Minarets in the Mountains: A Journey into Muslim Europe
By
Mohammad Ali, New Age Islam
12 October
2022
‘Minarets
in the Mountains’ Searches for the Historical Roots of Muslims In Europe
Main
Points:
1. Having been
regarded as a Christian continent, Europe’s refusal to accept Muslims’ nativity
embedded in its history disheartened the author.
2. Beautiful
slender minarets standing tall and peering through uneven landscapes are the
most visible indications of Muslims’ religious and cultural presence in the
Balkan countries.
3. Normal-looking
boys had been indoctrinated into a puritanical understanding of Islam.
----
Minarets
in the Mountains is
a tragic story that the author interweaves into the craft of travel writing.
Persuaded by Islamophobia, an idea generated by the feeling that Muslims do not
belong in Europe, which the author, as a part of the larger Muslim diaspora,
encounters in his home country, the UK, this account searches for the
historical roots of Muslims in Europe. To the author, these roots could serve
the purpose of providing a link to Muslims to furnish a sense of belongingness
in Europe. As the travelogue persistently reminds, this link has intentionally
been concealed from recent memory. Unlike an ordinary travelogue, the Minarets
is layered with nostalgia, disappointment, and hope. Having been regarded as a
Christian continent, Europe’s refusal to accept Muslims’ nativity embedded in
its history disheartened the author. However, the author is hopeful that his
efforts could help revive the forgotten past and expose the disregarded present
of Muslim civilization in the eastern part of the European continent.
In the
introduction to the book, Tharik Hussain, the author, recalls how in London he
had been subjected first to racism and then Islamophobia while he was a child.
He writes,
“Right from
the start it was made clear to me that I didn’t belong here. As a confused and
terrified child, I watched a racist thug assault my father on our doorstep; I
listened to police lament not being able to catch the skinheads that had split
my brother’s head open; I heard my mother’s terrified shrieks every time a fire
‘bomb’ was posted through our letter box.” (p.4)
This
childhood experience haunts Hussain, who tries to make sense of this hatred
against him and his family because of being religiously and racially different.
On a trip to Bulgaria in 2014, Hussain felt the presence of Muslims in the
country, who seemed to be as much European as any white Christian could be. He
wanted to know more about them, for example, whether they ever encountered a
question of belongingness. How did they balance their European as well as their
Muslim identity at the same time? Did they ever feel the rejection as many
Muslim migrants to Europe do?
Excited
about the adventures ahead, Tharik Hussain, a Londoner, and the author, along
with his wife and two daughters, embarks on a journey to Eastern Europe. Over
the course of several weeks, they travelled through Bosnia and Herzegovina,
Serbia, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Albania, and Montenegro. These countries had
once been part of the Ottoman Empire. Throughout his journey, the author is
guided by a fellow traveller from history, Evliya Çelebi, treading on his
footsteps mapped out in his book Seyahâtnâme. Hussain’s conversations with
Çelevi create a beautiful spectrum overcoming temporality. It enables his
readers to assess what has been lost since Çelebi walked into these lands. For example,
while crossing an old market or visiting a monument, Hussain would compare the
present situation of the place with the one explained in Çelebi’s travelogue
gauging how much has changed, pointing toward the destruction of mosques and
Muslim communities during numerous wars. The countries Hussain travelled
to—some of them have a sizable Muslim population—are interspersed by mosques
and mausoleums, and populated by Muslim culture that cannot be considered
foreign because of their organic nurturing and inhabitation for the past
several centuries. Beautiful slender minarets standing tall and peering through
uneven landscapes are the most visible indications of Muslims’ religious and
cultural presence in the Balkan countries.
