Islam in the Balkans Religion and Society between Europe and the Arab World   Harry T. Norris   Hurst & Company, London 1993  Scans in .pdf format (38 Mb)

    Introduction

1. The Arabs, the Slavs, the Hungarian Saracens and the Arnauts

The Arabs enter Balkan history — Middle Eastern beliefs among the Slavs — The Arab threat to Byzantium — Arabs and Bulgarians at the beginning of the tenth century — Dubrovnik and the Arab East — Pecheneg and Khwarizmian Muslims in medieval Hungary — Al-Idrīsī (548/1154) describes the Yugoslav coast, Albania and the Macedonian interior — The Arnauts — Balkan regions, the 'Chanson de Roland’ and medieval Arabic folk epics

 

2. Oriental influences on Islamic and non-Islamic life and literature in Bosnia, in Macedonia and among the Albanians

The Bogomil and Christian background — Islam and the Balkan city — Mosque, tekke and library — Arabic and Persian scholarship — Early Islamic poets in Albania — Islamic popular literature — Early nineteenth-century poets

 

3. Ṣūfī movements and orders in the Balkans and their historical links with the Ṣūfīsm of Central Asia

The Baktāshīyya — Non-Shī‘īte Ṣūfī orders in the Balkans — The Qādiriyya — The Mawlawiyya — The Khalwatiyya — The Naqshabandiyya — The Malāmiyya — Shaykh al-Ṭā’ifa al-Bayrāmiyya — The origins of the Baktāshīyya in Albania — When were the first tekkes built in the heart of Albania? — Krujë

 

4. Muslim heroes of the Bulgars, the Tatars of the Dobrudja, the Albanians and the Bosnians

Oriental legends about the Arabian and Central Asian ancestry of the Bulgars and Arnauts — The folk epic, religious mission, miracles and many tombs of Sari Saltik — Krujë, Sari Saltik and Gjerg Elez Alia in Albania and Bosnia

 

5. Albanian Ṣūfī poets of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and their impact on contemporary Albanian thought

The writings of Naim Frashëri — Naim Frashëri’s poem on Skanderbeg — Naim Frashëri’s Baktāshī works — The historical background to Naim's ‘Qerbelaja’ — The tekkes of Iraq — The epic of Fudūlī and his influences on later Albanian literature — ‘Qerbelaja’ — Twentieth-century Ṣūfī poets of Kosovo — The Baktāshī legacy in the verse of Baba ‘Alī Tomori — The neo-mysticism of Hamid Gjylbegaj

 

6. Balkan Muslims in the history of the Maghrib, Egypt and Syria and the influence of the Arab East in the courtly life of ‘Alī Pasha of Tepelenë

Albanians and Bosnians in Algeria and Tunisia — Albanians in Egypt — Albanians and the Cairene Baktāshī tekkes — The history of Shaykh Muḥammad Luṭfī Bābā and Shaykh Aḥmad Sirrī Bābā — al-Hājj ‘Umar Luṭfī Bashārīzī — ‘Alī Pasha of Tepelenë — The Albanians in Syria

 

7. Bridges and barriers of Islamic faith and culture within Balkan Muslim and non-Muslim societies

The battle of Kosovo and the Serb crusade against Islam — Syncretic movements and religious bridge-building in the late Middle Ages — Romanian monasteries and mosques and links with the Arab East — Islam in Kosovo — The Future

 

    Select Bibliography

    Appendix: The Serbian view of Islam in the 1980s

 

    Index of Terms — Index of Places — Index of Persons and Nationalities

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