Quote:
Originally Posted by Mynydd
To put the blame entirely on the war is a bad excuse. The war ended a regime (Yugoslavian) which made it less likeable the use of these Islamic external signs.
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The Bosnian Muslims were very Yugoslavian-minded before the war. The Islamic community worked completely normally during those times. The Muslim leaders at first
opposed the break-up of Yugoslavia, for two reasons: 1. because they thought that Bosnia would disintegrate in case of the Yugoslavian break-up (they anticipated a perspective of its division between Serbia and Croatia); 2. because in the case of break-up, even if Bosnia survived as a state, the Bosnian Muslims would be cut off from Muslims living in other "republics" of the Yugoslav Federation (Serbia, ie. the region of Sandžak; Montenegro; Kosovo; Macedonia). They had a sense of belonging together with Muslims from other "republics". There was even a function of the general chief of all Muslims in Yugoslavia. The function was called
reis-ul-ulema (Arabic word: "the chief of the imams"). In 1990, when there was much talk about the disintegration of Yugoslavia, with claims for national independence made by Croatia and Slovenia, leaders of the Bosnian Muslims still supported the fruther existence of the federation as it was before. They opposed both Croatian-Slovenian conception (break-up of the federation into fully independent states) and the Serbian conception (more centralized federation, with even stronger Serbian domination, in fact, a disguised Greater Serbia). They did not change this attitude until the war began.
It is also noteworthy that Yugoslavia pursued the policy of active membership in the so-called Organization of the Movement of non-Alligned Countries, whereof it was itself a part. There were many Muslim countries in the non-alligned movement and the cooperation with them was quite intensive. Bosnian Muslims were seen as a kind of mediators between Yugoslavia and the Arab countries. Islam wasn't neither suppressed nor prohibited. On the contrary. But of course, there was no Wahhabism.
Even financing mosques from abroad (from the Arabic countries) was not prohibited.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mynydd
Had the end of the old Yugoslavia occured by means other than war, the result would have been pretty much the same as it is obvious that a country with a Muslim majority is a number one target for the spread of Islamism, regardless of whether the Muslim population is religious or just cultural.
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An opposite claim could be made: Islam had more liberty of movement in the old Yugoslavia, the birthrates were higher than those of the rest of the population and the Islamic population was dispersed in several "republics". For example, while Croatia was part of Yugoslavia, Muslim Albanians from Kosovo could come and settle here, because it was one country. Since independence it is not the same, because there are frontiers now and they are foreign citizens. So you could also claim that Yugoslavia was more fertile ground for the spread of Islam...