Turkish & SaudiInvolvement in

Bosnia-Herzegovina andKosova

- 1990’s to present - Ben Priest

In comparison to the Balkans, both Turkey and Saudi Arabia are politically stable and wealthy, and both have the

capacity to bring in much needed funds for rebuilding and

expanding infrastructure. The greatest differences between

these countries lay in their respective capacities for

projecting their religious institutions. While Turkey is

only the shadow of its former religious stature as heart of

the Ottoman caliphate, it has turned into one of the

strongest economic drivers in the region. Saudi Arabia, with

immense sovereign wealth from oil revenues, has become a

wellspring of conservative Islamism and has increasingly

exports various forms of Wahhabism along with its financial

aid and investitures in other Muslim countries. In both

cases, foreign investment is tied to regional competition;

while both benefit politically, Turkey has more to gain

financially, and Saudi Arabia has more to gain religiously.

For Muslims of the Balkans, the price that comes with the

introduction of foreign capital and presence is the

increased influence of foreign civic and religious

institutions that oversee and administer that capital.

Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo

A Brief History

Until its dissolution in 1992, Yugoslavia was made up

of seven provinces: Kosova (Kosovo), Macedonia, Croatia,

Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Slovenia, and Serbia;

Kosova has proclaimed independence twice, once in 1990 and

again in 2008, Macedonia, Croatia, and Slovenia all

proclaimed independence in 1991, Bosnia and Herzegovina

proclaimed it a year later, Montenegro doing the same in

2006. Meanwhile, Serbia was trying to keep them all together

under its control (U.S. Department of State 2013). Until

1980, Yugoslavia was rule by Josip Broz Tito, and religion

was under the control of the communist government. Since the

fall of communism and the break-up of Yugoslavia into its

constituent countries, open religious affiliation has become

a medium of national expression (see Ramet 2014). While

there are Muslim communities throughout former-Yugoslavia

and its neighboring states, they are focused mainly in

Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosova, with the majority of them

being Bosnian and Albanian speaking (Merdjanova 2011).

The Islamic practices of these countries have been in

large part shaped by Sufi missionaries that pervaded the

Ottoman peripheral. The largest tariqas (spiritual paths) in

operation in this region are the Bektashis, Naqshibandis,

Khalwatis, Qadirris, and Rifacis. These organizations

continued under a tightly controlled existence during the

communist period with the Islamic Community working in

tandem with the state to restrict and control Muslim

activity. The main fear was that the ritual gatherings at

holy sites facilitated the formation of uncontrolled and

unauthorized practice and narrative and could potentially be

used to foment resistance.

With the threads Sufism sowed throughout Balkan Islamic

tradition and the extremely interwoven nature of many Muslim

and Christian communities, the practices have a decidedly

esoteric bend. In addition to conventional masjids seen

throughout the rest of the Muslim world, there are many

sacred places for gathering and worship located in the

outdoors, most of them being marked by simple wooden

structures and are associated with Islamic-bearing dervishes

associated with their miracles (Karčić 2010). Two such sites

are Ajvatovica and Karići in Bosnia-Herzegovina, the first

being related to a miraculous return of water to a village

and the second being the epicenter of the cult of Hajdar-

dedo Karić, a local saint. During WWII, the wooden mosque at

Karići was destroyed, so they worshipped in a nearby mosque,

and from 1947 to 1990, visitation and worship there was

strictly banned.

