For Parents 03: Islam in Europe
There have been European Muslims longer than there have been European Protestants. Or, you know, any Protestants at all.
It might come up suddenly during a car ride. Something heavy in the news. Or it could be a tough topic I’m struggling to discuss. Whatever it might be, there’s lots of times I wish there were more resources out there to help. Which is where For Parents comes in.
This regular series empowers parents. That includes interviews with folks thinking about things we care about—the first installment was on praying —plus recommendations of books and movies and more I’ve found really useful.
This third installment invites a former colleague, Professor Leyla Amzi-Erdogdular, to help us understand Islam in Eastern Europe. Our conversation unfolded way back in spring, against the backdrop of the shocking Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to follow up let alone post until now. But with Ukraine back in the news, and the possibility of another war brewing in the Caucasus, it seems entirely appropriate to share perspectives you can hardly find anywhere else.
We’ve All Heard of Racism. But What About Religionism?
When Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine, we heard about Chechens fighting on his side. We heard less about the deep history of Islam in what is now the Russian Federation. That sin of omission meant we didn’t get much news about the Chechens fighting alongside Ukrainians. Never mind that Islam has been part of Ukrainian culture for centuries.1
With right-wing forces surging across parts of the West, this story is urgent. Despite what Islamophobes claim, there have been Muslims in Eastern Europe—locals who converted to and contributed to Islam—for longer than there have been Protestants anywhere in the world. For Western Muslims today, this is a singularly important history. Our story is better off including this story.
My hope is that this conversation with Dr. Leyla Amzi-Erdogdular, a Professor at Rutgers, will shed light on the often amazing, sometimes tragic, sometimes slighted arc of Eastern European Islam.2 Maybe it’ll remind us that Muslims are part of the struggle for Western democracy. Maybe it’ll cultivate a historical consciousness in the young minds of future Muslim leaders. (Hint: Your kids.)
Leyla Amzi-Erdogdular is an Assistant Professor in the Department of History at Rutgers University Newark, where she teaches Middle East and Islamic Studies. She earned her Ph.D. from the Department of Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies at Columbia University. Her research focuses on the history of the Ottoman Empire and Southeastern Europe with a focus on migrations, Muslim modernities, empires and their legacies. Leyla Amzi-Erdogdular’s forthcoming book, Afterlife of Empire, explores Ottoman continuities in Habsburg Bosnia Herzegovina.
“Muslims were present in Eurasia even before there was Russia.”
It’s Not A Story We’re Starting. It’s a Journey We’re Continuing.
This interview was supposed to go live shortly after the Russian invasion in Ukraine. For a number of reasons, I fell behind—but here we are again, with new news about the biggest conflict in Europe in our lifetimes. Recently, Ukraine took back enormous chunks of Russian-occupied territory, dissent is growing in Muslim-majority regions of Russia, and Azerbaijan and Armenia are fighting on their border.3
In many of these places, our co-religionists are involved, for better and for worse. But do we know that?
There were huge Muslim communities in places like Romania, Hungary,and Greece, though many were forced out or otherwise eliminated during the awful violence of the 19th and 20th centuries. But still lots of communities endure and Muslims are even the majority in Bosnia, Albania, Kosovo, Chechnya and beyond. For older kids, learning this might open a door to a our shared histories.
It might encourage them to explore how interconnected Muslims were and appreciate how Islam has been part of the West, including in the diversity of our communities in countries like the United States. Sometimes studying how Islam unfolded in one places inspires us to think differently and more confidently about what it means to be Muslim here and now.
What follows is our conversation, lightly edited. Any italics are my own. Because, you know, important.
Sunday Schooled: On a drive home from school [Haroon: back in March ‘22], Z asked me about Ukraine. Very quickly, we got to the shocking and disappointing difference in how these victims of Putin’s aggression were treated compared to some of his previous (and mostly Muslim) victims.
Z was intrigued to learn more about Islam in Russia, Ukraine and Eastern Europe. For me, and many Muslims in America and besides, many of these communities are often overlooked, if not entirely unknown. I know it’s a vast region, with enormous diversity, but can you tell us a little about the history of Islam here.
How long has Islam been practiced across that geography?
How did Muslims emerge there–was it conversion? Conquest? Migration?
Dr: Amzi-Erdogdular: It was a bit of everything. Muslims were present in Eurasia even before there was Russia. Early Islamic conquests in the eighth century brought Islam to the Caucasus, while later Mongol and Turkic migrations in the thirteenth century extended Islam to Eastern Europe. The existence of Muslims in Southeastern Europe is associated with the westward expansion of the Ottoman Empire in the fourteenth century.
