Nation Religion and Gender

Politicization of Religion, the Power of Symbolism

The Case of Former Yugoslavia and its Successor States

Edited byGorana Ognjenović and Jasna Jozelić

politicization of religion, the power of symbolism

Copyright © Gorana Ognjenović and Jasna Jozelić, 2014.

All rights reserved.

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ISBN: 978–1–137–48412–3

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185

9Nation, Religion, and GenderZilka Spahić Šiljak

The last decade of the twentieth century is characterized by conflicts, wars, and genocide in the Balkans and by the reaffirmation of religion in the public realm. Within the discussion about ethnic/national and religious identifica-tion among Bosnian Muslims, through the analysis of the Muslim woman’s magazine Zehra, this chapter focuses on the postwar interconnectedness of nation, religion and gender in the rebuilding of Bosniak Muslim women’s identity in Bosnia-Herzegovina (BiH). Zehra, launched by the prominent Muslim women’s NGO Kewser, was named after the Prophet Muhammad’s daughter. It is well known and widely distributed in Bosnia-Herzegovina and among the Bosniak diaspora in Europe and America. This chapter explores the magazine’s gender politics, the perception of the Bosniak Muslim Woman as reproducer and keeper of the Bosniak nation, and to what extent the magazine por-trays the wearing of the hijab as an internal and external marker of the Bosniak nation.

In the last 60 years, national identification of Bosnian Muslims had two phases: The first was their option of identifying as either Serb, Croat, or “unidentified” in the 1950s and 1960s. Second was their recognition as a separate nation: “Muslims” (with a capital “M”)1 in 1968, with constitutional confirmation in 1974. The League of

186 Zilka Spahić Šiljak

Communists of Yugoslavia offered a compromise through which the status of Muslims as a separate nation was regulated, but simultaneously prevented the nation from choosing the name “Bosniak” and from hav-ing the right to ethnic, historic, and cultural self-identification.2

“Bosniak identity” is the ethnic term depicting Bosnians with Muslim origin/background who, together with Bosnian Serbs/Orthodox Christians, Croats/Catholics, and minorities, comprise the multiethnic tapestry of Bosnia-Herzegovina. Bosniak identity is historically linked to the Bosnian medieval kingdom, which fell under the Ottomans.3 Contemporary Muslim historians contend that Bosniak identity today is related primarily to Islam and to the heresy of the Bosnian Church.4

During the socialist period, the majority of Bosnian Muslims felt that their territorial and religious identities were the most important aspects of their identity; therefore, the reaffirmation of the Bosniak identity in 1993—in the middle of the Balkans war, amid aggression from Serbia and Croatia—was in opposition to Croatian and Serbian nation-building. It has had significant political consequences and engendered ambivalent feelings among Bosnian Muslims concerning the terms they used to declare their national identities. Many Muslims today would still rather call themselves Muslim with a capital M, rather than the more recently reaffirmed title, Bosniaks, and some use the combination Bosniak-Muslims (Bošnjaci-Muslimani).

Rusmir Mahmutćehajić states that the sense of Bosnian identity is more intuitive than rational, and provides a framework corresponding to the Serbian and Croatian national identities. He believes that only a unified Bosnian territory guarantees the national identity of Bosnian Muslims.5 Tone Bringa in her anthropological studies of Bosnian Muslims found that

Religion is more than a set of beliefs. It is part of a person’s cultural identity, whether or not one is a believer. This is as true for a Muslim as it is for a Catholic or Orthodox Christian . . . However, to Western observers Orthodox and Catholic Bosnians escape this ambiguity because their official ethnonym refers not to their religion but to their ethnic and religious ties with peoples outside Bosnia-Hercegovina, in Serbia and Croatia respectively. In fact, the use of the term ‘ethno-religious’ to describe the identity of all three nationali-ties is a more accurate reflection of local understanding of ‘national identity’ as determined by religious adherence.6

With similar arguments about the strong ties between religion and cul-ture among Bosnian Muslims, Mahmutćehajić develops a thesis about

