get the eGPU working properly is included in the instructions.

It was only after a long journey down Google search and seemingly endless back-and-forth emails with Blackmagic and a call with Apple that I was finally able to see faster and not slower graphics performance.

But first, some basics. The almost 10-pound eGPU houses a non-upgradeable AMD Radeon Pro 580 graphics processor with 8GB of VRAM. Unlike other eGPUs such as the Razer Core, you can’t swap the GPU. This non-upgradeability severely limits its usefulness if you want more power down the road.

The Radeon Pro 580’s not bad (it’s the same one in the 2017 5K 27-inch iMac), but its performance still pales in comparison to NVIDIA’s GTX 1080 and is nowhere as powerful as the AMD Radeon Pro Vega GPUs inside of the iMac Pro.

If you need even more graphics performance, you can also connect multiple Blackmagic eGPUs directly to each of your Mac’s Thunderbolt 3 ports. (Don’t daisy chain them, though, because that will overload the port, according to the company’s FAQ.) I didn’t get to test multiple Blackmagic eGPUs (I only had one to play with), but keep in mind that an app also needs to support multiple GPUs (external or not) in order for it to access the extra power.

Image: raymond wong/mashable

GPU choice aside, Blackmagic’s eGPU is well built and won’t easily be knocked over on desks (the included 20-inch Thunderbolt 3 cable is a tad short, though). I wouldn’t call it beautiful — the base is ugly in my opinion — but it blends in nicely with any space gray MacBook or iMac Pro. It kind of reminds me of the the trash can Mac Pro (Apple helped design this thing after all) and works similarly with air being sucked up from the bottom and released out through the top vent. Most impressive is how quiet it operates — it’s barely audible.

Image: RAYMOND WONG/MASHABLE

Around the eGPU’s back is a healthy stable of ports for connecting accessories: two Thunderbolt 3 ports, four USB 3.0 ports, and an HDMI 2.0 port. 

Image: RAYMOND WONG/MASHABLE

Noticeably missing on the eGPU is a power button. The only way to know if the eGPU is on and connected properly is the white LED down below, which lights up when its in use. Also, on your Mac, the eGPU symbol appears in the menu bar.

One issue after another

My main beef with Blackmagic’s eGPU isn’t just that it’s expensive or that the GPU is non-upgradeable, but that there are a whole lot checkboxes you need to tick off to get it to actually work. Even worse, when it’s connected and not working, there’s absolutely no way to tell (unless you’re looking at the Activity Monitor or doing rigorous testing like me). It still lights up, and you still get the menu-bar icon.

When I first unboxed the eGPU, I thought I’d just plug it into my 2017 top-of-the-line 15-inch MacBook Pro (2.9GHz Intel Core i7 processor, 16GB of RAM, Intel HD Graphics 630, and Radeon Pro 560 discrete GPU with 4GB of VRAM) running the latest version of macOS High Sierra and — BOOM — faster graphics performance.

How wrong was I.

My first order of business was to test video exporting with and without the eGPU. I plugged the eGPU into the MacBook Pro and fired up both Final Cut Pro X and Adobe Premiere Pro CC. With the help of Mashable video producer Ray White we created several test projects to export.

(We did a 1080p export project, but to keep things simple we’ll focus on my 4K trials because 1080p performance was the same with and without the eGPU.)

For both video-editing apps, we created a 4K video project with the following components:

• 12 video clips at 3,840 x 2,160 resolution and 30 fps (shot with a Sony A6300 camera) 

• 3 simple transitions (dissolve, crossfade, and wipe)

• 2 title cards (intro and outtro)

• 3 of the 12 clips were stabilized

We exported the video at native resolution and framerate in H.264 and took the average of three trials for each test. Here’s what we got:

Without the eGPU: 

With the eGPU: 

Without the eGPU: 

With the eGPU: 

After seeing a measly 36 seconds faster export time in Final Cut Pro X and surprisingly worse exporting times with the eGPU versus without in Premiere Pro CC, I knew something was perhaps… not right. So I did what anyone would do. I went to Google and found a shocking answer: The eGPU does nothing if it’s just plugged into a MacBook Pro by itself. 

If your Mac is running High Sierra, you need an external display plugged into the eGPU. This is because only one GPU can drive a Mac’s built-in screen and that’s the one already inside of it. 

(I later learned macOS Mojave does support eGPUs for a Mac’s built-in screen, but since the OS was still in beta at the time of testing, it didn’t work reliably.)

