Book | Dervishes and Islam in Bosnia by Ines Aščerić-Todd

Mavi Boncuk | 

Dervishes and Islam in Bosnia Sufi Dimensions to the Formation of Bosnian Muslim Society 

Series: The Ottoman Empire and its Heritage, Volume: 58 

Author:  [1]

In Dervishes aInes Aščerić-Toddnd Islam in Bosnia, Ines Aščerić-Todd explores the involvement of Sufi orders in the formation of Muslim society in the first two centuries of Ottoman rule in Bosnia (15th - 16th centuries C.E.). Using a wide range of primary sources, Aščerić-Todd shows that Sufi traditions and the activities of dervish orders were at the heart of the religious, cultural, socio-economic and political dynamics in Bosnia in the period which witnessed the emergence of Bosnian Muslim society and the most intensive phase of conversions of the Bosnian population to Islam. In the process, she also challenges some of the established views regarding Ottoman guilds and the subject of futuwwa (Sufi code of honour). 

[1] Ines Aščerić-Todd 

Head of Department, Lecturer in Arabic and Middle Eastern Cultures

University of Edinburgh  Google Scholar

NOTE: Almost all of Bosnian Muslims identify as Bosniaks; until 1993, Bosnians of Muslim culture or origin (regardless of religious practice) were defined by Yugoslav authorities as Muslimani (Muslims) in an ethno-national sense (hence the capital M), though some people of Bosniak or Muslim backgrounds identified their nationality (in an ethnic sense rather than strictly in terms of citizenship) as "Yugoslav" prior to the early 1990s. A small minority of non-Bosniak Muslims in Bosnia and Herzegovina include Albanians, Roma and Turks.

Extract

This book continues Brill’s prestigious series ‘The Ottoman Empire and its Heritage—Politics, Society and Economy’; its author holds a doctorate from the University of Oxford and currently teaches Arabic language and literature at the University of Edinburgh. On both counts, readers may expect well-documented and balanced argument properly fitted to established scholarship on the history and role of Sufi/dervish orders in Bosnia and the Balkans more widely: they will not be disappointed.

Dervishes and Islam in Bosnia has three major parts. The first looks, through the early stages of the Ottoman conquest and settlements of Bosnia, the establishment of urban centres, etc., at the Sufi contribution to this early development of ‘Bosnian Muslim Society’. To a great extent the Sufis stood for a pacifying or revitalizing aspect of the conquest. Aščerić-Todd identifies the most remarkable dervishes of the time, recounts the construction of the first tekkes and hostels in Bosnia and explains their complex role.

FROM INTRODUCTION

The role played by dervish orders in the settlement of some areas of the Balkans following the Ottoman conquest, and, by extension, in the Islamisation1 processes which occurred in the wake of it, has been recognized in a number of studies. These processes would follow a similar pattern, involving an individual or a group of dervish settlers arriving in an area with or soon after the Ottoman army, building and endowing a tekke (a Sufi lodge) or another institution of religious or charitable nature, and thus leaving a lasting impact on the area and its population. One of the first studies on this topic was Ömer Lütfi Barkan’s article “Istilâ devirlerinin kolonizatör Türk dervişleri ve zâviyeler,” concerned with dervish settlers in the south-eastern Balkans during the early Ottoman conquests in the region. Another relatively early study, whose importance has not yet been surpassed and whi is still among the most frequently quoted authorities on the subject, is Nedim Filipović’s Princ Musa i šejh Bedreddin.3 This lengthy work is concerned with the political and military upheavals in the Ottoman Empire in the early 15th century, triggered by the Ottoman defeat at the hands of Tamerlane at the battle of Ankara in 1402.4 As a background to this, and to the revolt of Sheikh Bedreddin (d. 1420) which followed, Filipović provides an examination of the early Ottoman conquests in the Balkans and the nature of the conquering force which carried them out. According to Filipović, these troops consisted of three mutually connected elements of the Ottoman society of that time: ghazis, akhis and dervishes. The first term refers to a complex and historically somewhat controversial concept of ‘religious warriors’, whose ideology of holy war (ghaza), according to some historians, Filipović among them, played a crucial role in the early conquests and the expansion of the Ottoman Empire. The second refers to members of semi-mil- itary associations of young men, linked together by the concept of futuwwa – ‘spiritual chivalry’ or a code of noble conduct closely related to Sufism. Both of these groups, their origin and their character will be given more attention in Chapter 1 of this study. Going back to Filipović’s argument, many dervish- warriors, together with ghazis and akhis, settled in the newly-conquered regions, and were subsequently responsible for propagating Islam among the local population of those regions. Building their zaviyes (an alternative term for a Sufi lodge, or a tekke, from the Arabic ‘zāwiya’), which usually had land attached to them, and by recruiting workers to cultivate this land and otherwise engaging with the local population, these dervishes were able to carry out their proselytising role among them. Another good example of a process in which dervish-settlers played a major role in the character and development of an area following the Ottoman conquest, is the one in northern Greece, documented by Heath Lowry in The Shaping of the Ottoman Balkans 1350–1550: the Conquest, Settlement and Infrastructural Development of Northern Greece. Lowry examines the case of the legendary warrior Evrenos Bey (d. 1417) and his descendants Evrenosoğulları, who were responsible for conquering large areas of Western Thrace in the 14th century, and with their hospices, imarets (public kitchens), and other charitable institutions and endowments, completely changed the infrastructure of those areas and exerted a huge influence on the society there. Lowry’s research further shows that among the troops which conquered those regions, such as those led by Evrenos, there were many dervish-warriors, who “almost certainly comprised the earliest Muslim settlers in the newly-conquered territories.” When it comes to these kinds of activities of dervish orders in Bosnia, the situation is somewhat different, for there is no single work devoted to this subject, and, a few notable exceptions notwithstanding, generally little consideration has been given to the extent of dervish activities and the influence of Sufi