187Nation, Religion, and Gender

how “the unity in diversity” of the Bosnian cultural and religious legacy guarantees the survival of Bosnia and Bosnian Muslims.7

The development of some women’s NGOs, such as Sumejja, Fatma, Nahla, and Kewser in postwar BiH may, to a certain extent, be connected to strengthening the ethnic/national identity of Bosnian Muslims and affirmation of both religious and ethnic/national identity of women and Muslims in general. The birth of these NGOs could also be a reaction to the war, aggression, and physical and cultural extinction of Bosnian Muslims from the Balkans. The Muslim women who created Kewser likely recognized the potential of newly created spaces for civic activ-ism to expand women’s discussion of religion and religious identities in BiH.

Though there are other Muslim women’s magazines, including Nahla and Sumejja, research shows that the NGO Kewser is one of the most influential women’s Muslim organizations in BiH, and it publishes Zehra.8 Zehra reflects the intersection of ethnicity/nation, gender, and religion in the identity of a Bosnian Muslim woman. It also demonstrates that religion is the most important element in that identity, and is a precon-dition for building a successful nation.

The most influential image of a Bosnian Muslim woman is that of a mother, portrayed in the magazine as a keeper and transmitter of Islamic religious values. Zehra also promotes and advocates complementary gender politics that highlight the tensions between motherhood and career. Hijabi Bosniak Muslim women, in particular, serve as markers of the internal and external boundaries of the Bosniak nation. They are considered “true believers” and “keepers of morality” among Muslims, and form clear boundaries between Muslims and non-Muslims through wearing the hijab and the code of conduct (haya’) that accompanies it. Yet, they are engaged and participate actively in the social and cultural life of BiH.

Gender and Nation in BiH

Gender and nation are considered to be the foundations of society, and, Julie Mostov concludes9, they “intimately participate in the for-mation of one another: nations are engendered, and the topography of the nation is mapped in engendered terms (feminized soil, land-scapes and boundaries, and masculine movement over these spaces).”


Gender and nation are intertwined, but we must keep in mind that the determination of nations and national identities is part of public dis-course, where women do not “naturally” belong10; they have not been counted as equal partners in the process of creating a national identity; rather, they are vessels for the cultural and biological reproduction of a nation. A similar process of gender (ex)inclusion from nation-state building has happened in BiH. During the socialist period in BiH, women were portrayed as “workers,” “proletarians,” and “supporters of the socialist system.” The prevailing image in the media was women marching shoulder to shoulder with men and building the social order alongside them. The emancipation of women was promoted and advocated during this time, but as Neda Božinović, a doyenne of the Antifascist Women’s movement (AFW) concluded, “Even then, social-ism proclaimed equality for women, but under ‘our control’—control of the Socialist Party.”11

After the 1990s, the ethno-national elites (Bosniaks/Muslims, Serbs/Orthodox, Christians, Croats/Catholics) significantly reduced women’s participation in public life.12 Next, they used the images mentioned above for building and strengthening ethnicities/nations and national feelings. Vesna Kesić confirms that women served as symbols of ethnic and ideological differentiation.13 Replacing the Yugoslav models of workers and supporters of the socialist order, the portrayals of women were redefined in accordance with ethno-national goals, assigning them the role of cultural and biological reproducers of nation.14 They became “mothers of the nation,” “mother-nurturers,” the symbols of “homeland,” and an “ethnic paradigm” (women as the safeguards of ethno-national honor).15 When women are reduced to being mere signifiers of a nation, as Z. Einstain comments, they do not represent “real” women. Judith Butler further elaborates, saying this dynamic of mothering the country “produces the expectation of a unity, a full and final recognition that can never be achieved.”16

In return, women were expected to show gratitude to their nations, “by solemnly fulfilling their obligation to produce sons/soldiers and daughters/young mothers-of-the-nation.”17 Motherhood was reaffirmed as their destiny and the best tool to connect individuals in the nation group was blood kinship. “Since ‘blood kinship’ establishes stronger connections between religious and spiritual relations among the same nations or members of the ethnic group, women are perceived as the “cement” of cultural identity and continuity of the nation.”18