In its essence, Balkan Islam bears immense similarity

to other Sufi-permeated Islamic peripheries, placing strong

emphasis on the mystic. It also incorporates a shared Perso-

Arab vocabulary, hardly differing in its local

pronunciation, i.e. keremet (miracle through a saint), barakát

(blessings), zikr (repetition of the names of God), zijaret

(shrine visitation), etc. What makes it unique is its

context and history – the mountainous geography of the

region leads to certain areas having more difficulty with

rain, leading to such practices as dovište, group prayers

held outdoors asking for rain. Describing these meetings,

anthropologist David Henig wrote,

The pilgrimage gathering usually involves reciting

of the entire Qurān (hatma dove), singing songs

revering Allah (ilahija), and other performances such

as the recital of mevlud verses in both Turkish and

Bosnian, tevhid for Ottoman as well as Bosnian

martyrs (šehide), and collective devotional and

ecstatic prayer, kijam zikr (Arabic, qiyām dhikr). The

kijam zikr is performed by dervishes and led by a

dervish sheikh. Other pilgrims usually observe

rather than take part in this form of prayer… (2012,

p. 755)

The constraints of communism and competition with

neighboring Christian Orthodoxies has also influenced the

sites used and the attitudes with which Balkan Muslims have

viewed themselves. Many Muslims were unable to make their

‘hajj’ to places like Ajvatovica and Karići until after Tito

passed in 1980, or even later due to the political climate

of a dissolving Yugoslavia. Consequently, much of the

younger generation relied on their elders to know how the

practices were to be conducted and how they should go

forward with their renewal. This quest for authenticity and

stability was put to the fore after the worst of the Balkan

Wars.

The Wars

It is necessary to at least give a simple overview of

the wars even if a proper treatment of their full impact is

far beyond the scope of this article. The wars themselves

were driven by ethno-religious nationalism and in many cases

turned neighbors against each other (Trebinčević and

Shapiroć 2014). In the cases of Slovenia and Croatia, the

wars with Serbia were immensely short-lived and had

definitive ends. In Bosnia and Kosova, the international

components that either fueled or tried to quell the violence

were incredibly complex and led to drawn out conflicts that

technically only ended in ceasefires. Over 100,000 people

were killed, well over that number were displaced, and many

thousands were systemically tortured or raped (Salzman

1998). In each of the wars Serbia is recognized by most of

the world as being the primary aggressor.

Under all of the bombs, looting, and decay, the states’

infrastructures were decimated. For example, Bosnia, with an

economy based on mining, textiles, and energy, lost over 80%

of production with unemployment and inflation rising

incredibly between 1992 and 1995 (CIA World Factbook). Even

now, Kosova still suffers from 31% unemployment and the

lowest GDP in all of Europe. Like their respective

countries, the Islamic Religious Communities severely lacked

the capacity for rebuilding all of the destroyed

infrastructure and provide for the communities’ needs. Due

to the immense social and political insecurity, getting

outside investment into the region has been notoriously

difficult. It is in this context that the entrance of

Turkish and Saudi Arabian capital is so important.

Turkey

Between Neo-Ottomanism and Capitalism

Turkey is an interesting actor on the international

stage as it frequently acts as a bridge between the East and

West. It has been incorporated into all the major

institutions of the transatlantic community, including GATT,

WTO, OECD, the Council of Europe, and has applied for EU

membership (Rabi 2010). On the ‘eastern’ side, it has deep

relations with countries in the Middle East, and is an

active member of the Organization of Islamic Countries.

In the context of the Cold War, Turkey joined NATO in

1952. This role shaped a strong relationship between Turkey

and the United States, which grew increasingly prominent

during the Balkan Wars and in handling the military drawdown

and peace management. In 2010, Turkey was the sixth largest

contributor to the EUFOR-Althea (European Union Force),

which replaced NATO forces that were reinforcing the Dayton

Agreement from 1995. Also, Turkey is the representative for

the OIC on the Steering Board of the Peace Implementation

Council (PIC), which in keeping with the Dayton Agreement is

tasked with guiding political efforts in post-war Bosnia-

Herzegovina (OHR General Information). This, in addition to

nationalistic concessions such Turkey’s renunciation of all

claims on Cyprus, has launched Turkey from being a “security

consumer” to a provider of security and a trade state

(Kirisci 2015).

