Islam in the Balkans: An Interdisciplinary Study of the Past and Present of Muslim Communities in the Balkans

Level: 
Master's
Course Status: 
Elective
CEU credits: 
2
Academic year: 
2011/2012
Semester: 
Fall
Start and end dates: 
19 Sep 2011 - 9 Dec 2011
Host Unit: 
Department of History
CEU Instructor(s): 
Tolga U. Esmer
Assessment : 
Assessment: 1) Attendance in all class meetings is mandatory. Any unexcused absence will result in an automatic decrease of the final grade. 2) Participation and Multiple presentations (depending on class size) of weekly readings: 20% (of final grade) 3) 2 Response Papers (2-3 pages): 40% (20% each) 4) Final Paper (10-12 pages): 40% Note: there will be no midterm or final
Full description: 

Schedule of Readings and Topics:

Week 1 (September 21): Introduction to the Study of Islam in the Balkans: sources and methodologies

--N.T. Norris. Introduction and Chapter 1 “The Arabs, the Slavs, the Hungarian Saracens and the Arnauts,” in his Islam in the Balkans: Religion and Society between Europe and the Arab World (London: Hurst & Co., 1993), 1-42. [savepdf]

--A. Karamustafa. “Islam: a civilizational project in progress,” in O. Safi (ed.), Progressive Muslims: On Justice, Gender, and Pluralism (Oxford: One World, 2003), 98-110. [savepdf]

Week 2 (September 28): The Ottoman Conquest and the Islamization of Space

--M. Kiel. “The Nature of the Turkish Conquest and its impact on the Balkans: Destoryer or bearer of culture,” in his Art and Society of Bulgaria in the Turkish Period (Maastricht: van Gorcum, 1985), 33-55. [savepdf]

--H. Lowry. Chapter1 “In the Footsteps of Haci Evrenos: A Reinterpretation of the Fourteenth-Century Ottoman Conquest of Western Thrace,” in his The Shaping of the Ottoman Balkans, 1350-1550: The Conquest, Settlement, and Infrastructural Development of Northern Greece (İstanbul: Bahçeşehir University, 2008), 15-64. [savepdf]

Week 3 (October 5): Conversion to Islam in the Balkans, continued: history and historiography

--T. Krstić. Chapter 1 “Muslims Through Narratives: Textual Repertoires of Fifteenth-Century Ottoman Islam and Formation of the Ottoman Interpretative Communities,” in her Contested Conversions to Islam: Narratives of Religious Change in the Early Modern Ottoman Empire (Palo Alto: Stanford University, 2011), 26-50. [savepdf]

--A. Minkov. Introduction and Chapter 3 “Forms, Factors, and Motives of Conversion to Islam in the Balkans,” in his Converstion to Islam in the Balkans: Kisve Bahasi Petitions and Ottoman Social Life, 1670-1730 (Leiden: Brill Publishers, 2004), 1-8 and 64-109. [savepdf]

--. One example of a Kisve Bahası translated in his Chapter 4 “Kisve Bahası Petitions as Sources of Conversion,” 110-144.

Optional:

Zhelyazkova, Antonina. "Islamization in the Balkans as a Historiographical Problem: The Southeast-European Perspective." In The Ottomans and the Balkans, edited by S. Faroqhi & F. Adanir, 223-66. Leiden-Boston-Köln: Brill, 2002.

Lopasic, Alexander. "Islamization of the Balkans With Special Reference to Bosnia." Journal of Islamic Studies 5, no. 2 (1994): 163-86.

Week 4 (October 12): Muslim Communities, Imperial Crises, and the Formation of Christian Nation-States During the long Nineteenth Century

--J. Allcock. Chapter 8 “State Formation and the International Order,” in his Explaining Yugoslavia (New York: Columbia University, 2000), 211-243. [savepdf]

-- F. Anscombe, “Islam and the Age of Ottoman Reform,” Past and Present, No. 208 (August 2010), 159-189. [savepdf]

Week 5 (October 19): Discourses on Ethnography and Syncretism Dealing with the Balkans

--F.W. Hasluck. Chapter XLIV “Ambiguous Sanctuaries and Bektashi Propaganda,” in his Christianity and Islam Under the Sultans (New York: Octagon Books, 1973), 564-596. [savepdf]

--H. Lowry. Chapter 1 “Muslim Sacred Spaces Desecrated and Destroyed in the Aftermath of the 1923-4 Population Exchange Between Greece and Turkey;” Chapter 2 “Contemporary Muslim Sacred Spaces Visited by Christians;” and Chapter 3 “Shared Muslim-Chrsitian Sanctuaries,” in his In the Footsteps of the Ottomans: A Search for Sacred Spaces and Architectural Monuments in Northern Greece (İstanbul: Bahçeşehir University, 2009), 5-45 [savepdf]

Week 6 (October 26): Towards and Anthropology of Islam and Contentious Sharing in the Balkans

--T. Asad. “The Idea of an Anthropology of Islam,” Occasional Papers Series – Center for Contemporary Arab Studies (Washington: Georgetown University, 1986), 1-17. [savepdf]

--G. Bowman. “Identification and identity formations around shared shrines in West Bank Palestine and Western Macedonia,” in D. Albera and M. Courocli (eds.), Lieux saints en partage; Explorations anthropologiques dans l’espace mediterraneen (Arles: Actes Sud., 2009), 1-24. [savepdf]

Viewing of Film: “Chia e tazi pesen?” [“Whose song is this?” ] by A. Peeva (Bulgaria, 2003).