Image: RAYMOND WONG/MASHABLE

Okay, no biggie — just a minor setback! I borrowed an LG 5K UltraFine Display (it’s the only Thunderbolt 3 display that’s officially supported by the eGPU) and plugged it directly into my MacBook Pro with the eGPU also plugged into a separate port. 

I fired up both FCP X and Premiere Pro CC and again saw no improvements. Export times with the eGPU were again slower in Premiere CC compared to without it. What could be wrong now? More Googling and I find out graphics performance is only better if the monitor is plugged into the eGPU, which is then plugged into your Mac.

Ughhh. Alrighty, then!

With the correct wiring, I ran my tests and yet again saw exports that were either barely faster or somehow slower. I just wasn’t seeing faster performance.

Super annoyed, I combed Blackmagic’s website and noticed there’s no mention of faster graphics performance for any app but its own DaVinci Resolve video production software. Could it be that this eGPU is only good for one app? Because that would be really dumb. 

Besides, the description for the eGPU on Apple’s website says otherwise:

Get desktop-class graphics performance on your MacBook Pro with the Blackmagic eGPU. Featuring the Radeon Pro 580 graphics processor, the Blackmagic eGPU is built to make any Mac with Thunderbolt 3 ports a graphics powerhouse. Enjoy supersmooth gaming, accelerate graphics-intensive pro app workflows, and enable VR experiences or content creation. Built-in I/O connections drive a Thunderbolt 3 display, support multiple accessories, and charge your MacBook Pro at the same time.

Hmm, maybe it was something with High Sierra. I booted up another partition with the latest beta version of Mojave.

This was supposed to be easy. Instead, it was turning into a technical nightmare.

Just when I thought things couldn’t get worse, they did. Premiere CC on Mojave just wouldn’t work. It kept crashing and I never was able to export a single video at any resolution. About to lose my mind, I contacted Blackmagic to see if I could get to the bottom of all of these problems I was experiencing.

A spokesperson kindly provided some non-answers that basically blamed the issues on Adobe for optimizing Premiere Pro CC for eGPUs. At the same time, I was told the eGPU (any one from any company) “should not slow any app down.”

Really wanting to smash the eGPU to bits (physical abuse is never the answer, but just goddamnit), I switched back to High Sierra and ran my Premiere exports again. This time, I opened up the Activity Monitor and fired up the GPU history to see what the heck was going on.

To my surprise, the GPU History chart showed the app was using the MacBook Pro’s two built-in graphics processors (both the discrete AMD Radeon Pro 560 and the Intel HD Graphics 630) and not the eGPU like it should have been.

Image: screenshot: raymond wong/mashable

I went back to Google to find out if there was a way to force apps to use the eGPU. I found out on High Sierra, that’s not possible. But, on Mojave, there is a way to force apps to use the eGPU on an app-by-app basis. I cursed both Apple and Blackmagic.

I rebooted into Mojave and followed the steps to force Premiere CC to use the eGPU and then said a little prayer as I launched the app. Everything seemed to work until I hit the export button. The app crashed again. 

Even more frustrated than before, I decided to try something else. I loaded up Fortnite on the default “High” settings to see how playable the game would be. TL;DR: Not very. Not at High settings.

On High settings on just the MacBook Pro, the game recorded between 30-32 fps. With the eGPU, the game’s framerate jumped up to 40-45 fps. Both were below 50-60 fps, which is considered to be the optimal framerate for smooth gameplay by many players.

The game wasn’t unplayable at High settings with the eGPU, but there was still quite a bit of noticeable latency as I panned the camera around or shot at other players. The framerate took a bigger hit when there were multiple players onscreen.

Even crazier was that it took longer to boot the game up with the eGPU compared to without: about 55 seconds versus 30 seconds.

Dropping Fortnite’s settings down to Medium increased the framerate, but the graphics became so low-res, I would have been better off just playing it on iPhone.  

Instructions that should have come in the box

Image: raymond wong/mashable

I was all ready to give up on the eGPU until I reached out to Apple to see if I could make a last-ditch effort to troubleshoot my problems.

After chatting with an Apple hardware engineer I learned a few new things that (again) aren’t included in the instructions manual and is valuable for anyone who buys this eGPU.

Here’s what ultimately led to faster graphics performance with the eGPU:

• Never mirror your Mac to the external display. It uses up some of the eGPU in order to do so and as a result will slow performance down.

• If you’re using a MacBook like I did, make sure the lid is closed. Doing so forces the computer to always default to the eGPU when possible instead of using the internal GPU. Apple told me you don’t need to have the lid closed, but there’s a chance that it won’t tap the eGPU if you don’t.