When the Republic of Turkey was founded in 1922 with

Mustafa Kamal Atatürk as its leader, by mandate of the new

regime the spiritual direction of the country was pointed

towards European-style secularism. They moved their capital

from Istanbul, the seat of the former Caliphate, to Ankara,

dropped the Perso-Arabic script for the Latin as the basis

of their language, and strictly enforced measures aimed at

diminishing the physical presence of Islam in the country

(Shields 2011). Since that time, the Turkish army has

functioned as a balance against the government as well as

any movements or rebellions that would betray the spirit of

Atatürk’s new Turkey; if the government is deemed to be

incapable of handling the national situation, there is a

strong chance of a coup.

One such situation is the rise of Islamism in the

government (Boulton and Hafezi 2013). There are two examples

from the last four decades that illustrate this, the first

being in 1980, which was preceded by massive political

violence between rival factions on the left and right. After

the coup, the National Salvation Party, an Islamist party,

which was formed in 1972 and was part of the governing

coalition at the time of the coup, was banned (Taşpınar

2012). The second example was in 1997, three years after the

Welfare Party won elections in both Istanbul and Ankara and

later formed the largest bloc in parliament, partially due

to their forward stance on intervention in Bosnia (Zubaida

1996). The current president of Turkey, Recep Tayyip

Edroğan, was the mayor of Istanbul at the time and was

jailed for four months in 1999 for reading a poem that had

Islamic undertones. Despite this, he was elected as Turkey’s

prime minister from March 2003 to August 2014.

The army and Kemalist/secularists remain wary of

Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party (Turkish acronym

AKP), despite the steps his government has taken to match

standards with and join the EU. In addition to making steps

towards union with Europe, the party has received wide

public support on account of their successful domestic

agenda. While they have publicly distanced themselves from

Islamic labels, they nonetheless exemplify a significantly

less virulent form of secularism, supporting such movements

as that to allow the wearing of religious outer clothing,

namely the hijab, as well as rejecting special testing

criteria required for graduates from Islamic secondary

schools (Taşpınar 2012). A remarkable shift in the political

dynamics took place in 2012, when a large number of military

leaders asked for early retirement and a large number of

admirals and generals were jailed for plotting against the

government.

Outreach in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosova

Part of what has launched Turkey into a position of

international leadership is its massive increase in trading

and trading-partnerships. In 2013, the amount of Turkey’s

GDP from trade was 49.2%, up from 39% in 2005. Less than 1%

of that trade comes from the Western Balkans and less than

5% of Turkish direct investment goes to the Western Balkans;

the greatest Turkish output and input is to and from the EU.

Despite the fact that the states of former-Yugoslavia only

occupy a limited amount of Turkey’s total foreign

investment, that investment plays a much stronger role for

those countries, as does the Turkish role in rebuilding the

destruction in Skopje, Priştina Bitola, and a bridge in

Mostar. According to AKP rhetoric, these countries play an

important role in Turkish foreign policy. In his book

“Strategic Depth,” Ahmet Davutoğlu, the current Prime

Minister of Turkey, wrote, “the defence of Eastern Thrace

and Istanbul now begins in the Adriatic Sea and Sarajevo,

and the defence of Eastern Anatolia and Erzurum begins in

the Northern Caucasus and Grozny,” (2001). Over ten million

Turks claim roots in the Western Balkans (Petrovic 2011).

Clearly, this investiture, whether great or small, is aimed

at expanding the Turkish presence throughout the region. The

term Davutoğlu used to describe this expansion is

“Lebensraum,” a term coined by German political geographer

Karl Haushofer meaning ‘breathing room’ (Ozkan 2014). While

he is also quick to say that the EU does not face a zero-sum

situation with Turkish expansion, there is the matter of

Turkish-Greek competition over territory and trade, and in

that situation, a loss for one is almost always a gain for

the other (Dw.de 2012).

