About

During these days when anti-Muslim laws are being passed in Europe (like for instance the niqab ban), when anti-Muslim sentiment is on the rise and when people speak about the fear of “Eurabia” and see Islam as a threat against Europe, few seem to remember that Europe has a Muslim heritage and an indigenous European Muslim population.

Take me, for example. I’m 100% European. My family is European, I’m born and raised in Europe and I’ve never been outside of it (and I might as well say it: I’m basically white as white can be, I can’t even be out in the sun for too long without getting a bad sun burn). Yet, some things separate me from other Europeans. Namely, I was raised learning how to recite al-Fatiha, I was taught to say ’alhamdulillah’ after having a meal and this is how a page from an old dictionary of my (Slavic) language looks like:

       

 Yes, I’m a Bosnian Muslim from the heart of Europe and this is my blog. 

I might also add that these pequliarities that set us apart from our Christian neighbours (who had never forgiven the fact that our ancestors, as they say “left the cross”, i.e. converted from Christianity to Islam a few hundred years ago)  weren’t always accepted by them and, as you might or might not now, the worst massacre in Europe since World War II was done against Muslim at the hands of Christians in the 90’s where a genocide occured.

After reading this, I guess you now understand why I chose the title that I did for the blog.