The process of reaffirmation of ethnic/national identities in the Balkan region was supported both institutionally and politically through various pro-life campaigns, although the Islamic community of BiH was less concerned than the Catholic and Orthodox churches and did not launch any institutional pro-life programs.19 However, the revival of the religious morals of Islam and the Bosniak identity was understood to require a reconsideration of the role of women and traditional family values. Ethno-national elites believed that socialism had ruined tradi-tional family values, and that they needed be reestablished in order to further the development of a healthy democratic society: “Indeed, for the nation to survive, women had to reassume their “natural” position in life—at home and with the family.”20

The following chapter will discuss how Bosnian Muslim women reacted to the period of reestablishment of ethnic/national and religious identities in BiH. It will explore what kind of strategies they employed in becoming active agents in the public life of Bosnia-Herzegovina, and in rebuilding the Bosniak nation.

Faith-based organizations within(out) of the mosque

Before the war and genocide in BiH (1992–1995), the civil social arena was undeveloped. During the war, development of nongovernment sec-tors was begun under the supervision of international organizations. The first women’s NGO, Medica Zenica, was established in 1993, followed by dozens of nongovernmental organizations and groups, both secular and religious. Muslim women became active in secular NGOs and worked on the advancement of women’s status in private and public life. Within some of the secular organizations, women launched various projects and occasionally integrated religious perspectives. However, this was not sufficient for some female believers who wanted their reli-gious identity to be taken into public account. While those prominent human rights activists who were secular humanists and opposed to the revival of religion in the public realm established the mainstream secular civil society organizations, some Muslim women thought that they needed a separate religion-based agenda as a part of the ethnic/national and religious identity formation in the postwar period; there-fore, they organized themselves into faith-based women’s NGOs and


informal groups. Secularists who had initially not welcomed religious women with hijab, and who did not want conversation about religion introduced into the public realm right after the war, did, after 2000, accept the perspective that religion is relevant in peace activism and human rights discussions.21 But before that occurred, in comparison to secular women’s NGOs, faith-based Muslim women’s organizations mostly “act(ed) on the margins of BiH society directed towards certain groups of people in the society and towards the family as a very impor-tant segment of the society.”22

This means that their missions and programming were and remain focused on education that provides better foundations for women raising their families, and on becoming economically empowered. Like many secular organization in the 1990s, faith-based organization activities have not used “the buzzwords and concepts of standard NGO speech that peppers the self-representation of other groups . . . Terms like “civil society,” “reconciliation,” “women’s rights,” “gender,” “project proposal,” “networking,” etc. were conspicuously absent from these organizations’ written and spoken rhetoric.”23

With time, as these notions were integrated into the work of secu-lar NGOs, and as faith-based organizations started cooperating with them on rare occasions, faith-based organizations changed their politics slightly. However, to this day they largely avoid embracing gender and feminist approaches. Ambivalent principles that often underlie their operations can create antagonism between the religious/Islamic and secular/Western positions by depicting the West as: “Materialistic . . . profane . . . the: Western understanding of the world does not exceed the domain of sensual desires: food, sleeping, anger and passion, created in that world an adequate economic system, deprived of spiritual values. . . .”24

The post-1990s revival of Islam in BiH encouraged many Muslim women to speak up for their religious and ethnic/national identities and their rights. They had not started organizing activities in mosques, like women in some Muslim countries, but they did establish NGOs and organized their work in places they rented for those purposes. Although mosques belong to all Muslims, and they should be available equally to women and men who pay membership fees to the Islamic Community of BiH, women cannot use mosque facilities without special permissions and public announcements of their intentions. Đermana Šeta, in her recent study of the hijab in BiH, demonstrated that the participation of


women in mosques, as well as in other institutions of the Islamic com-munity, was very low, although, as she emphasized, this was not due to any legal religious restriction.25 Formally, there are no restrictions for the engagement of women in leading positions in the Islamic community, but many unwritten rules and a specific patriarchal mindset exist, as characterized by Dževad Hodžić, professor of Islamic studies at the University of Sarajevo:

