Table of Contents for The Afterlife of Ottoman Europe

The Afterlife of Ottoman Europe
Muslims in Habsburg Bosnia Herzegovina
Leyla Amzi-Erdogdular

Introduction

Introduction lays out the thematic and theoretical basis of the book. It explains the approach to the study of Muslims in Habsburg Bosnia Herzegovina, the transregional approach, and its theoretical and historiographical direction. By analyzing transimperial loyalty and local agency, the chapter traces Ottoman imperial continuities and the parallel, overlapping, and composite loyalties with their intersecting networks as an alternative to a singular focus on nationalism in the study of late Ottoman Europe. The viewpoint of Muslims' endeavors to grapple with the changing circumstances and their reconfigured ties with the former imperial center introduce a new understanding of transregional history and Islamic intellectual networks. It stresses that the history of Muslims is essential to the story of Europe, and that the European Muslim experience is indispensable to the scholarly study of Muslims and Islam.

1.Diplomacies of Separation

Chapter 1 analyzes the Habsburg occupation of Bosnia Herzegovina and its negotiations with the Ottoman Empire to define the unwritten implications of the Berlin Treaty. In contrast with Bosnian notables' struggles to sidetrack Ottoman efforts at centralization in the early nineteenth century, the eventual occupation prompted them to seek support in asserting Ottoman sovereignty over Bosnia Herzegovina. They hoped that under the circumstances of legally ambiguous occupational regime, the Ottoman Empire would limit Habsburg plans in the province that now threatened the status of Muslim notables, religious institutions, and rights to land, all tied to the Ottoman legal order and sociopolitical structures. The Habsburg Empire on the other hand, interpreted the treaty to expand its reach and establish itself in Bosnia Herzegovina and the Balkans.

2.Migration: Those Who Left

In Chapter 2, I evaluate the petitions for migration and related Ottoman consular and administrative reports to contextualize reasons for migration and diplomatic consequences. Migrants hoped to return, which drove many to settle in regions closest to Bosnia Herzegovina, seeing their relocation as temporary. As a political act, migration was a response to different aspects of the Habsburg administration and a show of loyalty to the Ottoman Empire. Chapter 2 discusses the significance of Muslim demographic presence in Europe and what that meant for the Ottoman and Habsburg empires.

3.Hijra: Views and Debates on Migration

Chapter 3 examines the desirability of migration from Ottoman, Habsburg, Bosnian, and Serbian vantage points. Migration debates permeated Habsburg Bosnia: from Bosnian madrasa students seeking a fatwa on migration itinerant preachers who advised that Muslims could only be subjects of a Muslim ruler; to conflicting Ottoman positions; to administrators, intellectuals, and nationalists worrying about demographic dominance, Debates on whether and where Muslims should migrate occurred in similar fashion in Bulgaria, Crimea, Bosnia, Egypt, and across the Ottoman Empire, reflecting the religious and political implications for migrants. These Bosnian migrations were part of large population movements at the turn of the twentieth century that would critically transform the demographics of Southeast Europe and the Middle East. The motivation behind these debates and emerging views on minorities as problematic have had an important role in shaping the aftermath of world wars, population transfers, and the current understanding of population politics.

4.Competing Empires

5.Negotiating Imperial Ties: Mobilization and Politics

6.Allegiances and Final Separation

Epilogue: Alternative Muslim Modernities

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