• Most apps will not support hot-plugging with the eGPU, which is the ability for the computer to recognize changes when an accessory is plugged in or removed. In other words, if you want to use the eGPU with, say, Premiere Pro CC, you need to quit the game and launch it again after you hook it up. I’m told only two known apps are hot-pluggable, one of them being Cinema 4D.

With all this in mind, I ran the same 4K and 1080p export tests. Here’s what I got after properly setting the eGPU up with my MacBook Pro. (As with the earlier tests, all times are the average of three trials each.)

Image: screenshot: raymond wong/mashable

Without the eGPU:

With the eGPU:

Image: screenshot: raymond wong/mashable

Without the eGPU:

With the eGPU:

For good measure, I also took the same 4K video project and exported it to a downscaled 1080p resolution. The leap in performance is much more drastic for rendering:

Without the eGPU:

With the eGPU:

As you can see in the above export times, Final Cut Pro X doesn’t appear to benefit much from the eGPU. However, exporting video in Premiere Pro CC is way faster. With the eGPU, Premiere Pro CC shaved 1 minute and 29 seconds off. 

Where the eGPU seems most useful is for rendering things like effects and scaling. 

Image: screenshot: raymond wong/mashable

Playing Fortnite with the correct setup, I saw almost no change in average framerates:

Without the eGPU:

With the eGPU:

Image: screenshot: raymond wong/mashable

Not worth the trouble (for now)

Image: raymond wong/mashable

I’ve been fascinated by eGPUs for as long as they’ve been around. The idea that you can soup up a thin and light computer designed for portability (but not performance) and transform it into a desktop-class beast for graphics-intensive tasks like video editing or gaming when you’re at home or at work is super appealing.

I was genuinely excited that, maybe — just maybe — Blackmagic had made an eGPU that any regular ol’ joe could easily set up and enjoy the benefits of.

While I did eventually get the Blackmagic eGPU set up right and saw minor boosts to performance in FCP X and and significant improvements in Adobe Premiere Pro CC, I nearly lost my marbles doing so.

My tests are by no means definitive — everyone uses different apps and has a different workflow demands — but they do suggest eGPUs have potential.

Ultimately, the the Blackmagic eGPU is useful if your Mac has a really old discrete graphics card or only Intel integrated graphics. You may see big graphics performance boosts or you may not. It’s gonna take a lot of trial and error.

If you’re willing to experiment, then by all means check out the eGPU. However, if you’re hoping the eGPU will make your Mac faster across the board for all your apps, that’s just not gonna happen. 

Maybe in a few years when eGPUs are mature and more apps use GPU-acceleration, but they’re still in their infancy right now. The fact that all of the issues I ran into took a bunch of Googling and chats with Blackmagic and Apple to resolve tells you all you need to know about the current state of eGPUs: It’s basically the Wild West.

The year was 1395.

Tokhtamysh and his Tatar Muslim army were rushing to the northeast across the vast steppes of Ukraine, unsure of what was to come. 

The journey was long and strenuous, but the warriors were disciplined nomads skilled in horsemanship and accustomed to hardship.

Tokhtamysh’s army was escaping the battlefield of the Terek river, looking for safety after a humiliating defeat at the hands of Tamerlane, the ruler of the Timurid Empire. 

For the Golden Horde – Tokhtamysh’s khanate, this was the beginning of a prolonged decline. 

The army was heading to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, which under Vytautas the Great was in a period of its greatest territorial expansion, looking to take control of lands in the east.

In exchange for military support in the fight against Tamerlane, Tokhtamysh offered Vytautas the rights to rule the entire Kievan Rus, including Moscow.

In the Polish history, for 600 years Tatars have always fought for Poland, from the Battle of Grunwald to September 1939 as separate Tatar units of the Polish army.

Krzysztof Mucharski, a Polish Tatar

While the joint campaign to regain power over the Golden Horde eventually failed, Tokhtamysh’s army and their descendants remained in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.

They settled in the centre and the state’s borderlands and became its loyal defenders. In the following centuries, Tatars took part in all major battles in the region. 

In 1385, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland formed a union which later transformed into the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, one of the largest and most populous states in the 16th and 17th century Europe. 

But it was only John III Sobieski, King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania, who invited Tatars to the territories of the Polish-Lithuanian borderland in the second half of the 17th century. 

In exchange for fighting alongside the Polish-Lithuanian army, he granted Tatars lands stretching over 150km in an area around the city of Białystok, inhabited by various cultures and religions, including Jews, Orthodox Belarusians, and Catholic Poles.

Tatars largely belonged to the privileged class and many received noble titles and coats of arms in return for their service. 

