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“Islamic cafés” and “Sharia dating:” Muslim youth, spaces of sociability, and partner relationships in Bosnia-Herzegovina

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Andreja Mesarič
Andreja Mesarič*
Affiliation:
Department of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology, Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia
*
Present address: The McPin Foundation, London, UK.
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Abstract

The paper explores forms of sociability and partner relationships among pious young Muslims in Sarajevo with a focus on the emic concepts of Islamic cafés (hospitality establishments perceived to operate according to Islamic moral principles) and Sharia dating (premarital relationships perceived to be sanctioned by Sharia). It draws on 10 months of ethnographic fieldwork conducted in different spaces of Islamic worship, learning, and sociability. This paper places the renewed interest in Islam within the context of a post-Dayton Bosnia characterized by complex and impractical government structures, lingering post-war grievances, and a brutal transition to a neoliberal capitalist economy. Although it acknowledges the continuing relevance of Islam as a resource for Bosniak nation building, it suggests treating the Muslim faith community as overlapping but distinct from the Bosniak community. By focusing on gendered interaction and partner-seeking strategies, this paper explores how young members of this faith community contextually negotiate their Islamic beliefs with mainstream local expectations of conventional behavior. The paper argues that believers’ varying responses to this predicament can be observed as an example of the localization of Islam, but they do not constitute a return to local, traditional gender roles and marriage practices, nor are they an introduction of foreign cultural patterns.

Keywords

Islamic revivalsociabilitydating and marriage practicescommunityBosnia-Herzegovina
Type
Special Section: Localizing Islam: National paradigms, new actors, and contingent choices
Information
Nationalities Papers , Volume 45 , Issue 4 , July 2017 , pp. 581 - 597
Copyright
Copyright © 2017 Association for the Study of Nationalities 

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