Week 7 (November 2): Gendered Relations within Muslim Communities in the Balkans

--T. Krstić. Chapter 6 “Everyday Communal Politics of Co-existence and Orthodox Christian Martyrdom: A Dialogue of Sources and Gender Regimes in the Age of Confessionalization,” in her Contested Conversions to Islam: Narratives of Religious Change in the Early Modern Ottoman Empire (Palo Alto: Stanford University, 2011), 143-164. [savepdf]

--C. Hawkesworth. Section on Jelena Dimitrijević, in her Voices in the Shadows: Women and Verbal Art in Serbia and Bosnia (Budapest: Central European University, 2000), 141-151. [savepdf]

--İ.C. Schick. “Christian Maidens, Turkish Ravishers: The Sexualization of National Conflict in the Late Ottoman Period,” in A. Buturović and İ.C. Schick (eds.), Women in the Ottoman Balkans: Gender, Culture, and History (New York, 2007), 273-305. [savepdf]

--E. Helms. "East and West Kiss: Gender, Orientalism, and Balkanism in Muslim-Majority Bosnia-Herzegovina" [savepdf]

--E. Helms. “‘Politics is a Whore:’ Women, Morality, and Victimhood in Post-War Bosnia-Herzegovina,” in X. Bougarel, E. Helms, and G. Duijzings (eds.), The New Bosnian Mosaic: Identities, Memories, and Moral Claims (Aldershot: Ashgate Publishers, 2007), 235-255.

Week 8 (November 9): Muslims in Balkan Literature and Film

--M. Todorova. “Converstion as a Trope in Bulgarian Film and Literature, in M. Todorova (ed.), Balkan Identities: Nation and Memory (New York: New York University, 2004), 128-157. [savepdf]

--M. Sells. “The Construction of Islam in Serbian Religious Mythology and Its

Consequences,” in M. Shatzmiller (ed.), Islam and Bosnia: Conflict Resolution and Foreign Policy in Multi-Ethnic States (Montreal: McGill Queen’s University, 2002), 56-85.

Film Viewing: “Vreme Razdelno” (Time of Violence), by L. Staikov, 1988.

Week 9 (November 16): Muslim Communities in Bosnia

--F. Adınır. “The Formation of a ‘Muslim’ Nation in Bosnia and Herzegovina: A Historiographical Discussion,’ in F. Adınır and S. Faroqhi (eds.) The Ottoman Empire and the Balkans: A Discussion of Historiography (Leiden: Brill Press, 2002), 267-304. [savepdf]

--T. Bringa. Introduction, Chapter 1 “History, Identity, and the Yugoslav Dream,” and Chapter 2 “A Bosnian Village,” in her Being Muslim the Bosnian Way: Identity and Community in a Central Bosnian Village (Princeton: Princeton University, 1995), 1-84. [savepdf]

Week 10 (November 23): Muslim Communities in Bulgaria

--M. Neuberger. Introduction, Chapter 3 “Under the Fez and Foreskin: Modernity and the Mapping of Muslim Manhood,” Chapter 5 “A Muslim by Any “Other Name: The power of Naming and Renaming,” in her The Orient Within: Muslim Minorities and the Negotiation of Nationhood in Modern Bulgaria (Ithaca: Cornell University, 2004), 1-17, 85-116, and 142-168.[savepdf]

--T. Bakardjieva. “Türbes of Muslim Holy Men in Ruse: History, Legend, and Reality,” in A. Zhelyazkova and J. Nielsen (eds.), Ethnology of Sufi Orders (Sofia: IMIR, 2000), 548-63. [savepdf]

Week 11 (November 30): Muslim Communities in Serbia, Kosovo(a), and Macedonia

--H. Poulton and M. Vickers. “The Kosovo Albanians: Ethnic Confrontation with the Slav State,” in H. Poulton and S. Taji-Farouki (eds.), Muslim Identity and the Balkan State (New York: New York University, 1999), 139-169. [savepdf]

--G. Duijzings. Introduction; Chapter 5 “Albanian Dervishes and Bosnian Ulema: The Revival of Popular Sufism in Kosova; and Chapter 7 “Naim Frasheri’s Qerbalaja: Religion and Nationalism Among Albanians,” in his Religion and the Politics of Idenity in Kosovo (New York: Columbia University, 2000), 1-36, 106-131, 157-175. [savepdf]

Week 12 (December 7): Conclusions and the Future of Muslims and other Threats to Muslims and Inter-confessional Co-existence

--. C Deliso. “Fissures in Balkan Islam: Macedonia’s Muslims are likely to elect a moderate leader soon, but extremism persists,” in Christian Science Monitor, 14 February 2006.

--A. Riedelmayer. “From the Ashes: The Past and Future of Bosnia’s Cultural Heritage,” in M. Shatzmiller (ed.), Islam and Bosnia: Conflict Resolution and Foreign Policy in Multi-Ethnic States (Montreal: McGill Queen’s University, 2002) 98-135.

--R. Hayden. “Antagonistic Tolerance: Competitive Sharing of Religious Sites in South Asia and the Balkans,” in Current Anthropology, Vol. 43, No. 2 (April 2002), 205-231. [savepdf]