Just like in many other regions of the Muslim world, before the armies and administrators, though, there were Sufis and associated institutions that weaved Islam into the sociocultural life of these territories. Muslims in Bosnia Herzegovina, Albania, Kosovo, Montenegro, Serbia, Bulgaria, and Macedonia converted to Islam and are ethnically and linguistically diverse—there was also Turkic migration to regions that make Bulgaria and Greece today.
So we can say that Muslims were in Europe before Europe was defined as an entity.
So Islam is a big part of Russian and Ukrainian history–but it’s not a history we hear a lot about. Why do you think that is?
The northern Black Sea region was inhabited by various Muslim communities that are now largely gone. Crimean Tatars in what is today southern Ukraine were the first to experience Russian expansionist policies at the end of the eighteenth century, followed by the Muslims of the Caucasus and the Balkans. Scholars estimated that 5-7 million emigrated from these regions to the Ottoman Empire and settled in Anatolia and the Levant in the (Ottoman) Empire’s last century.
The idea that large populations can be moved to fit various claims to territory and national ideologies played a role in shaping international policy in Europe and the Middle East between the two world wars, Soviet deportations in 1930s and 1940s, and the 1947 partition of South Asia. When it came to Muslims in Eastern Europe, even when they could have ethnically and linguistically been part of the nation, they were often discriminated against and became the target of forced assimilation, expulsion (Bulgaria 1989) and genocide (Bosnia Herzegovina and Kosovo in the 1990s).
Public as well as official prejudice continue to hinder discussions of European Muslims, indirectly (and sometimes openly) denying this painful history. Even today, religious and ethnic diversity is not part of national ideologies despite the realities on the ground. Since the invasion of Ukraine started, Ukrainian Muslims received some attention in the press when the Ukrainian Mufti joined the defense forces. There was also coverage in the Washington Post countering the image of Chechen forces used by Russia as representative of Muslims in this war.
Looking at Eastern Europe more broadly, this is a part of the world that’s had a very difficult history in recent decades. And yet Muslim communities have not, despite repeated efforts to destroy them, disappeared.
What do you think gives them that resilience?
Muslims didn’t disappear entirely but they’re much smaller communities than what they were some 150 years ago, when they became minorities in new nation-states. Their physical, social, economic and political presence was largely diminished over the twentieth century.
It is difficult to point to one particular source of resilience for all these different communities.
What they all have in common was that they had to chart their own path and keep rebuilding a place for themselves in environments that are often unsympathetic and even hostile. This was done through institution-building, education, political and community organization and sometimes diaspora advocacy.
While Ukrainians have been received with great sympathy in much of the rest of the West, I can’t help but think of how Bosnians or Chechens were treated during the wars on their countries. Does this come down to simple Islamophobia? Are other factors at work?
And what do you think this means for the place of Islam in the West?
It’s hard to think otherwise when the media and European officials openly make such statements in the middle of an acute global displacement crisis. Whereas these attitudes toward Muslims do not change overnight, insisting on positioning “Islam” and the “West” as opposite civilizational blocs, even by some Muslims, continues to reproduce prejudice.
Learning from history, we know that such biased positions are not simply a product of unfamiliarity or misunderstanding, but have deeper political, economic and geostrategic dimensions. Just like the efforts to ban the teaching of history of racism in the United States, these are political projects operating within the constellations of power relationships rather than located in empirical and historical analysis.
Can we learn any lessons from that history that speak to Muslim communities elsewhere in the West, like in America? Is there anything in particular from their experiences that would inform our self-conceptions?
The understanding that Muslims are not foreign, not outsiders in the United States (and North America and Europe) and that they have a right and a responsibility to map out their trajectories would be central. Adopting this self-conception includes overcoming divisive identity politics and more broadly the idea of supposed civilizational differences mentioned above. Examples of community building, educational institutions, political organization and activism are some useful lessons from histories of Muslims in comparable situations.
When you look to the future of Islam in the West, do you feel fear–or hope? Can you tell us why?
My students, many of whom are Muslim, give me hope. They are first-generation Americans, born post-9/11, young women and men who see themselves as unapologetically Muslim and American.
