Muslim Women’s Dress Practices in Bosnia-Herzegovina: Localizing Islam through Everyday Lived Practice

Abstract

Islamic revival in Bosnia-Herzegovina¹ is usually read in one of two ways: as a political utilization of religion in the pursuit of nationalist ends or as a manifestation of a global spread of radical Islam. However, by focusing on the everyday experiences of people living this revival, we can observe a complexity of Islamic discourses and practices that individual believers relate to in a variety of ways. While religion in Bosnia had undeniably been co-opted for political purposes, the Islamic revival contains an unmistakable religious dimension that has been documented as early as the 1980s (Sorabji 1989). For a significant number of Bosniaks, Islam is more than a cultural identity. It is personal faith that guides them in their process of becoming a particular kind of self. This complex relationship between political discourses and faith in the Balkans is explored in detail in the Introduction and dealt with throughout the chapters in this volume. What this chapter contributes to the discussion is an account of how individual believers interact with political, cultural and religious discourses in their daily lives. It is based on ten months of ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Sarajevo during several trips between 2005 and 2010, where I spent most of my time visiting a variety of Islamic spaces and talking with women who identified as believers.