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. 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