Islam in Bosnia and Herzegovina

Islam was first introduced to the Balkans on a large scale by the Ottomans in the mid-to-late 15th century who gained control of most of Bosnia in 1463, and seized Herzegovina in the 1480s. Over the next century, the Bosnians – composed of native Christians and Slavic tribes living in the Bosnian kingdom under the name of Bošnjani[9] – were converted to Islam in great numbers during the Islamization of Bosnia under Ottoman rule. During the Ottoman era the name Bošnjanin was definitely transformed into the current Bošnjak ('Bosniak'), with the suffix -ak replacing the traditional -anin. By the early 1600s, approximately two thirds of the population of Bosnia were Muslim.[10] Bosnia and Herzegovina remained a province in the Ottoman Empire and gained autonomy after the Bosnian uprising in 1831. Large numbers of mosques were built all over the province. Most mosques erected during the Ottoman era were of relatively modest construction, often with a single minaret and central prayer hall with few adjoining foyers.

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  Fethija Mosque, former church of St. Anthony, 1266
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  Muslihudin Čekrekčija Mosque, Sarajevo, 1526
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  Aladža Mosque, Foča, 1550 (rebuilt 2018)
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  Karađoz-beg Mosque, Mostar, 1557
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  Ali-pasha Mosque, Sarajevo, 1560
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  Šišman Ibrahim-pasha Mosque (Hadži Alijina Džamija), Počitelj, 1561
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  Ferhat-pasha Mosque, Sarajevo, 1562
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  Čobanija Mosque, 1565
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  Hadži Ahmet Dukatar's Mosque, Livno, 1574
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  Ferhat-pasha Mosque, Banja Luka, 1579 (rebuilt 2016)
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  Koski Mehmed-pasha Mosque, Mostar, 1617
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  Džindijska Mosque (Huseina Čauša), Tuzla, 1708
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  Esma Sultana Mosque (during reconstruction), Jajce, 1760

After the 1878 Congress of Berlin, Bosnia and Herzegovina came under the control of Austria-Hungary. In 1908, Austria-Hungary formally annexed the region. Unlike post-Reconquista Spain, the Austro-Hungarian authorities made no attempt to convert the citizens of this newly-acquired territory as the December Constitution guaranteed freedom of religion, and so Bosnia and Herzegovina remained Muslim.

Bosnia, along with Albania and Kosovo were the only parts of the Ottoman Empire in the Balkans where large numbers of people were converted to Islam, and remained there after independence. In other areas of the former Ottoman Empire where Muslims formed the majority or started to form the majority, those Muslims were either expelled, assimilated/Christianized, massacred, or fled elsewhere (Muhajirs).

Many Islamic religious buildings were damaged or destroyed in the Bosnian War during the 90s, with up to 80% of well-over 4000 different buildings,[11] and several mosques were rebuilt with the aid of funds from Saudi Arabia and other countries from the Middle and far East.

Historically, Bosnian Muslims had always practiced a form of Islam that is strongly influenced by Sufism. Since the Bosnian War, however, some remnants of groups of foreign fighters from the Middle East fighting on the side of Bosnian Army, remained for some time and attempted to spread Wahhabism among locals. With very limited success these foreigners only created friction between local Muslim population, steeped in their own traditional practice of the faith, and without any previous contact with this strain in Islam, and themselves.[12]
Although these communities were relatively small and peaceful, restricted to a certain number of villages around central and northern Bosnia, the issue was highly politicized by local nationalists and officials, as well as officials and diplomats from countries like Croatia, Czech Republic and Serbia, to the point of outright fiction.[13][14] Security Minister of Bosnia and Herzegovina at the time, Dragan Mektić of SDS, reacted strongly on such falsehoods by pointing on seriousness of such conspiratorial claims, and warned on possibility of further dangerous politicization and even acts of violence with an aim of labeling Bosnian Muslims as radicals.[13][15]

