Of mosques, medresas and beer

Given that we live less than 20 metres from a mosque, I am embarrassed at how little I know about the Islamic religion and practices. But it has struck me that the Bosnian way of being a Muslim isn't anything like the impressions of Islam that you can get from the media.

Bosnia's Muslim community is a legacy of the Ottoman occupation and as such, the Bosnian Islamic tradition echoes that of Turkey. It is the most Western country to have a (narrow) Islamic majority and the only European country apart from Turkey to have such a preponderance of Muslims.

Having said that, the Muslims here appear to have found their own way to practice their religion, which seems far removed from the Middle East. Here the mosques are small, intimate, cosy affairs. Not for the Bosnians the ritzy, glitzy, enormous buildings occasionally seen further east. Drinking alcohol is common amongst the Muslims here, a beer, some sljivovica, all quite normal almost expected.

Nor are the women covered up. In all my time here (approaching 3 years in total) I have only ever seen 2 women that have been fully covered, one in Tuzla, the other in the airport in Sarajevo and they really stood out. Quite a few women do wear headscarves. But in the rural areas, older women tend to wear headscarves whether they are Muslim, Catholic or Orthodox and seldom have I seen a rural younger woman in one. In the cities the younger Muslim girls often do wear headscarves and appropriate dress and my goodness me do they look glamorous. But many Muslim girls do not and there is no tension surrounding their decision. One look at the lakes in Tuzla in the summer and you will understand that this is a region that leans far more towards Europe than conservative Islam: the bikinis on display are spectacular.

There is a Medresa school in Tuzla (in other words, an Islamic school) as there are throughout Bosnia. But these Medresas are not the fundamentalist schools that concern people in other countries. The Tuzla Medresa is acknowledged to be one of the top schools in Tuzla, and runs regular courses during the summer which are attended by students of all religions and backgrounds. Friends of mine who teach there talk about how exceptional the facilities are.

That is not to say that there are no radical Islamists in Bosnia. There is an extremist sect, the Wahhabi, who number about 4,000 in total, but they tend to live in remote villages. Last week, one such village was raided by the Bosnian police and several of its members were arrested on suspicion of planning to use force to bring about change in the constitutional order. But the Wahhabi are unusual in Bosnia, in reality they probably number less than the number of extremist Muslims in the UK. They are closely watched by the police and many of the Bosnian Muslims make efforts to distance themselves from them.

Most of my Muslim friends are Muslim in the way that I am Christian. In other words, it informs my cultural background and heritage, but the actual practicing of the religion? Well that is probably best described as patchy. Here mosques say that people come during Ramadan, but outside of that, not so much. Perhaps on a Friday. Or for a funeral. They know how to pray, much as I can recite the Lord's prayer without too much trouble. They seem to pick up the aspects of religion that they want, when they want and put them to one side when it doesn't suit them. Another friend of mine put many Bosnian Muslims attitude towards their religion well - 'we'll never make good Muslims' he said 'we like too much being able to drink beer and chase scantily clad women'.

I find it fascinating that a European country has developed its own Islamic traditions and is happy that they are able to be both European and Muslim with no tensions in that. When a country that has a tolerant reputation such as Switzerland, votes to ban minarets being built and other countries are struggling with the juxtaposition of Islam in Europe, could it be that the continent should be looking to Bosnia to learn some lessons about how being Muslim and being European are not concepts that are mutually exclusive?