Davutoğlu, who was the Foreign Minister in 2009, said

in a speech in Sarajevo, “the Ottoman centuries of the

Balkans were success stories. Now we have to reinvent this,” (Nagy

2012; emphasis added). In defense of increased Turkish

involvement in the Balkans, Bosnia-Herzegovina in

particular, Davutoğlu added, "We are paying the bill for our

Ottoman history because whenever there is a crisis in the

Balkans (Bosnians, Albanians, Turks in Bulgaria, etc.), they

look to Istanbul.” Eight years previously, Davutoğlu wrote

that Bosnia-Herzegovina was a “political, economic, and

cultural outpost of Turkey in Central Europe,” and that the

societies of both Bosnia-Herzegovina and Albania were “the

remnants of the Ottoman Empire whose fates are tied to

Turkey's regional power and hegemony.” While every step that

Turkey has made in the 1990’s and beyond has been aimed at

reaffirming the territorial integrity of places like Bosnia-

Herzegovina, it has done so in such a way as to communicate

a quasi-paternal relationship.

Changes for the better

From the point of view of Serbian ultranationalists,

the role played by Turkey would be highly suspect. Those

Ottoman “success stories” spoken of by Davutoğlu lie at the

heart of the rhetoric that cast Serbs in the shadow of

imminent genocide at the hands of their Muslim neighbors in

the 1980’s and 90’s. According to this view, Ottoman

“success[es]” were the figurative nails in the crucifixion

of the Serbs. In the culture inculcated by the Serbian

Orthodox Church, these themes enmesh nationalistic and

religious martyrdom into a powerful facet of national and

ethnic identity. Throughout the 1990’s, the epithet of

“Turk” was frequently applied to Muslims, the implication

being synonymous with ‘invader,’ ‘traitor,’ or ‘barbarian.’

In the aftermath of the most active portions of the

wars – meaning post-Dayton Accords in 1995 for Bosnia and

the formal withdrawal of Serbian troops and cessation of

NATO strikes June 1999 for Kosova – political developments

between Serbia and Kosova have been mixed. There have been

marks of progress – in 2013, Serbian President Tomislav

Nikolic gave a public apology on Bosnian TV, saying, "I am

down on my knees because of it. Here, I am down on my knees.

And I am asking for a pardon for Serbia for the crime that

was committed in Srebrenica. I apologize for the crimes

committed by any individual on behalf of our state and our

people," (McElroy 2013). On the other hand, he claimed that

the genocidal nature of the massacre is still unproven, and

his government has yet to recognize the sovereignty of

Kosova as a state (Gvosdev 2013). With respect to legal

justice for crimes committed, the International Criminal

Court is still working through proceedings for a limited

number of individuals (Pop 2015) and mass graves are still

being located and victims identified. It is worth

recognizing that President Nikolic was a top official in the

Serbian Radical Party in 2008, which did not recognize

Serbian crimes during the Bosnian War. The prior Serbian

president, Boris Tadic, not only helped round up several of

the worst Serbian war criminals but also recognized the

massacre as being an act of genocide (BBC 2013).

In addition to the thawing of relations between Serbia

and Kosova, there is the matter of Serbia’s greatly

increased contact with Turkey. A month after his Srebrenica

apology, President Nikolic visited Turkey and expressed his

wish to Turkish President Abdullah Gul that trade between

the two should exceed $1 billion, which would nearly double

their then-current trade volume of approximately $550

million (Eralp 2013). On Turkey’s part, this partnership has

manifested itself in such acts as €10 million loan for

expanding the military airport in Kraljevo for civilian

purposes (including travel to Turkey). Turkish companies are

also involved in the reconstruction of Corridor 10, which

connects the Adriatic region to Belgrade and EU

transportation routes. While this topic is worth much

greater exploration than this paper can provide, the South

Stream oil project is worth mentioning in this context of

Serbian-Turkish relations as it represented a very large

source of revenue for the two had Russian and EU relations

not soured so entirely in the last two years (Than and Khan

2015).

