In the Balkans, religion seems to have played a much more important role in the process of nation building than language. Speakers of Serbo-Croat fell apart in three national communities on the... Show moreIn the Balkans, religion seems to have played a much more important role in the process of nation building than language. Speakers of Serbo-Croat fell apart in three national communities on the basis of religion. Thus emerged the Bosniak nation, which identifies itself with Islam and clearly distinguishes itself from the Catholic Croats and the Orthodox Serbs. The establishment of the national states in the Balkans was accompanied, from the beginning of the 19th century, by attempts to restore the pre-Ottoman Christian states. The population was ethnically homogenized by expelling ethnic and religious minorities or by forcibly assimilating them. In particular the Muslims in the Balkans, and especially the Muslim Turks, fell victim to this policy. Show less
Sufism has always marked the practice of Islam in the Balkans, since the Ottoman conquest, especially through the implantation of brotherhood networks. With the withdrawal of the Ottomans, from the... Show moreSufism has always marked the practice of Islam in the Balkans, since the Ottoman conquest, especially through the implantation of brotherhood networks. With the withdrawal of the Ottomans, from the end of the 17th up to the beginning of the 20th century, part of these networks disappeared, since a lot of their members either perished in the wars or fled to Turkey. Another part of these networks remained - especially on the western side of the Peninsula - and continued to regulate the religious as well as the social life of significant Muslim groups. However, in the latter half of the 20t h century, the communist regimes in Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Romania and Albania endeavoured to weaken the religious institutions. In Albania, they were even completely dismantled by the authorities in 1967. Show less
