Balkan Muslims and the Middle East - by Harun Karcic (Hardcover)

About the Book

Examines how contact between Balkan Muslims and the Middle East sparked an Islamic Revival.

Book Synopsis

The current revival of Islam among Balkan Muslims did not simply start when war broke out in Bosnia in 1992. It is part of a much longer history of contact with the Middle East.

This book is the first to examine the evolving relationship between the Balkans and the Middle East covering three phases: the establishment of communist Yugoslavia in 1946, the period of its violent collapse, and during its uneasy post-war and post-Yugoslav independence. Haruc Karcic identifies how official links with the Middle East sparked an Islamic revival. Particularly significant were the large-scale student exchanges between Yugoslavia and the Middle East, and Yugoslavia's export of its military and technological knowledge to the Middle East. The book reveals that Yugoslavia realized it could use its Muslim population as 'gate openers' in winning lucrative business deals in the Arab world. Furthermore, the visibility and increasing number of Yugoslav Muslims in the Middle East were used for their Arabic skills to lobby for support when the war broke out.

The book uncovers how Balkan Muslims have survived and adapted to their turbulent history and what contact with Muslim-majority states meant to them. It is based on empirical research and primary sources including interviews, the archives of the Islamic Community in Bosnia and Herzegovina as well as the Communist Party of Yugoslavia, and articles and reports published in the journals 'Glasnik' and 'Takvim', and the newspapers 'Preporod' and 'Oslobodjenje'.

Review Quotes

"Harun Karcic's Balkan Muslims and the Middle East brilliantly reveals the ongoing resonance of cross-regional solidarities forged during and immediately following the Cold War. A must read for scholars and students of both international history and foreign affairs seeking to understand the new global order taking shape before our eyes." --Peter Mandaville, Dr, George Mason University, United States of America

""Harun Karcic's work is a paradigmatic study of the shifting (geo)political orientations of Muslim communities in the Western Balkans. It offers a long-needed remedy to decades of essentialist and Orientalist accounts of the politics in the region's Muslim-majority societies. And owing to Karcic's use of a vast array of primary source documents from the region, no significant future scholarship on Muslim politics and identity in the Western Balkans or Southeastern Europe will be possible without reference to his contributions in this volume."" --Jasmin Mujanovic, Dr, New Lines Institute for Strategy and Policy, USA

"Karcic's work is deeply researched and packed with forgotten historical details about Balkan Muslim communities. He skilfully explains big topics like Tito's ties to Nasser, but also elucidates finer points, such as how Muslims in Yugoslavia interacted with the wider Arab world during the Cold War. This book is invaluable to scholars, journalists and diplomats interested in learning more about the history of Bosniak Muslims; from late Ottoman times and the breakdown of Yugoslavia, to contemporary Iran's ties to Muslim communities here" --Sean Matthews, Journalist, Middle East Eye, Greece

About the Author

Harun Karcic is a journalist, political analyst, and commentator specializing in the Balkans, foreign influence operations, and Islamic affairs. For over 15 years, he has reported on geopolitics, religion, and security for Al Jazeera and other international outlets. Karcic has authored numerous policy papers and opinion pieces for think tanks and global media. He is currently Vice Chairman of the Sarajevo Security Conference.