Bosnia the good : tolerance and tradition /

Mahmutcehajic (Sarajevo Univ.) is a former minister in the Muslim-dominated Bosnian government of 1991-92. He wishes to show that Bosnia's tradition has been one of unity in diversity, with adherents of Islam, Roman Catholicism, and Orthodox Christianity linked in the spiritual pursuit of transcendence. The argument is that this traditional orientation towards transcendence has been lost to a politics glorifying individuality and modernity, achieved by the targeting of Bosnia's Islamic component and the slaughter of its Muslim population by those who deny tradition in order to justify separate nation-states. Useful as an example of the arguments of Muslims who want a unified Bosnia in spite of the rejection of that project by most of their Serb and Croat neighbors, the book will be of interest to Balkanists as an exploration of Bosnian Muslim ideology. But it is not suitable for use by undergraduates without much explanation of why some non-Muslims in Bosnia may see its very Islamic argument as evidence justifying their fears of Muslim domination. R. M. Hayden; University of Pittsburgh