As they were allowed to marry local women, Tatars soon lost their language, but they retained their faith. 

“In the 17th and 18th centuries, the Tatar community was unique within Christian Europe, excluding Russia. It was a Muslim group which was in minority, but was tolerated,” Adam Balcer, lecturer at the Warsaw University’s Centre for Eastern European Studies at Warsaw University, told Al Jazeera. “At the time, in Spain Muslims were forced to convert to Christianity or expelled.”

In Poland, Tatars were not only allowed to practise their faith, but acted as intermediaries between East and West.

I would compare Polish Tatars to the Catholic Church in the West. It is a light version of Islam.

Tomasz Miskiewicz, Mufti of Poland

A recent discovery by a team from the University of Nicolaus Copernicus in Torun, led by Joanna Kulwicka-Kaminska and Czeslaw Lapicz, found that as early as in the second half of the 16th century, Polish Tatars translated the Quran into the Polish language.

The Tatar translation for years remained a mystery for scientists, since the Slavic text – the northeastern borderland variety of Polish, was written with Arabic alphabet and it took several years of research to decipher the original text. 

According to Kulwicka-Kaminska, it was the third – after Italian and Latin – translation of the Quran into a European language.

“It was most likely in the second half of the 16th century that the first translations of religious writings into Slavic languages – spoken by the Tatar community – appeared, as only in these languages it was possible to introduce Muslims to the rules and teachings of their faith,” Kulwicka-Kaminska told Al Jazeera. “It was to ensure for the Tatars their continued ethnic separation and cultural identity, which already in the 16th century was identified only by Islam.”

The authors of the translations remain unknown, but they were certainly part of an educated clergy elite, maintaining ties with the Muslim East and speaking both oriental and Slavic languages.

In the following centuries, Tatars continued to be present within Polish elite circles and, as Balcer explains, in the interwar period, they were overrepresented among judges, in the army, and politics.

In 1919, at the request of the chief of state Jozef Pilsudski, a Tatar regiment was formed and its soldiers hoisted symbols of the star and crescent.

Today, there are 35,000 Muslims overall in Poland and at least 2,000 Tatars.

Their faith, physical appearance and cuisine are among the only features they have inherited from their ancestors.

The architecture of two old mosques located in the villages of Kruszyniany and Bohoniki resembles Catholic and Orthodox churches. 

“We are Muslims who grew up among Christians”, said Maciej Szczesnowicz, the head of the Muslim parish in Bohoniki. “Together with Catholics and Orthodox Christians, we organise joint prayers for peace and justice in the world. Priests and bishops come over here and pray together in our mosque.”

Although Tatars maintained their identity for 600 years, there is a fear that they will gradually abandon their culture. 

“I would compare Polish Tatars to the Catholic Church in the West. It is a light version of Islam,” Tomasz Miskiewicz, Mufti of Poland and Chairman of Poland’s Muslim Religious Association, told Al Jazeera.

“There are places where Friday prayers do not take place at all and places which are increasingly becoming history. It is a drift away from our identity.”

Inter-religious marriages are becoming common among the younger generation. 

“It used to be unthinkable, there were such situations, but it was a taboo”, says Dagmara Sulkiewicz, a Tatar religion teacher from Białystok. “Two weeks ago, I was invited to a real Tatar wedding. But it is a relic”.

Growing Islamophobia affects the community, although some Tatars say they do not experience discrimination in their daily lives.

“Tatars experience Islamophobia less than other Muslim communities in the country, partially because of their historic presence and also due to the fact that there are few religious signs that would make them easily recognisable as Muslims,” Konrad Pedziwiatr from the Cracow University of Economics told Al Jazeera.

“Therefore, the strategy of not recognising Islamophobia is partly connected with the secularisation of the group”.

Yet, over the past years mosques were vandalised several times with images of the Celtic cross, a pig or even a symbol of the Kotwica – a World War II emblem of the Polish Underground State often used by the far right.

“People who paint those things lack basic awareness. In the Polish history, for 600 years Tatars have always fought for Poland, from the Battle of Grunwald to September 1939 as separate Tatar units of the Polish army,” Krzysztof Mucharski, a Polish Tatar, told Al Jazeera.

“I found the Kotwica symbol particularly surprising as in the past it was used by Tatars fighting in the Polish underground.”

But despite problems, Polish Tatars are not only proud of their Muslim heritage, but also their Polish roots. 

“We are a bit of a rabbit pulled out of a hat to surprise the world that there is a group like us, that is assimilated and devoted as citizens,” Miskiewicz says. “We are Poles.”