I am travelling as an intern with a team led by Professor Akbar Ahmed who has written many books and has been Ambassador from Pakistan to England. The team is on a project called Journey into Europe that is the 4 th part of a series that looks at Islam after September 11 th 2001 in the Islamic world, America and Europe where we travel around the world. In this project we have already been to England, Scotland, Northern Ireland, The Republic of Ireland, Spain, Germany and Bosnia. I also earlier joined the team of 'Journey into America.'
For so much of Europe’s history there has been a question of compatibility between Islam and Europe. Though most wouldn’t call the two compatible there is no stronger proof against that thought than walking through the streets of Bosnia’s capital, Sarajevo. The city lies in the heart of a country that has a 51% Muslim majority and a population that are mostly local Muslims either originally Muslims or converted Muslims during Bosnia’s Ottoman period. This sense of European identity is told by the way the local Muslims dress and look like their neighboring Serbs. This comes from the region's years under Austro-Hungarian rule before the First World War. The idea also of a multi-cultured Bosnia is openly advocated by its people and government as is shown by there being the words ‘Sarajevo the meeting place of cultures’ written on the line between the old and new town. What made the line so relevant was that on either side one could see the clear difference with the old town labeled East looking like a Moroccan street and the new town labeled West looking like any other European street buzzing with well-known brand name shops.
There is probably no greater example of the compatibility between the two than the Muslim system in the Balkans where the Grand Mufti or Islamic figurehead of the region himself said to us when asked of Bosnian identity that it combines European and Muslim identity. Another example that is found in the Muslim system in the Balkans is that the Grand Mufti is voted in by different mosques that shows the same democracy that symbolizes modern Europe. This was what Dr Margret Spohn said at the Immigration Office in Munich, Germany as an answer to the question of European identity.
With Greece being known as the birthplace of democracy and Bosnia being so close to Greece it makes it even more clear that democracy is a big part of a Modern Europe where countries in the West were in a pact against Communism and for democracy while countries in the East were so intent on switching to a democratic system that none of them went back to Communism after the break-up of the USSR in 1989-1990.
However, through these clear signs of proof for the compatibility of Muslim and European identities there is still a large number of people who disagree. In fact the ex-President and Prime Minister of Bosnia, Dr Haris Silajdzic, talked of how Christianity is European identity and how the French and British governments in particular don’t view Bosnians well and how a British government member during the 1992-95 Balkans War publicly said that the Serb troops were cleansing Europe. This unfortunately can translate into hate towards Islam as it has resulted in Turkey not being granted admission in the EU because they aren’t looked upon as Europeans as well as Bosnians often being called Turks. In 1992-95 this went one step further when the Balkans went to a third war and many Muslims who weren’t viewed as Europeans and therefore should no longer be in the continent. In 1995 after the Serb snipers of Sarajevo and many other Bosnian cities as well as genocides the worst mass killing came in a space of three days as more than 8000 Bosnian women, children and men were killed at Srebrenica.
Though there might be hate towards Islam and Muslims might be alienated to an extent because of the lack of knowledge on the part of their neighbors I believe that the European Muslim-majority state of Bosnia is a good example of how Islam and European identity are compatible.
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