Muslimani Balkana na pragu 21. vijeka
The Muslims of the Balkans at the treshold of the 21st century

Summary/Abstract: This article attempts to identify the most important challenges facing the Muslims of the Balkans at the beginning of the 21st century. The author pleads for a collective effort of the Muslim intellectuals of this region toward the interpretation of Muslim historical experience during the 20th century and anticipation of challenges in times to come. The author is of opinion that the 20th century has brought to the Muslims of the Balkans not only the great territorial and demographic losses but also the discontinuity and fragmentation of their historical conscience. Overcoming this fragmentation is an important challenge facing the Muslims of the Balkans. The real threat to the Muslims of the Balkans and not a challenge, is represented by nationalist non-Muslim movements which, as history has shown, after seizing power used to awaken dormant anti-Muslim prejudices and transform them into genocidal policy. In addition, the author has found that the Muslims of the Balkans have an important historical experience of encountering European modernity. The study of this experience and its further development, relying on contemporary trends in Islamic and religious thought in general, may help the Muslims of the Balkans in responding to the challenges of the 21st century, which are an amalgam of "unfinished project of modernity" and post-modern age.

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