In our society our women are sisters, mothers, physicians, judges, lawyers and professors. In our Islamic minds, they cannot be, and they are not. Our woman, sister or mother can be a judge of the Supreme Court. Why can she not be, for example, a mufti? She cannot, because we do not think of Islam, and we do not feel Islam in our own time and our own world.26 (italics in the original)

Thus, the reaffirmation of Islam in Bosnia did not bring equal opportuni-ties to men and women. Hundreds of mosques were rebuilt after the war, but they were and remain under male control. Women do not take part in decision-making in the Islamic Community of BiH, and do not serve as members of committees and on boards of congregations (jama’at).27

It is interesting to examine how women react to this exclusion from the Islamic community. In the research on the hijab in BiH, a female interviewee says:

It is good for the Islamic community to have us (women’s NGOs), because whenever they are criticized for not having women within the Islamic com-munity, they reply: But, we have very active women’s organizations and “use” us as a proof. The civil sector made room for us to work there, and not within the framework of the Islamic community.28

Many Muslim women have decided to actively participate in rebuild-ing Bosnian society and articulate positions that are based on Islamic morals and teachings on various issues. Though they have been active protagonists of postwar recovery and nation-building among Bosniaks/Muslims who have been struggling with intranational frictions and fragmentations, the percentage of female contributors to the magazine Zehra29 is heavily outweighed by male authors writing about daily poli-tics and ethnic/national affairs of Bosniaks.

Although the infrastructure of the Islamic community is not avail-able to them, women from the Kewser organization who publish Zehra use the Islamic community as a channel for distribution of the magazine, and they garner verbal support from religious authorities


about delivering messages to Bosniak Muslim women. At some point, the Muslim religious leadership apparently decided that they need women, and tokenism is deemed adequate to show they support woman’s activism and engage women in the society, they accepted the “finalized product,” the magazine Zehra, and portrayed it and the already well-known and recognized Kewser organization, as their own achievement.

Analysis of the Muslim women’s magazine “Zehra” for woman and family

Kewser was established in 1994 during attacks on BiH. Its goal was to help women and children learn the foundation of Islamic spiritual values. Kewser’s founders established their mission as helping Bosniak Muslims survive, heal their wounds and traumas, and, despite every-thing they went through during the war and in the postwar transition, to preserve their dignity and their ethnic/national and religious identity. Zehra, launched in 2001, was Kewser’s key project. Naming the magazine after the daughter of the Prophet Muhammad, Fatima al-Zahra, was intended to promote the “ideal woman who was not only a mother and a keeper of family, but also a bearer and transmitter of religion, and one of the first socially engaged women.”30

Kewser considers women the pillars of family—on one hand vulner-able and exposed to various challenges in postwar society, and on the other hand, entrusted with transmitting and sustaining Islamic rules and ways of living. A Bosnian Muslim woman, as they point out, is not only a mother, but also a woman engaged in the current sociopolitical system.31

Zehra is widely recognized in Muslim communities in BiH and the Bosnian diaspora, and enjoys a modicum of support from the former. Because Zehra both shapes and reflects Bosniak ethnic/national identity with messages about women, religion, and nation, as well as due to Kewser’s cooperation with the Islamic community, which organizes vari-ous cultural events, and distributes the magazine through Islamic book-stores, Zehra now enjoys greater legitimacy among Bosnian Muslims. The impact of this relationship and the multiple intersections of Bosniak ethnic/national identity, gender, and religion are better understood through further analysis of the contents in Zehra.


The aim, the sample, and the methodology

Feminist scholarship on gender and nation32 highlights ways in which women and their bodies have been used for various ethno-national goals critical to the construction of national identities and the deter-mination of national boundaries. In nationalist discourse, women are usually portrayed in a number of ways, including as biological repro-ducers of members of ethnic collectives, reproducers of the boundaries of ethnic/national groups, participants in the ideological reproduction of the collective, transmitters of culture, signifiers of ethnic/national groups, and as participants in national, economic, political, and mili-tary struggles.

