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Balkan Islam – a barrier or a bridge for radicalisation pdf

BALKAN ISLAM - A BARRIER OR A BRIDGE FOR RADICALISATION
Book Title Balkan Islam
Book AuthorIskra baeva
Total Pages115
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LanguageEnglish
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Balkan Islam – a barrier or a bridge for radicalisation?

Prof. Iskra baeva, phd

BALKAN ISLAM – A BARRIER OR A BRIDGE FOR RADICALISATION?

Book foreword

There are sizeable Muslim communities in many of the Balkan countries. As a whole, the region is characterized by the moderate nature of Balkan Islam and tolerant relations among religions. In the last years, however, wars and political confrontation have drawn new dividing lines within local societies on an ethnic and religious basis.

The actions of the “Islamic State” and the terrorist acts in Europe placed additional strain on the local Islamic communities. Available evidence confirms the fact that a sizeable number of Islamic fighters in the Middle East originated from South-eastern Europe.

The purpose of this study is to make a political assessment of the role of the local Islamic communities in the Balkans in these processes, to analyze the tendencies among them in the different countries, the risks of radicalization, and external interference.

The outlining of the region-wide dimensions of the problem would help to stimulate the dialogue among the religious confessions and regional cooperation with a view of preventing the possible radicalization of the Islamic communities in the region

The study encompasses seven Balkan countries: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Kosovo, the Republic of Macedonia, Serbia, and Turkey and tries to adhere to a unified approach, reflecting the significance of the following issues in each of the countries:

•           general outline of the picture of the religious beliefs in the respective country and the role and place of Islam;

• the Islamic communities – legal status, relations with the institutions of the state, existence of different Islamic trends, religious organizations, Islamic schools;

•           political parties on a religious or ethnic basis and their relations with Islam (if any), their influence in the country;

• processes and tendencies among the Islamic community in the country – risks of radicalization, the possible influence of the ideology of the “Islamic State”;

•           foreign influence on the local Islamic communities (if any) – origin, objectives, methods, financing;

•           recruitment of jihadist fighters from the respective country, including returnees from the Middle East – dynamics, problems, manifestations;

•           risk assessment related to radical Islamist groups;

• measures against Islamic radicalization after the year 2000 (if any);

• the local Islamic communities – a barrier or a bridge for radicalization. The country reports were prepared by Bulgarian experts with in-depth professional knowledge about the respective countries – ambassadors, academics, journalists.

The texts are the authors’ analyses of the complex and contradictory processes and tendencies in the region and do not necessarily reflect the positions of the “Friedrich Ebert” Foundation, the Economics and International Relations Institute, and the Bulgarian Diplomatic Society.

Religious Beliefs in the Region, Role and Place of Islam

There is a substantial variety of religious beliefs in the Balkan region, but with a single dominating religion in most of the countries. The countries whose population is primarily Christian predominate, Eastern Orthodoxy being much more widespread.

Catholicism is present mainly in the western part of the peninsula. Islam is the dominant religion in Turkey and Bosnia and Herzegovina with a growing influence also among the Albanian population (in Albania proper, Kosovo, and among the Albanian minorities in the Republic of Macedonia, Serbia, and the other post-Yugoslav states).

Islam was brought among the Balkan peoples at a relatively later stage and arrived on the peninsula with its conquest by the Ottoman Empire after the 14th – 15th centuries.

This created a specific historic religious-state linkage of Islam with the Turkish state, which exists until now as a public attitude. That is why even at present traditional Balkan Islam preserves its link with Turkey.

Within the Ottoman Empire Islam was a state, dominating religion, defining the status of the subjects – the “faithful” and “rayah”. Its expansion was taking place both voluntarily by virtue of economic and political factors (mainly in the Albanian ethnic area) and by force – through the Islamisation of the local population.

Subsequently, this process stimulated internal division and separation within the different ethnoses on the basis of religion, creating conditions for the formation of new ethnoreligious groups – Bosniaks1*, Pomaks, etc.

At the same time, albeit with a different, not fully equal status in the Ottoman Empire, Christianity preserved its serious presence and influence among the Balkan peoples during all those centuries.

This created certain traditions of the common and parallel existence of the two religions, expressed in a fairly high degree of religious tolerance among Balkan societies after the collapse of the empire in the 19th – 20th century.

The Muslims in the Balkans are mainly Sunni (in Turkey – 80%), while the rests are Shia (mainly Alevis) and representatives of different sects.

Islamic Communities – Legal Status, Relations with the Institutions of the State, Religious Organisations, Islamic Schools

In all Balkan countries, religion is separated from the state constitutionally. The executive has no legal right to interfere in the organization and operation of the existing religious structures and in many countries, it is neutral by definition vis a vis them (in certain cases – Turkey, Greece, Bulgaria, etc. the leading or traditional religion in the country is specified).

A specific example of a more unequivocal commitment of the state to the affairs of religion is the activity of the Directorate for Religious Affairs (Diyanet) in Turkey as a state instrument for influencing the organization (and indeed the beliefs) of the Muslims – not only of the ongoing Islamisation processes in the country but in the entire Balkan region.

The Islamic communities are clearly distinct (in most cases both ethnically and geographically) and well organized, with their own religious structures, elected religious leaderships, as well as the necessary infrastructure and financial capabilities to perform their activities. With certain exceptions (Bulgaria, Serbia) they are also sufficiently internally consolidated.

In the last two decades mass construction of mosques can be observed in all countries with the prevailing Muslim population in the region – in the ones, where the role of Islam in politics is growing (Turkey, Bosnia, and Herzegovina), as well as in the Albanian area (Albania, Kosovo, Northern and Western Macedonia, Preševo and also in Sandžak in Serbia).

There is also another tendency – the shortage of sufficient Islamic educational establishments and a vacuum in the training of local imams and preachers created the conditions for the infiltration of organizations and ideas foreign to Balkan Islam.

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