The Changing Role of the Traditional Islamic Organization: Three Challenges to the Restored Bosnian Islamic Community

Abstract

The Bosnian Islamic community has led the Islamic affairs of most Slavic Muslims in the Balkans since 1882. While authoritarian and secularist states represented considerable dangers for its survival, freedom in independent Bosnia brought its set of challenges. Since the 1990s, is faced three major dynamics: efforts of the dominant Bosniak Party to involve the Islamic Community in spearheading the nation-building drive among the Bosniaks; the pluralisation of Islamic authorities and influences coming in from the Islamic world (especially from Iran, Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf, and from Turkey); and the increasing pluralisation of the Islamic scene within the country. All have variously challenged the Bosnian Islamic community’s practice, authority and monopoly. The Islamic Community in Bosnia and Herzegovina (IZ BiH) has met those challenges by gradually detaching itself from national politics, by balancing foreign influences and by building up its institutional capacities.