Faces of Muslim Balkans

Just a few pictures from our few days among Muslims in the Balkans. The first picture below is of the Albanian-ethnic attendant of a mosque in Belgrade, Serbia; the rest are of Bosnians in Sarajevo. At an "ethnic" level, the story of Bosnia and Hercegovina is remarkably similar to the story of Cyprus (see posts of 10.27 and 10.28). Before the recent conflict, we were told, Muslim and Christian Bosnians thought of each other as people of the same "nationality" but merely different religions. Since the disintegration of the Yugoslav Republic and the subsequent conflicts, Christian Bosnians have been restyled as Serbs or Croats, with the "Serbian" Bosnians in particular identifying themselves with the Serbs of Serbia (even flying the Serbian flag within their semi-autonomous breakaway Republika Srpska) rather than the Muslim Bosnians, or Bosniaks, with whom they had lived together for hundreds of years. We were told that it is not possible to tell Christian and Muslim Bosnians apart, just as with Christian and Muslim Cypriots, but as all of the pictures of Bosnians below were taken within the city of Sarajevo, the subjects are most likely Muslim. As you can see, Muslims Bosnians look typically Slavic--they are genetically no different from their Christian neighbors. Few Bosnian women wear headscarves and few Bosnian men beards.