As for why Serbian-Turkish relations figure so strongly

into understanding Turkish expansion into Bosnia-Herzegovina

and Kosova, it is the fact that Serbians are by and large

members of the Serbian Orthodox Church, which has been

vehement in its denunciation of Balkan Muslims and is

ideologically and religiously closer to Greece. That Turkey,

the source of Balkan Islam, and Serbia are doing so much

business together presents a complete volte-face from the

nationalist logic, pretexts, and biases that led to the wars

in the first place. This sharp transformation of interaction

helps illustrate a better paradigm regarding interethnic

relations and nationalism than that of ‘unavoidable, inborn

blood-feuding.’ First, national memory can be as selective

and reach as far back as needed. Second, historical accuracy

of the national mythos is subordinate to national agenda. In

the case of Turkish-Serbian relations in the late 2000’s,

that agenda has an economic rather than an ethno-religious

orientation. So from this perspective, Turkish outreach has

had a quantifiably positive effect on the lives of Balkan

Muslims and non-Muslims alike.

With respect to the residual claims of “neo-

Ottomanization” or “Sunnification” of Turkish outreach, the

only real connections are through Sufi cemáts, as their

tariqas had been shunned by the government for many years

vis-à-vis putting an official (albeit largely ignored) ban

on their tekkes and lodges (Today’s Zaman 2012). Some

scholars argue that Turkish Islamic elites have lacked the

requisite diplomatic power and have not been able to compete

with the success of the Turkish government’s ideologically

lite capitalist approach to its neighbors (Ozbak 2014). It

would seem that despite the rollback on the Turkish

military’s domestic role, the government’s approach has been

so successful (at least on its Western front) and its

Islamic rhetoric so subordinated to those policies that

domestic and foreign support for removing the AKP has

remained weak. Davutoğlu may assert that his nation is not a

Western peripheral and is still the center of the Islamic

world, but his foreign policy reflects blindness to

religious persuasion in Eastern Europe.

While this would seem to wrap up the question of

economics and religion, there is the matter of the Turkish

Religious Affairs Directorate, a ministry that receives a

massive amount of money through the government and religious

endowments (Zubaida 1996). This organization is one result

of the 1925 disbursal of Sufi tariqas and their avkaf

(religious endowments), and has subsequently been the

overseer of mosques, religious education, foundations, and

charities. These categories encompass an immense amount of

social territory, and the use of these funds is even more

vague (Today’s Zaman 2015). The Turkish Religious Affairs

Foundation (Dıyanet), an arm of the ministry, has come under

fire by Turkish politicians for being overly opaque in its

dealings, especially considering that its budget exceeds

that of eleven other important ministries, including the

Foreign and the Interior (Hurriet Daily News 2012).

According to its own statistics, the amounts allocated

seem to be in order (Dıyanet İşleri Başkanliği 2013), but it

has been accused by Turkish politicians of having budget

items that remain withheld from governmental scrutiny. The

Dıyanet has had offices throughout the Balkans starting in

the 1990’s, and has helped maintain religious institutional

connections and bring students into Turkey for theological

and academic studies (Karčić 2010). As part of this effort

from the non-official end of the spectrum, cemâts have been

growing during that same period and are heavily engaged in

religious education ranging from the preparatory level to

collegiate. The Bosnian term used to describe this outreach

is džamija diplomatija’, ‘mosque diplomacy’ (Noel-Hill 2011). In

this situation, it is therefore difficult to determine to

what degree Turkish soft power goes beyond purely secular

economics and into the realm of religiously driven

patronage.

Saudi Arabia

Of Piousness and Playboys

Saudi Arabia is in many ways Turkey’s opposite when it

comes to its approach to Islam in governance and seeking to

be the dominant force in shaping Islamic practices outside

of its own physical borders. This is due to the paradox

within the kingdom itself, which is the Al-Sacūd family.