You are an historian whose work covers the Middle East as well as the Ottoman Empire and Bosnia on the path to the modern world. In the 19th century, Bosnian Muslims–like Muslims pretty much everywhere else!–had to struggle with adapting to a world that seemed to be at odds with many of their core beliefs. We are also in a period of rapid change, when Muslims are debating religious identity and commitment, with no clear idea what direction any of this is traveling in. D
o you think that history holds any relevance for us now?
Despite the excessive attention in today’s scholarship on thinkers who were forbearers of what is today known as Salafism, many more in the Muslim intellectual milieu of the nineteenth and early twentieth century approached their societies’ contemporary challenges with locally-molded, practical modernity projects. I examine the ways in which Muslims understood modernity in their own interimperial context. Many across the Muslim world comprehended the changes and rationalized them in Islamic terms, that is, within the living scholarly and intellectual Islamic tradition. They came up with new educational methods, Islamic institutional reorganization, modern shari’a schools, Islamic constitutions in the Ottoman Empire and Afghanistan and functioned in the cosmopolitan Muslim world interconnected through press and rapid travel. So yes, history is a story of continuous change and adaptation we should be wise to learn from. An even longer history of diverse Muslim societies illustrates a dynamic approach to society-building, statecraft, sciences and arts, informed by their Islamic moral path. What is often missing in the contemporary grasp of this history is Islam’s adaptability and practicality that made it a global religion.
How did you decide to pursue an academic career–and how would you advise parents whose kids might be interested in one?
I decided to continue on to a doctoral program when I was completing my master’s degree but I didn’t really have a clear idea of what I wanted to do afterwards. I was interested in learning languages and research, so that led me to academia. I think that it’s important to be exposed to academic and professional environments, to be intellectually challenged. For kids it is important to know that such careers are an option and to be able to see themselves in such roles.
As someone who teaches at a major university, what do you think parents should help their kids learn and understand before arriving on campus? Are there any tools, perspectives or experiences that would make them more–or less–successful?
I’d propose letting kids take a more active role in exploring their college options and career paths. It might sound simple and self-explanatory, but narrowing down one’s choices makes students think about where they see themselves in the future for the first time. Letting kids do things on their own and letting them fail are all useful skills that are better learned sooner than later. Experiences, such as traveling, working, participating in community organizations and activism are priceless.
They help students conceive of their roles and responsibilities in their family, high school, community, town, nation, etc., and articulate their voices. I would also like to offer a kind suggestion to parents to refrain from conditioning their kids to choose between engineering and medicine. Joke aside, although high-skilled jobs are prized, the humanities (literature, history, arts, languages, philosophy) distinctly teach critical thinking, essential in shaping one’s spiritual, civic and public personality.
Most of my audience are people of faith and specifically Muslim. The overwhelming majority, I imagine, are not from Eastern Europe. What’s one fact about Islam in Eastern Europe that might surprise my readers?
Readers might be surprised to know that for much of their history, Eastern European Muslims participated in the Islamic world on an equal footing, despite their portrayal today as an discrepancy, allegedly squeezed in between East and West. Shahab Ahmed’s phrase, “Balkans-to-Bengal complex,” effectively captures this long history.
Until about a century ago, educated Balkan Muslims wrote in Arabic, Turkish and Persian among other languages, just like those in South Asia, sharing a common aesthetic. History shows that these Muslims were part of overlapping yet diverse intellectual, cultural, and political spheres. A subtle quality since lost.
Let’s say you’re advising the principal of an Islamic school. Or the director of a Sunday School. They want to teach the kids about Islamic history. They want their kids to be more informed about their heritage.
What would you urge them to focus on–and why?
Diversity and a tradition of multivocality are perhaps the most important features of 1,400 years of Islamic history. These qualities are at the root of ways in which arts, sciences, literature, philosophy and other disciplines were transformed in the Islamic context. Even shari’a, which is so central to contemporary ways of defining Islam, a rigorous interpretive practice by Muslims in different times and places (rather than “a list of things forbidden to Muslims” as one student put it), is a testament to (legal) pluralism. This focus is important for its inclusivity, but also because it allows for ways to envision a vibrant future of Islam and Muslims across distinct societies.
Sometimes it’s hard to get kids to want to learn about history. Of course, they have a lot of school to begin with, so piling more on probably doesn’t help. But there’s also sometimes biases against the past, that whatever happened before just wasn’t that important. How do you talk about the importance of history to your students?
To understand the significance of history and historical experience I have students connect history to contemporary issues that matter to them, such as BLM or climate change. Because of the Covid-19 pandemic, we examined in class how Muslim societies in the past dealt with plague and how its persistence affected and changed urban and rural environments, architecture and the economy. Then we observed such changes in our own society, what we can learn from the past and how, for example, epidemiological Orientalism still exists today.
