Islam and nationhood in Bosnia-Herzegovina: surviving empires (original) (raw)
Related papers
The Muslim National Question in Bosnia. An Historical Overview and an Analytical Reappraisal.
Revista Militar, 2009
This text aims at to understand what kind of country Bosnia-Herzegovina was in 1992 when the war broke-out, and to what extent the ethnic groups living in it identified themselves with the state and with each other. What did really mean to be a Bosnian? To answer those questions we decided to study the evolution of ethnic relations in Bosnia- Herzegovina and the role played by ethnic elites in different historical contexts from a historic sociological perspective, focusing our attention on: the relationship between ethnic groups and power holders; the impact of that relation in the ethnic groups relations; the development of group identity and its forms of expression; and on the evolution of the Muslim question, since the emergence during the Ottoman period of a Muslim community endowed with a separate and particular group identity.
in: František Šístek (ed): Imagining Bosnian Muslims in Central Europe: Representations, Transfers and Exchanges. New York: Berghahn, 2021
Bosnian Islam has been intensely debated as a possible model for a future Islam of Europe. The idea arises from the fact that Bosnian Muslims belong to the communities with the longest history in Europe, but even more so, it is rooted in the Bosnian Muslim tradition, which is seen by some – Bosniaks and other Europeans alike – as a source of inspiration for nascent Muslim communities in Europe (Bougarel 2007, van Dijk Bartels 2012, Alibašić 2010). Th e peculiarity of Bosnian Islam lies not only in Bosniaks’ status as the only autonomous Slavic Muslim community on European soil but, above all, it can be found in the Bosnian version of religious modernity: Bosnian Islamic representatives consistently claim the possibility of (and even the desirability of ) leading Islamic religious life within a modern secular state. One of the sources of such a claim is the historical legacy of Bosnia and Hercegovina’s fi rst encounter with European modernity within the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Between 1878 and 1918, the Habsburg Monarchy not only brought about the rapid modernization of the administration, infrastructure and economy of the province, but it also sought to regulate its relations with the Bosnian Muslims by institutionalizing the Islamic community as well as its economic, legal and educational systems. Moreover, the Austro- Hungarian occupation led to a two-way process in which the nascent Bosnian Muslim community sought recognition and wrought its religious, fi nancial and educational autonomy from the Habsburg state. When attempting to defi ne the legacy of the forty-year rule of the Austro-Hungarian state in Bosnia and Herzegovina, it is best to look at the perception Bosnian Muslim scholars and leaders of the Bosnian Islamic community have of their Austrian past, and at the way they define the Austrian legacy in modern-day Bosnian Islam. In so doing, three aspects emerge: the relevance of the historical experience within Austria–Hungary to contemporary debates about Bosnian Islamic identity; the direct institutional legacy of Austrian administration; and the indirect intellectual legacy of Austrian administration. All three of these may well be behind the secularity of contemporary Bosnian Islamic practice.
Bosnia and Hercegovina 1878-1945 : Islam, War and Politics
2007
This work deals with the history of Bosnia and Hercegovina and the Muslims of Bosnia and Hercegovina through 67 years from 1878 up to the end of the Second World War in 1945. The focus of this work lays in the different Muslim faction's activity, their aims and the interests they advanced. The work deals further with persons active in these factions and how they operated through personal networks. Further there are examples and explanation how Catholics and Orthodox population of Bosnia and Hercegovina respectively in Serbia and Croatia tried to nationalise the Muslims and the views they had on the Muslims of Bosnia and Hercegovina. The Islamic institutions are also discussed and how they evolved from 1878 until 1945.
Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs, 2020
The Bosnian Islamic community has led the Islamic affairs of most Slavic Muslims in the Balkans since 1882. While authoritarian and secularist states represented considerable dangers for its survival, freedom in independent Bosnia brought its set of challenges. Since the 1990s, is faced three major dynamics: efforts of the dominant Bosniak Party to involve the Islamic Community in spearheading the nationbuilding drive among the Bosniaks; the pluralisation of Islamic authorities and influences coming in from the Islamic world (especially from Iran, Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf, and from Turkey); and the increasing pluralisation of the Islamic scene within the country. All have variously challenged the Bosnian Islamic community’s practice, authority and monopoly. The Islamic Community in Bosnia and Herzegovina (IZ BiH) has met those challenges by gradually detaching itself from national politics, by balancing foreign influences and by building up its institutional capacities
The impact of Islam on the Bosnian problem: The myth of harmonious multiethnicity revisited
Politea, 2012
Вosnia and Herzegovina was an Ottoman province from the time of the Ottoman conquest in 1463 until the Austrian-Hungarian occupation in 1878. During this period a large segment of the province's indigenous Slavic population was converted to the faith of their Turkish conquerors, often under duress, thus creating the westernmost outpost of Islam in Europe. In 1918 Bosnia and Herzegovina was incorporated into the newly created Yugoslav state following World War I, and eventually became one of Communist Yugoslavia's six constituent republics after World War II.
Journal of International Eastern European Studies, 2022
The study analyzes B&H's historical, religious, ideological, and political contests, its post-war integrity, the EU path, and the "majority Muslim European country" paradigm. First, the paper argues that ethnoreligious polarization, political radicalism, and the secessionist processes influence conflict transformation, sociopolitical stagnation, and ineffectual EU process. Second, the regional and international rhetorics related to inaccurate claims of B&H's Islamic radicalism/terrorism is a metaphor for historical/current Balkan religious and ideological hybrid conflicts. Third, it represents the securitization of Islam in a broader sociopolitical context. Fourth, B&H's electoral law and regional geopolitical interference influence the country's integrity due to secessionism and the potential of creating a third-Croat entity. The jingoism and ethnoreligious nationalism persisted, creating "three" prospective antagonistic collectivities generated by ethnopolitics. Preserving B&H's integrity, i.e., the country's anti-dissolution model, and B&H's EU membership, is European security against new violence and inter-religious wars. B&H, as the most critical multiethnic discourse of the Region, is in a perpetuating crisis; the ethnopolitical conflicts, multiple memory politics- genocide denial, and secessionism chronologies. The historical unification of B&H peoples and state existence confirms that secessionist narratives are not artificial but an inherently ethnoreligious hegemonic companion of Croat and Serbian nationalism. Numerous regional intellectuals' narratives (i.e., Andrić, Njegoš) combined anti-Islam discourses on polarization between the "civilized" West and the "despotic" East, historiographically, ideologically, and politically. The Ottoman period was marked as a legacy of foreign and undesirable power and had to be eliminated from European civilization, contributing to the B&H nation-state's intricacy. The inaccurate rhetorics related to B&H's Islamic fundamentalism/terrorism (a security threat to the EU) by regional political leaders (i.e., Tuđman, Grabar-Kitarovic) are a metaphor for religious and ideological hybrid conflicts. B&H's Bosniaks and Croats should initiate an indicative ethical dialogue of "conflict transformation" regarding the non-functional election legislation - without "external" interference (Croatia). Milorad Dodik exploits European Islamophobia, emphasizes the identity link between B&H Muslims and the Turks, cites Bosniaks as Muslims in public life, and discriminates against inter-ethnic marriages ("cancer" on the otherwise clean and healthy tissue of all three ethnoreligious groups). It fits the discoursive radical ideology due to ethnoreligious political antagonism and polarization of religious identities. The hostile and incorrect declarations of a few international- EU leaders regarding Islamic extremism in B&H represent the securitization of Islam in a broader sociopolitical context. The autochthonous European Muslims, one of the world's most liberal Muslim nations, Bosniaks, are a potential linkage for peace dialogue between Europe and the Muslim world. The hypothesis that B&H will never be divided because the West - EU will not allow a "100 percent" Muslim state is not grounded. The international failure in B&H requires inclusive liberal conditions for returning to state-building, reconciliation, and developing constructive group and political relationships. Keywords: Western Balkans, Bosnian integrity, Stability, State-building, Islam and Christianity, Ethnopolitics, European Union, Religious polarization, Peace and conflict, Balkan geopolitics