Ever since the discovery and extraction of oil from Saudi

wells in 1933, many members of the ruling family have been

known for their notoriously lavish and consumer-oriented

lifestyles (Cahalan 2012, Global Research News 2013). This

runs in sharp contradistinction to the royal family’s title

of Khādim al-Ḥaramayn al-Šarīfayn – Custodian of the Two Noble

Sanctuaries (in reference to Mecca and Medina) – a point

with which many conservative culemā’ based in the extremely

orthodox tradition of Muhammad Ibn cAbd al-Wahhāb (d. 1792)

view with great umbrage and discomfort.

In March 1979, Mecca was besieged by a Saudi-based

group claiming to be led by the Mahdi (Trofimov 2008). While

the Saudis were able to forcibly reclaim the shrine, it

highlighted the need to change its public image more

drastically. During that same year, the Shāh of Iran was

overthrown and Iran became the first Islamic Republic,

headed by Grand Ayatollah Khomeinī. While the Saudi monarchs

had based their government on a Wahhabi interpretation of

şarīca and deeply involved the ulemā’, it was obvious that

more had to be done to quell the unrest that existed within

the kingdom’s own borders and counter the challenge to its

position, both foreign and domestic (Prokop 2003).

In addition to the domestic social programs that the

Kingdom set in place, it also put large amounts of money

into foreign aid and proselyting activities. The main goal

of this was to boost its capacity and credentials as leader

of the Muslim world and counter Iranian interests as much as

possible. Thus far, it has been successful in exercising its

sizeable economic power to espouse many causes in the Muslim

world through international organizations and direct

application of foreign aid.

In addition to being a major player in such bodies as

the UN, IMF, and World Bank, it plays a key role in the

Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC). The OIC is one of

the largest international organizations in existence,

comprising fifty-seven countries from throughout Asia,

Africa, the Middle East, Oceania, South America, and the

Balkans. The OIC was created in 1969 as a kind of rebound

from the failures of Middle Eastern countries to counter the

vestiges of Western colonial activities. The organization

was established during a meeting in Rabat, Morocco, but is

permanently based in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. While still

involved in Middle Eastern politics, the OIC seeks to

transcend preoccupation with a single region and represent

the worldwide ummah in countering challenges to the Islamic

community in general and working towards common economic,

political, and social interests.

Identity Projection – Outreach to Bosnian Muslims

With respect to the Balkans, Albania is a full member

state of the organization, and Bosnia-Herzegovina has been

invited to go from being an observer state to a full-fledged

member. Albania’s membership granted it access to $222.7

million from the Islamic Development Bank (based in Saudi

Arabia), $100 million from the Abu Dhabi fund, and $15-25

million from both the Saudi Fund and the OPEC fund to help

reconstruct Corridor 10 just as Turkey is in Serbia (Kotova

2011).

Some critics of the OIC view it as containing all of

the necessary framework for establishing a caliphate (Ye’or

2011). Others are suspicious of the role that Saudi money

plays in determining and funding the organization’s

initiatives. From 1992 to 2011, the Saudi monarchy, in an

effort led by the current leader of the Kingdom, Salman bin

cAbd al-cAzīz, sent over a half-billion dollars in aid to

Bosnia (al-arabiya.net 2011) and over $800 million to Kosova

(NPR 2010). The Saudi High Commission (SHC) for Relief to

Bosnia and Herzegovina claimed that this program was

intended specifically for fighting poverty, improving

available healthcare, infrastructure, and preserving

cultural relics. However, investigations by various

intelligence sources, NATO, and the UN have revealed that

much of this money, in addition to other sizeable donations

through charities such as the International Islamic Relief

Organization, were funneled into arming and funding Islamic

extremist groups in the region (Weinberg 2015). Employees of

the SHC have also been directly linked to ethnic massacres

within Bosnia. In short, many of these charitable

institutions have been proven to be mobilizing agents for

perpetuating ideological and tactical action. The Saudi

regime has consistently claimed either ignorance or flatly

refuted having aided or abetted militants in the Balkans.

As for the aid that did go to publicly sanctioned

endeavors, they too are far from being politically neutral.