At times,
Hussain incorporates historical anecdotes, delightful conversations with the
locals, and personal observations, which make his travelogue engaging. His
observations let his readers peep into the local customs, such as the custom of
not accepting money from travellers by local Muslim vendors in a city in
Serbia, or the rise of the strict orthodoxy among young Muslims in some of
those countries. The Balkan Muslims under the rule of Ottomans practiced
Sufism, which is reflected in the Ottoman remains: knowledge traditions, culture,
monuments, etc. Under the influence of this orthodoxy, which he observed as a
puritanical approach to Islam, young Balkan Muslims do not hesitate to belittle
their ancestors. In Novi Bazar, Hussain visited an Ottoman-era Altun-Alem
Mosque along with two local boys. During his conversations with them, Hussain
assumed that the normal-looking boys had been indoctrinated into a puritanical
understanding of Islam. While at the mosque, one among the boys drew Hussain’s
attention to some tombstones located beside the mosque. Burying loved ones
adjacent to a mosque was a common practice during the Ottoman period. Even so,
it is against the conservative and puritanical opinion, which is not only
opposed to making a grave near a mosque but also does not allow building any
kind of structure, a tomb or a gravestone, over a grave. Referring to this
position, the boy commented, “Our forefathers didn’t know the Sunnah very
well.” (p.92) Such condescension toward the preceding generations because of
the assumption that we know Islam better than them is cancerous. This behavior
thwarts the contemporary generations from using our past as a guiding tool to
navigate our present religious as well as social crisis.
As
mentioned earlier, Hussain believes that despite the centuries-old history of
Muslims in its southwestern and eastern parts, Europe refuses to own Muslims,
their religion, and their culture. He mentions prominent European travellers
like the British traveller, Michael Palin, who visited these lands, and wrote
about them without paying sufficient attention to their age-old Muslim
heritage. A specific incident that is regarded as an attempt at cultural
genocide is the destruction of Start Most or Mostar Bridge on November 9, 1993,
by shells fired by the Croatian army during the Croat-Bosnia War. The 29 meters
high, rainbow-arched bridge was considered to be an exemplary piece of Balkan
Islamic architecture. It was commissioned by the Ottoman Sultan Suleiman, the
Magnificent, and built by Mimar Hareddin in 1566 AD, under the supervision of
the legendary Ottoman architect, Mimar Sinan, who was also a teacher of the
builder. During a conversation with a fellow spectator looking at the bridge,
Hussain said that for years Western “experts” on Bosnia could not believe that
the Ottomans had built it, even though they had found dates linking the bridge
to Sultan Suleiman. For many of them, the ‘Asiatic barbarians in Europe’ could
simply not possess the necessary intelligence to build such a marvel of
engineering. They said that the Romans must have built it. Due to the efforts
of a local architect Amir Pašić, numerous international organizations, such as
the World Bank, UNESCO, Agha Khan Trust, etc. came forward in 1988 and decided
to rebuild it as similar as possible to the original. The reconstructed bridge
was inaugurated on July 23, 2004.
Çelebi saw
the Balkans populated by peace-loving people of different faiths living their
lives together. What we have lost since he travelled is the warmth of humanity
due to wars and propaganda. While reading the travelogue, I could not help but
notice similar patterns in India. With the ever-growing propaganda, India is on
its path to disowning a sizable number of its people, their culture, and their
heritage, making them feel strange in their own country. The people of a
country are as much a part of it as their culture and heritage. They cannot be
counted as apart, rather they should be accepted in totality.
The travelogue,
Minarets in the Mountains, contains fascinating accounts that go beyond the
experiences and observations of the author. A remarkable entertaining book of
this genre, the Minarets in the Mountains can be useful to people
interested in cross-cultural studies of Muslim societies in Europe.
-----
Mohammad
Ali has been a madrasa student. He has also participated in a three-year
program of the “Madrasa Discourses,” a program for madrasa graduates initiated
by the University of Notre Dame, USA. Currently, he is a Ph.D. Scholar at the
Department of Islamic Studies, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi. His areas of
interest include Muslim intellectual history, Muslim philosophy, Ilm-al-Kalam,
Muslim sectarian conflicts, and madrasa discourses.
URL: https://newageislam.com/books-documents/minarets-mountains-muslim-europe/d/128160
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