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Sarah J. Schlesinger Master's Research Paper International THE INTERNAL PLURALIZATION OF THE MUSLIM COMMUNITY OF BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA: FROM RELIGIOUS ACTIVATION TO RADICALIZATION Sarah J. Schlesinger Master’s Research Paper International Relations and Religion Advised by Dr. Elizabeth H. Prodromou Submitted April 19, 2011 Boston University I would like to thank my mentor and advisor, Dr. Elizabeth H. Prodromou, for providing me with invaluable guidance, insight, and support, not only during the thesis process, but throughout the entirety of my graduate school experience. I would also like to thank my family for their support, encouragement, and love during my two years in graduate school and especially this past semester as I have been completing this thesis. 1 Table of Contents Abstract ......................................................................................................................................................... 3 Chapter One: Introduction ............................................................................................................................ 4 Chapter Two: Current Methodological Frameworks .................................................................................... 9 Bosnian Muslim versus Bosniak ............................................................................................................. 10 Traditional Moderate Bosnian Islam versus Salafism/Wahhabism ........................................................ 11 The Ethno-National Framework ............................................................................................................. 14 The Global Security Framework ............................................................................................................. 17 The Need for a Different Perspective ...................................................................................................... 20 Chapter 3: The Historical Background of the Muslim Community of Bosnia ........................................... 21 The Origins of Islam in the Balkans........................................................................................................ 21 The Early Islamic Community of Bosnia ................................................................................................ 23 Islam in the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia ........................................................................... 25 The Bosnian War: 1992-1995 ................................................................................................................. 29 The Islamic Community During the War ................................................................................................ 35 After Dayton ............................................................................................................................................ 39 Chapter Four: From Religious Activation to Religious Pluralization ......................................................... 42 The Internal Consolidation of Muslim Identity in Bosnia ....................................................................... 43 External Factors Affecting the New Muslim Identity .............................................................................. 50 Radicalization Appears in the Muslim Community ................................................................................. 54 The Moderate Majority in the Bosnian Muslim Community ................................................................... 57 Chapter Five: The Voice of Islam in Bosnia-Herzegovina ......................................................................... 59 The Central Figures in Pluralistic Muslim Bosnia ................................................................................. 60 The Salafi/Wahhabi-Moderate Struggle Over Education ....................................................................... 67 Chapter Six: Conclusion ............................................................................................................................. 70 Bibliography ............................................................................................................................................... 73 Appendix: Research Proposal ..................................................................................................................... 82 2 Abstract Since the Bosnian War of 1992-1995, there has been a significant amount of work examining the breakdown of inter-group relations in Bosnia-Herzegovina, approaching the issue from two perspectives: ethno-national or global security. Both of these approaches view the Bosnian Muslim community as a monolithic, static bloc: either completely secular, with Muslim identity only existing as an ethnic marker to indicate membership in a “nation”; or completely radicalized, with Muslim identity having been co- opted entirely by foreign influences seeking to spread radical Islam. Rejecting such essentialist notions, this paper uses a two-level analysis to demonstrate that the Bosnian Muslim community has experienced an activation of religious identity resulting in pluralization, which is currently manifested in the co- existence of a small group of radical Muslims who embrace Salafism/Wahhabism and a majority of Bosnian Muslims who adhere to a unique, Bosnian form of Islam. A series of internal conditions were created in the period prior to and during the Bosnian War that provided the necessary atmosphere for an activation of Muslim identity; these conditions included the repression of religiosity under socialism; marginalization by Serbs and Croats of Bosnian Muslims as the “Other”; and mobilization and consolidation of Muslim identity by charismatic political and religious leaders. In the period during and following the war, a number of external factors, the success of which was contingent on the existence of the internal conditions, combined with the activated religious identity of Bosnian Muslims to pluralize the population. These external factors were the influx of veteran mujahedin and Islamic agencies that arrived in Bosnia assist the Muslim community. Pluralization has resulted in a struggle for dominance of the Muslim community between the traditional moderate Muslims and the Salafis/Wahhabis, both of whom see themselves as the true voice of Islam in Bosnia. This paper illuminates the intra-group dynamics of the Bosnian Muslim community, examining the role of religion within one “nation” in Bosnia rather than focusing on how religion has been instrumentalized in inter-group relations. 3 Chapter One: Introduction In the early 1990s, Eastern Europe became an object of intense interest for Western observers. As former totalitarian regimes crumbled, new states emerged from the ruins to embrace democracy. For some nations, however, the transition was far from ideal. For almost four years, the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY) was embroiled in a bloody war of secession centered in the territory of Bosnia-Herzegovina. The Bosnian War raged from 1992 to 1995, ending abruptly with NATO intervention and the signing of the Dayton Peace Agreement in December 1995. Although the legal basis of the conflict was the secession of states from the former Yugoslavia, the nature of the war defied easy explanation, complicated further by the identities of the three parties involved: the Orthodox Christian Bosnian Serbs, the Roman Catholic Bosnian Croats, and the Bosnian Muslims, also known as “Bosniaks.”1 The very listing of these categories illustrates part of the confusion. The Bosnian Serbs are Orthodox Christian, while the Bosnian Croats are Roman Catholic. The Bosnian Muslims, however, seemed to be missing part of the identity equation: they possessed no separate ethnic marker such as “Serb” or “Croat” and were identified solely by their religion. Under the socialist regime of Josip Broz Tito, religious identity was repressed to near non- existence; although “Muslim” by tradition, the Bosnian Muslim population was moderate in practice and minimally observant. By the time the SFRY began to dissolve, most young people in this community had little understanding of what it meant to be Muslim. Due to the unique, syncretic nature of Bosnian Islam, which interweaves Slavic cultural traditions and regional history with Muslim practices, it was difficult for Bosnian Muslims to conceive that this would set them apart from their Christian neighbors. However, by the end of the Bosnian War, a series of internal factors had created conditions in which Muslim religious identity was “activated,” resulting in a revival of Islam for a population that was long considered non-religious. 1 The ethno-political connotations of the category of “Bosniak” will be explored in Chapter Two. 4 To many observers,2 the story of the religious revival of Bosnian Muslims ends with the signing of Dayton. With the war over and Muslims no longer targeted as a result of their religious designation, it appeared as though Bosnian Muslims settled back into their secular traditions. However, by the end of the war, the process by which the religious identity of the Bosnian Muslim community was activated – the catalyzation of internal conditions which provided the necessary contingencies for successful external influence – had taken place. The result of this process was the internal pluralization of a Muslim community that had previously seen very little religious variation. One manifestation of the pluralization of the Bosnian Muslim community is visible in the radicalization of a small
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