Somewhere over 150 mosques and cultural centers have been

built in Bosnia with Salafi or Wahhabi orientation, and

Bosnian theological and academic Islamic studies, such as

that in Sarajevo university, are filled with the same

(Bardos 2014, NPR 2010). These Saudi groups targeted poorer

communities and offered them salaries to adopt the

ideological orientation, or at least to adopt all of the

social cues related to it. Many Bosniaks and Kosovars

previously differed very little from their neighbors of

various national Orthodoxies in dress and other physical

religious expression until that time. Now, one can go to the

Saudi-built Hasan Beg Mosque in Kosova’s capital, Priştina,

and find veiled women and bearded men, aesthetics that are

clearly an import from outside of local tradition.

The Kingdom and the Republic

Saudi’s counter-Iranian efforts in the Balkans are tied

to the start of the Bosnian War in 1992, when Iran tacitly

provided the embargoed Bosnians with humanitarian aid,

funds, and arms (Karčić 2010). Along with these arms came

military and intelligence agents who worked in tandem with

Bosniak forces. After the Dayton Accords, the Iranian-

Bosnian connection was purportedly severed with the

exception of Shi’ite based educational and cultural

institutions, all of which produce materials, including

fatwas, with Iranian and Shi’ite-oriented views. While most

of the Balkan cemáts and tariqas are Sunni-oriented, there are

Shi’ite orders, such as the Mevlevis, that have existed for

centuries within the region and still include Persian in

their liturgy. Iran’s largest European embassy is located in

Sarajevo, and many charitable institutions similar to those

of Saudi Arabia are active throughout the Balkans. While

there are no recorded incidents between Iranian and Saudi

agents in Bosnia-Herzegovina or Kosova, they are certainly

in competition with each other over strategic alliances,

international footholds, and arming, training, and teaching

militant groups.

All of this highlights the two greatest negative

externalities of Saudi funding. Obviously, any and all fuel

to civic unrest vis-à-vis paramilitary groups and other

ideologically driven militants has an extremely negative

impact on regional stability. Introducing groups willing to

lengthen and broaden the violence is irrevocably in conflict

with the needs of individuals, their families, and their

communities at large and evidence of a larger strategy in

which the Balkans are but a piece. There are not many

Bosniaks or Kosovars that adopt this ideology whole-

heartedly, as the majority identify the introduction of

Wahhabism as an identity crisis (Noel-Hill 2011).

Within the spectrum of observed behaviors and modes of

coexistence, many of these parties frequently engender those

that range between antagonistic tolerance1 and antagonistic 1 A term coined by Robert Hayden, an anthropologist specializing in the Balkans, meaning “a pragmatic adaptation

mobilization. Saudi efforts have put into building religious

edifices in new territory, such as the Hasan Beg Mosque or

the many undamaged Kosovar mosques that they tried to have

demolished to make way for larger, more austere Wahhabi

structures (Arbarzadeh and Mansouri 2010). These

‘restoration efforts’ were little more than a concerted

effort to use economic, social, and religious power to

remake Bosnian Islam in its own image. In these cases, a new

mosque is just as good as a national flag. Dale F. Eickelman

and James Piscatory have described this process as one of

“competition and contest over both the interpretation of

symbols and control of the institutions, formal and

informal, that produce and sustain them,” (Henig 2012).

This tactic is all too familiar to the war torn

Balkans, with such acts of cultural warfare being carried

out on the large and small scale on a regular basis between

the Serbian Orthodox Church and local Islamic sects (Bowman

2010). On the subject of Saudi efforts, Kosova’s Grand Mufti

to a situation in which repression of the other group’s practices may not be possible rather than an active embrace of the Other” (2002).

Rexhep Boja said, “We have been Muslims for over 600 years

and we do not need to be told what Islam is. We have our own

history and tradition here…” (Arbarzadeh and Mansouri 2010,

192).

