Public Expressions of Bosnian Muslim Religiosity and Lived Faith: The Cases of Friday Prayer and Hijab

Funk, Julianne

doi:10.1057/9781137517845_11

Cited by 4 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 5 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Roy 2004). Those of my interlocutors who had been influenced by Salafism described becoming believers as a conscious personal choice in much the same way as my more liberal interlocutors.f They both contrasted the importance of the individual's decision-making involved in becoming a believer with what they understood as unreflected traditional practices and customs followed by their ancestors (Funk 2015;Olson 2015;Olson 2017). Accounts of their personal discoveries of faith also made it evident that individuals pass through different stages of engagement with various kinds of Islamic discourse and practice.…”

Section: Finding Personal Faithmentioning

confidence: 93%

“Islamic cafés” and “Sharia dating:” Muslim youth, spaces of sociability, and partner relationships in Bosnia-Herzegovina

Mesarič

2017

Natl. pap.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The paper explores forms of sociability and partner relationships among pious young Muslims in Sarajevo with a focus on the emic concepts of Islamic cafés (hospitality establishments perceived to operate according to Islamic moral principles) and Sharia dating (premarital relationships perceived to be sanctioned by Sharia). It draws on 10 months of ethnographic fieldwork conducted in different spaces of Islamic worship, learning, and sociability. This paper places the renewed interest in Islam within the context of a post-Dayton Bosnia characterized by complex and impractical government structures, lingering post-war grievances, and a brutal transition to a neoliberal capitalist economy. Although it acknowledges the continuing relevance of Islam as a resource for Bosniak nation building, it suggests treating the Muslim faith community as overlapping but distinct from the Bosniak community. By focusing on gendered interaction and partner-seeking strategies, this paper explores how young members of this faith community contextually negotiate their Islamic beliefs with mainstream local expectations of conventional behavior. The paper argues that believers’ varying responses to this predicament can be observed as an example of the localization of Islam, but they do not constitute a return to local, traditional gender roles and marriage practices, nor are they an introduction of foreign cultural patterns.

show abstract

Section: Finding Personal Faithmentioning

confidence: 93%

“Islamic cafés” and “Sharia dating:” Muslim youth, spaces of sociability, and partner relationships in Bosnia-Herzegovina

Mesarič

2017

Natl. pap.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…As one of Funk's interlocutors admits, 'in Bosnia nothing seems to be farz, an obligation by God... we somehow choose everything. It is an obligation but we do it as our free choice' (Funk 2015).…”

Section: Believers' Choices and Informal Faith Communitiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…… I was just afraid that my good friend… [would accept] an extreme… interpretation of Islam….' (Funk 2015).…”

Section: Believers' Choices and Informal Faith Communitiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Islam in the post-Communist Balkans: alternative pathways to God

Elbasani¹,

Roy²

2015

Southeast European and Black Sea Studies

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The Islamic 'revival' in the Balkans has raised many questions among mainstream politicians and academics, who tend to look at religion as a repository of ethno-national identities, and hence a risky 'depot', furthering divisions between and among national entities. How believers themselves discover, articulate and experience their faith, is often lost in the grand narratives of nations' assumed uniformity and the related criteria of inclusion and exclusion. This article shifts the analytical and empirical focus from nation-centric debates on the revival of Islam to believers' self-discovery and pursuit of faith after the fall of Communism. Specifically, it explores the emerging actors and mechanisms that trigger the bifurcation between Islam as a marker of national identity on the one hand, and a source of religious beliefs on the other. It all depends on who speaks for Islam-state authorities, religious hierarchies and/or informal faith communities. All the while, the Islamic phenomenon is no longer merely the bearer of ethnonational alternatives, but also the symptom of new spaces containing a variety of new actors as well as overlapping national, regional and global processes.

show abstract

“…As one of her interlocutors puts it 'in Bosnia nothing seems to be farz, an obligation by God... we somehow choose everything. It is an obligation but we do it as our free choice' (Funk 2015). Believers' resort to choice is particularly visible in the donning of the hijab.…”

Section: Believers' Choices and Communities Of Faithmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Revival of Islam in the Post-Communist Balkans: Coercive Nationalisms and New Pathways to God

Elbasani

2015

SSRN Journal

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies (RSCAS), created in 1992 and directed by Professor Brigid Laffan, aims to develop inter-disciplinary and comparative research on the major issues facing the process of European integration, European societies and Europe's place in 21 st century global politics. The Centre is home to a large post-doctoral programme and hosts major research programmes, projects and data sets, in addition to a range of working groups and ad hoc initiatives. The research agenda is organised around a set of core themes and is continuously evolving, reflecting the changing agenda of European integration, the expanding membership of the European Union, developments in Europe's neighbourhood and the wider world.

show abstract

Public Expressions of Bosnian Muslim Religiosity and Lived Faith: The Cases of Friday Prayer and Hijab

Cited by 4 publications

References 5 publications

“Islamic cafés” and “Sharia dating:” Muslim youth, spaces of sociability, and partner relationships in Bosnia-Herzegovina

“Islamic cafés” and “Sharia dating:” Muslim youth, spaces of sociability, and partner relationships in Bosnia-Herzegovina

Islam in the post-Communist Balkans: alternative pathways to God

The Revival of Islam in the Post-Communist Balkans: Coercive Nationalisms and New Pathways to God

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About