How to be a Pan-Islamist in Bosnia?

• Main Author: Tanasković Darko
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Faculty of Political Sciences, University of Banja Luka, Bosnia and Hercegovina and Institute for Political Studies, Belgrade, Serbia 2013-01-01
• Series: Politeia
• Subjects: Islamic declaration; Islamic fundamentalism; 'Sarajevo process'; Party of Democratic Action (SDA); identity
• Online Access: http://scindeks-clanci.ceon.rs/data/pdf/2232-9641/2013/2232-96411305165T.pdf

Among the Islamist programme manifestos, which have been emerging from the 1950/s in increasing numbers, the Islamic declaration (1970), by Bosnian leader and sometime president of Bosnia and Herzegovina Alija Izetbegović (1925-2003), occupies a special place. This text, inspired by the ideas of Islamic reformists from the end of 19th and first of half of 20th century, was created in the Balkan, i.e. Yugoslav Muslim diaspora, where Islam was not just a religion, but an important constitutive and distinctive element of the national identity. In this writing, the author discusses the specific combination of religious and national that characterizes the social and political organization and action of Muslims in the time of the disintegration of Yugoslav federation and the creation of independent states, with the emphasis on Bosnia and Herzegovina.