The history of Islam in the United States and different ways Islam was understood and sustained is also an important historical connection for young American Muslims. I also assign your first book, How to be a Muslim.4 Students are eager to discuss it in class because it speaks to so many challenges they are facing and connects them to a longer historical narrative. History becomes more relevant when students begin to see themselves as actors in the history of the future.
Involving young people in history projects tailored to their grade and skill level is one way of getting them interested in history. For example, they can chart a family tree with various levels of information, interview their grandparents or other family or community members about their lives and issues that matter to them, explore the history of their last name, family home and so on.
Especially poignant are stories of migration.
Almost everyone has someone in their family who came to North America or migrated between different regions of America. Making the connection to a family member through their story, understanding reasons for migration, looking up local records, photos and personal items makes kids’ own history come alive. Realizing one’s connection and place in these histories also helps conceptualize one’s existence as part of a continuity, of the larger world and envision future trajectories.
The Bay, The Fjord, The BBC
There’s so much to take away from this conversation—that wherever you’re from, you can be part of Muslim conversations. That Muslims adapted and survived tough times. That our ummah was meant to be global and was. That we’ve been in almost every part of the world for long stretches of time. That studying our history can give us a sense of being part of the wider world and give us the confidence—a word I love!—to do more with who we are and what we inherit.
If you enjoyed this conversation, you’ll be pleased to know I have upcoming discussions of important topics like faith and social justice, how to make big decisions and a heartbreaking new documentary film about the genocide of Uyghur and other Muslim peoples in western China. That’s not to mention that the next installment of the next Believing, Doing, Becoming halaqa will drop soon too. In the meantime, I’ll leave you with a request to subscribe if you aren’t already.
And to share updates from the Harooniverse.
Yesterday, I was on the BBC with Colin Murray, talking about New York before September 11th, on that day, and the months and years that followed. You can listen here: My segment begins at 1:58:30 and goes for about fifteen minutes. Colin asked great questions and I love that he gave me the time to answer thoughtfully. That’s too rare in media these days. But, of course, not all the news is aural.
In fact, I’ll be live and in-person in California—and Norway—in the next few weeks!
If you’re in the Bay Area next week, I’m giving the khutbah at San Ramon Valley Islamic Center on Friday, September 23rd, followed by an evening book talk—exploring why Islam isn’t just compatible with democracy, but fundamentally democratic at its core—at MCC East Bay that same day, between maghrib (7pm) and ‘isha (9pm) prayers. Free and open to the public, of course. Come through if you can! The week after I’ll be in Europe, inshallah.
On Monday, October 3rd, I’ll be part of an amazing lineup of speakers at the Muslim Futures conference in Oslo, Norway—at the prestigious Nobel Center. The event is likewise free, but tickets are limited, so please reserve yours if you’re in the area. I’m working on future in-person engagements for Southern California, eastern Michigan, Colorado, and London—as in the United Kingdom. I also have virtual events scheduled for West Hartford, CT, and New Orleans, Louisiana.
More to come soon!
This history is incredibly dense and complex—I recommend Serhii Plokhy’s The Gates of Europe: A History of Ukraine to understand more, with the caveat that you’ve really got to be into this to make the most of it. But if that’s too much, another great resource is Yale historian Timothy Snyder, who has written many books on the subject of Eastern Europe more broadly and who keeps up a solid Substack on the larger subject.
Of course, it should go without saying that many Muslims in the rest of the West are of Eastern European ancestry, so this story is literally their story.
Because Russia is experiencing a catastrophic demographic decline, but Russian Muslim populations are growing (or at least not declining so rapidly), and also because of a colonialist history, and because of biases and the like, Russia disproportionately recruits from certain regions, including Muslim-majority regions. The longer the war lasts, and the worse it seems to go, the worse this will probably go for Moscow—to say nothing of the devastation visited on already marginalized Muslim communities.
The author is a great guy. He also loves talking about his newest book, Two Billion Caliphs: A Vision of a Muslim Future, and invites you to invite him to speak to your community about this pathbreaking, profound book, especially if your community is in a desirable vacation destination broadly defined. He’s also totally okay if you want to invite his wife and the kids to come, because of course while the family that prays together stays together, arguably the family that vacations together stays together too, and even better than that, imagine what becomes in this life and the next of the family that prays together on vacation.
But for real. Here’s the link if you’re looking into booking book readings.