Remaking Muslim Lives

Abstract

Remaking Muslim Lives: Everyday Islam in Postwar Bosnia and Herzegovina examines what it means to live a Muslim life amid the political ruptures, economic deprivation, and transformation of religious institutions in postsocialist, postwar Bosnia-Herzegovina. Popular representations of Muslim communities in Southeastern Europe have long featured simplistic images of Muslims’ lost faith, and of Islam as serving the interests of nationalism and identity politics. Drawing on a decade of ethnographic research, this book challenges these stereotypes. Through an exploration of the everyday experiences of several generations of Muslim men and women and against the backdrop of the turbulent postsocialist and postwar transformations, David Henig shows how living a Muslim life in rural Bosnia and Herzegovina is ordered and inscribed by deep relations of obligation and care with the living, the dead, and the divine that spans generations. His evocative study traces the manifestations of these relations from the intimate spheres of houses and village neighborhoods to the waiting room of an Islamic dream healer, from village mosques and outdoor prayers for rain to the “little Hajj” pilgrimage and commemorative sites for the Ottoman martyrs and those of the recent Bosnian war. This study makes a powerful contribution to our understanding of how religion and historical consciousness, interlocked through the rubric of exchange, is actively engaged to make sense of past tumultuous experiences and future-oriented expectations in the present.