In her sparkling and splendid new book The Afterlife of Ottoman Europe: Muslims in Habsburg Bosnia Herzegovina (Stanford University Press, 2023), Leyla Amzi-Erdogdular presents a thorough and deeply layered account of the relationship between the Ottoman and Habsburg empires, and Muslims of Bosnia Herzegovina leading to and beyond the Berlin Treaty of 1878. At the heart of Erdogdular’s project is an argument for taking seriously the significant continuities in the relationship between Ottoman imperial rule and the religious and political lives of Bosnian Muslims. This meticulously researched and beautifully written book makes a compelling and convincing case for disrupting the popular opinion that locates the beginning of modernity in Bosnia Herzegovina with the onset of Habsburg rule. It does so by showing the complex and fascinating histories and discourses on such critical questions as migration (hijra), the encounter of Islam and modernity, education, and the nation that highlight the important role and place of Bosnian Muslim intellectuals and other actors to this story. This outstanding book is a landmark publication in the study of Islam and Muslim societies that provides a critically significant avenue of learning about a region and history often missed in dominant historiographies.
SherAli Tareen is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Franklin and Marshall College. His research focuses on Muslim intellectual traditions and debates in early modern and modern South Asia. His book Defending Muhammad in Modernity (University of Notre Dame Press, 2020) received the American Institute of Pakistan Studies 2020 Book Prize and was selected as a finalist for the 2021 American Academy of Religion Book Award. His second book is called Perilous Intimacies: Debating Hindu-Muslim Friendship after Empire (Columbia University Press, 2023). His other academic publications are available here. He can be reached at sherali.tareen@fandm.edu. Listener feedback is most welcome.
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