WEBINAR ISLAM AND THE MODERN STATE: THE BOSNIAN EXPERIENCE The Religious Freedom Institute is hosting a series of webinars as part of an initiative to explore the relationship between Islam and the state. This series is part of a broader inquiry into the scope of freedom of religion within Islam and the prospects for its realization in the Muslim-majority world. Bosnia was part of the Islamic Ottoman Empire for over 400 years, but was effectively seized by the Autro-Hungarian Empire in 1878 and formally annexed in 1908. The separation from the Islamic polity marked a serious disruption for Muslims left behind in Bosnia. In the following years Bosnia would be occupied by the Nazis and be under the sovereignty of a Slavic kingdom and then communist Yugoslavia before achieving independence and weathering a brutal war in the 1990s. In this webinar, we will explore questions such as: what did this separation from the Islamic polity mean for Bosnian Muslims and how did they adapt to it? How did the Bosnian Muslim religious leadership coalesce in the aftermath of annexation, and how did it survive in the years after it? What is the relationship between Bosnian religious authorities and the state today, and what has that meant for its influence in society? How does the Bosnian experience compare with that of the post-Ottoman religious leadership in the Muslim world, and does the Muslim world have something to learn from that experience? Dr. Dzevada Susko, Assistant Professor in International Relations, International University of Sarajevo and Chief-of-Office, International Cooperation/Western World Office Department for Foreign Affairs and Diaspora, Islamic Community in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Dr. Adnan Jahić, associate professor at the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Tuzla and former member of the Bosnian House of Representatives, will explore these and other questions with RFI’s Ismail Royer and Jeremy Barker, and Osman Softić, a Sarajevo-based journalist and academic.
WHEN AND WHERE TUESDAY, JULY 21, 10:00 AM EDT Facebook Live: @ReligiousFreedomInstitute Youtube: Religious Freedom Institute
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