• Aščerić-Todd, Ines (2015). Dervishes and Islam in Bosnia: Sufi Dimensions to the Formation of Bosnian Muslim Society. The Ottoman Empire and its Heritage. Vol. 58. Leiden: Brill Publishers. doi:10.1163/9789004288447. ISBN 978-90-04-27821-9. ISSN 1380-6076. S2CID 127053309.
• Bougarel, Xavier (2005). "Balkan Muslim Diasporas and the Idea of a "European Islam"". In Dulic, Tomislav (ed.). Balkan Currents. Essays in Honour of Kjell Magnusson. Uppsala Multiethnic Papers. Vol. 49. Uppsala: Uppsala University Press. pp. 147–165. S2CID 158986618 – via Halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr.
• Bougarel, Xavier (2012) [2007]. "Bosnian Islam as 'European Islam': Limits and Shifts of A Concept". In al-Azmeh, Aziz; Fokas, Effie (eds.). Islam in Europe: Diversity, Identity, and Influence (PDF). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 96–124. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511809309.007. ISBN 9780511809309. S2CID 91182456.
• Cesari, Jocelyne, ed. (2014). "Part III: The Old European Land of Islam". The Oxford Handbook of European Islam. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 427–616. doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199607976.001.0001. ISBN 978-0-19-960797-6. LCCN 2014936672. S2CID 153038977.
• Friedman, Francine (2000). Mylonas, Harris (ed.). "The Muslim Slavs of Bosnia and Herzegovina (with Reference to the Sandžak of Novi Pazar): Islam as National Identity". Nationalities Papers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Association for the Study of Nationalities. 28 (1): 165–180. doi:10.1080/00905990050002498. eISSN 1465-3923. ISSN 0090-5992. S2CID 154938106.
• Greenberg, Robert D. (2009). "Dialects, Migrations, and Ethnic Rivalries: The Case of Bosnia-Herzegovina". Journal of Slavic Linguistics. Bloomington, Indiana: Slavica Publishers (Indiana University Press). 17 (1/2): 193–216. doi:10.1353/jsl.0.0022. JSTOR 24600141. S2CID 154466698.
• Malcolm, Noel (1995). Povijest Bosne. Novi Liber. ISBN 953-6045-03-6.
• Malečková, Jitka (2020). "Civilizing the Slavic Muslims of Bosnia-Herzegovina". "The Turk" in the Czech Imagination (1870s-1923). Studia Imagologica. Vol. 26. Leiden: Brill Publishers. pp. 118–158. doi:10.1163/9789004440791_005. ISBN 978-90-04-44077-7. ISSN 0927-4065.
• Račius, Egdūnas, ed. (2020). Islam in Post-communist Eastern Europe: Between Churchification and Securitization. Muslim Minorities. Vol. 35. Leiden: Brill Publishers. ISBN 978-90-04-42534-7. ISSN 1570-7571. LCCN 2020907634.
• Šuško, Dževada, ed. (2019). Both Muslim and European: Diasporic and Migrant Identities of Bosniaks. Muslim Minorities. Vol. 30. Leiden: Brill Publishers. ISBN 978-90-04-39402-5. ISSN 1570-7571. LCCN 2018061684.
• Zheliazkova, Antonina (July 1994). "The Penetration and Adaptation of Islam in Bosnia from the Fifteenth to the Nineteenth Century". Journal of Islamic Studies. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 5 (2: Islam in The Balkans): 187–208. doi:10.1093/jis/5.2.187. eISSN 1471-6917. ISSN 0955-2340. JSTOR 26195615. S2CID 144333779.

• Akyol, Riada Asimovic (13 January 2019). "Bosnia Offers a Model of Liberal European Islam". The Atlantic. Washington, D.C. Archived from the original on 13 January 2019. Retrieved 18 April 2021.
• Allievi, Stefano; Maréchal, Brigitte; Dassetto, Felice; Nielsen, Jørgen S., eds. (2003). Muslims in the Enlarged Europe: Religion and Society. Muslim Minorities. Leiden: Brill Publishers. ISBN 978-90-04-13201-6. ISSN 1570-7571. S2CID 142974009.
• Bencheikh, Ghaleb; Brahimi-Semper, Adam (19 May 2019). "L'Islam dans le Sud-Est Européen". www.franceculture.fr (in French). Paris: France Culture. Retrieved 25 March 2021.
• Bougarel, Xavier; Clayer, Nathalie, eds. (2001). Le Nouvel Islam Balkanique. Les Musulmans, acteurs du post-communisme, 1990-2000 (in French). Paris: Maisonneuve et Larose. ISBN 2-7068-1493-4.
• Bougarel, Xavier; Clayer, Nathalie (2013). Les musulmans de l'Europe du Sud-Est: Des Empires aux États balkaniques. Terres et gens d'islam (in French). Paris: IISMM - Karthala. ISBN 978-2-8111-0905-9 – via Cairn.info.
• Clayer, Nathalie (2004). "Les musulmans des Balkans Ou l'islam de "l'autre Europe"/The Balkans Muslims Or the Islam of the «Other Europe"". Religions, pouvoir et société: Europe centrale, Balkans, CEI. Le Courrier de Pays de l'Est (in French). Paris: La Documentation française. 5 (1045): 16–27. doi:10.3917/cpe.045.0016. ISSN 0590-0239 – via Cairn.info.
• Elbasani, Arolda; Roy, Olivier, eds. (2015). The Revival of Islam in the Balkans: From Identity to Religiosity. Islam and Nationalism. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. doi:10.1057/9781137517845. hdl:1814/36698. ISBN 978-1-137-51783-8. S2CID 164180984.
• Popović, Alexandre (1986). L'Islam balkanique: les musulmans du sud-est européen dans la période post-ottomane. Balkanologische Veröffentlichungen (in French). Vol. 11. Berlin: Osteuropa-Institut an der Freien Universität Berlin. ISBN 9783447025980. OCLC 15614864.
• Stieger, Cyrill (5 October 2017). "Die Flexibilität der slawischen Muslime". Neue Zürcher Zeitung (in German). Zürich. Archived from the original on 5 October 2017. Retrieved 25 March 2021.