A note on Islam in the Sandzak

In one of the many books on the fall of Yugoslavia that I read in preparation for coming to this neck of the woods, the author described Bosniaks as ‘the world’s worst Muslims.’ If religiosity is measured in kindness, generosity, etc., I would disagree, but that is not what the author intended. She (or he)--all the books I read at that time are now a blur--meant that the Bosnian Muslims don’t as closely follow some of the social norms that are prevalent in other Muslim contexts.

The only other Muslim contexts that I can compare the Sandzak to are the Middle East. (I spent six months in Cairo and traveled a bit in neighboring countries.) I am fonder of the Sandzak school of Islam, at least as I saw in practiced by the people I met. It seems let hung up on rules. I am not a fan of religious rigidity about minor things. (Murder is something to be rigid about, eating meat on Fridays isn't.)

(I have been told that imported Wahhabism is on the rise in the region, but I didn’t come into personal contact with it.)

For one, the relationship to alcohol is more relaxed. It is possible to get a beer in most cafes, although most of the people I was with didn’t drink often. (In Cairo, drinking is only for tourists and done almost exclusively in hotel bars.) When a companion was served an alcoholic beer in place of the non-alcoholic one he ordered, he was annoyed that his order was messed up, but not particularly concerned about his accidental alcohol ingestion.

It seems to be mostly men that drink, though. On my last night in Tutin, I was out at a club (they all close at 11pm) and ran into some of my new acquaintances. A few of them told me ‘I am going crazy tonight.’ It was an odd juxtaposition to then look down at their hand to see they were holding a coca-cola bottle. Drinking a few coca-colas does not seem to be particularly crazy-making.

And the relationships between men and women seem more reasonable than what I experienced in Cairo. (Still, I don’t think I could handle Tutin life on a day-to-day basis.) Men and women touch each other and talk to each other on the streets. Friends kiss each other hello. These are all things that I didn’t see when I was in Cairo… There, I lived in a dorm where guards kept watch to make sure that men and women didn’t touch.

But no one ate pork and the call to prayer was just as lovely.