NMC372H1

Islam and Muslims in the Balkans

The Balkans has been in contact with Islam and inhabited by Muslims for six centuries. Nowadays it is the home of over eight million Muslims of various ethnic backgrounds who constitute the second largest religious group in the region. This course examines the history of Islam, Muslims, and Muslim culture in the Balkans from the Ottoman conquest in the fourteenth century until the present day while placing it in a wider transregional context. Topics covered include formation of Muslim communities, Sufi groups, the Muslims and the Balkan national imagination, responses to modernity, Muslims as minorities, Muslim experiences in communist states, and the breakup of Yugoslavia.