Institutionally, Wahhabis occupy prominent positions in

the Islamic Community of both Bosnia and Kosova and use them

to bring Balkan Muslims into Wahhabi orthodoxical line. In

2009, the post of ‘chief mufti’ for the entirety of Kosova

was created to post a former religious instructor named

Sabri Bajgora in a position to relieve an imam in Priştina

of his religious duties. The imam, Musli Verbani, reportedly

had more theological education than his newly minted

superior, who was also a devotee of the Wahhabi leader of

the Kosova Islamic Community (Schwarz 2012). The next day

1,800 worshippers came to the mosque to protest the

replacement of their imam.

The Islamic Religious Community is also one of the

social enforcement mechanisms between local Muslims and the

various Christian sects. Akin to many actions by those

sects, they are at times responsible for stoking local

tensions through decision-making that affects the practices

of those Christians. Mixed shrines have been subject to

disapproval by this organization and when possible,

manipulated so as to disallow Christian access to the site

(Bowman 2010). Going even further, bases of Balkan Islam,

such as the aforementioned dovište, zikr, zijaret, all come under

sharp criticism of these new leaders and a sense of

disaffection and animosity prevails between them and their

supposed followers (Henig 2012).

Conclusion

Clearly, all of the countries involved in the post-war

Balkans are working in accordance with foreign and domestic

pressures. For both Turkey and Saudi Arabia, the late

twentieth and beginning of the twenty-first century have

been eras of expanding their respective presence beyond the

Middle East, with most of the janissaries and warriors

wielding calculators and check books instead of scimitars

and shields. Both Turkey and Saudi Arabia are dealing with

problems of an internal and external nature, and focusing

national attention on successful outward expansion of power

helps deflect from internal deficits on these other issues.

Being able to put their own contractors or religious

outreach into rebuilding vital infrastructure and mosques is

such an appeasement.

Turkey is in active competition with countries like

Greece in expanding economically into the hinterlands of

Europe, and while it does use religious institutions to

further this cause, it does not do so to the degree with

which Saudi Arabian Wahhabism has endeavored in directing

religious institutions. Saudi Arabia has both the economic

and religious standing to project itself into the Balkans,

but the acceptance of this role by local Muslims is more

fraught than that with Turkey, a country with much stronger

cultural ties.

For the Balkans and Turkey, the situation is mutually

favorable. The offer of Turkish aid in combination with

seeking admission to the EU made powerful incentives for

Balkan states to shift their behaviors, specifically

Christian Serbia, to set aside their nationalist policies of

the 1990’s and early 2000’s to embrace a less exclusive

outlook on their Muslim rivals. This has helped de-

pressurize a situation fraught with interethnic histories

and prejudices, directly affecting the situation in Bosnia-

Herzegovina and Kosova. For Turkey, the economic crisis in

the EU, and even more importantly the more extreme situation

in Greece, has massively boosted its capacity for economic

projection into the Balkans.

For the Balkans and Saudi Arabia, the situation is much

more muddied. Militant Islamist groups seeking patronage are

finding it in through ‘charity’ organizations from the Gulf,

which expand themselves through reconstruction and

humanitarian efforts. For many, the wars never truly ended,

and a war needs weapons and ideological propagation to

fight. Some client communities are simply too poor and

without option to not accept their patrons. Considering the

kinds of violent changes they had already been subjected and

the decades of enforced distance between themselves and

local worshipping rituals, a change in dress and locale for

praying was not too difficult. For Saudi Arabia, the public

efforts to rebuild a broken Muslim country play into its

image as a beneficent leader of the Islamic community at

large and boost the organizations through which it works.

While no foreign policy can entirely distract from interior

troubles, it is still an effective means of creating one’s

own image and spreading a religious ideology that reinforces

its own supremacy.

As Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosova continue to repair

their infrastructures, develop their economies, and manage

the ongoing crises, it is quite clear that the future of

these efforts are tied to those of peoples thousands of

miles away. Regardless of any ulterior facets to Turkish and

Saudi Arabian policies, their effect on the identities and

practices of Bosniaks and Muslim Kosovars is very profound

and tangible.

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