The aim of this analysis is to explore the following three questions: What gender politics are promoted by Zehra? Is the Bosnian Muslim woman perceived as a reproducer of the Bosniak nation; does a hijabi Bosnian Muslim woman serve as a marker of the internal and external boundaries of the Bosniak nation?

Issues of Zehra printed from 2001 to 2011, each with approximately 60 pages and a color cover, constitute the sample. With the exception of the first few installments, all issues included color images, an upgraded design, and quality paper.

Analysis of the magazine’s contents encompasses the texts, titles, and subtitles. Particular attention is paid to language, symbols, metaphors, and the portrayal of gender relations. Brief interviews with the editorial board consisting of four women offer deeper understanding and insight into the magazine.

The gender politics of Zehra

Beginning in March 2001, Kewser published Zehra semi-annually. Once readership from both BiH and the Bosnian Muslim diaspora in Europe and the United States increased, they began issuing Zehra once a month. Like other religious magazines or journals, Zehra covers political, social, and religious topics, but also includes themes addressed in secular women’s magazines including fashion, music, art, food, and varied psy-chological and medical advice. This reflects attempts to reach a wider network of women and families, youth and children. Young women can, for example, apply to be a “Muslim Cosmo Girl,” and, instead of


competing only in the hairstyle category, they may enter a competition for the most creative hijab style.33

The primary target group of readers is the educated urban popula-tion, but Zehra also aims to include and portray women from small local communities who serve as examples of “real Bosnian mothers” who are simultaneously socially active.

The editorial board and journalists of the magazine are of varied educational backgrounds. In rare cases, the magazine hires journalists to cover certain stories, but in general, Zehra gathers volunteers and activists from Kewser who recognize the power of media and the importance of delivering messages through written and electronic sources. Since the editor-in-chief creates and shapes the structure and content of magazine, it is important to closely examine the introduction/editorial of each issue. Sadika Avdić is recognized in Bosnian society as a prominent activist, author, and religious authority. She is also known by her Shi’a religious background and close connections and cooperation with Iranian organi-zations in BiH that support Kewser and its activities.34 Although Zehra does not advocate Shi’ism openly, it presents some Shi’a ideas through images of famous scholars, philosophers, and political figures.35

It also features Shi’a religious and cultural practices, emphasizing the importance of the Prophet’s family (ahl al-bayt), usually not present in Sunni Muslim media and academic discourse. Some articles that are highly critical of early Sunni political leadership clearly, convey the mes-sage: choose between those who killed the Prophet’s family and the “true teachers” of the faith, the “sons and the heirs of Prophet who inherited God’s faith.”36 In other articles, readers are invited to love Ali ibn Abi Talib through statements that to “love Ali means to fully submit to him, as to the Prophet (p.b.u.h).”37

The ideal of Fatima, the Prophet’s daughter whose virtues of modesty, intellectual excellence, and social engagement should be emulated, thus grounds the image of the new Bosniak Muslim woman. This profile is similar to the image of a woman in today’s Iran who is highly educated and engaged in public life and politics spheres in which she also reflects her respect for the religious and moral boundaries of gender roles.

In the third issue’s editorial, Avdic discusses the structure of Zehra and expresses her gratitude to readers, inviting them to be a part of the Zehra team as it generates content:

It is not easy to be a true believer. It is not easy to reach wholeness on the Right path. Renaissance is much harder than the process of revolution . . . It


seems to me that women are much better reformers and men are better revolutionists. Overthrow is something rough which belongs to a man, while renaissance can be very subtle, if it is conducted by a wise woman.38

When speaking about making changes in Bosnian society, the maga-zine’s structure is open for contribution from its wide audience, but the content’s point of departure will be traditional gender roles and division. Women are entitled to use wisdom while rebuilding society, and men are authorized to employ typical “masculine” skills, such as physical strength, decisiveness, or roughness to achieve the same ends. This is confirmed through articles written by men,39 whose essays usually speak about the Bosnian political context and the role of Bosniaks in it, with language that is sometimes rough, radical, and offensive on ethnic/national grounds.40

These authors, who serve as commentators on the Bosniak politi-cal milieu, bring the confusion of Bosniak politicians in the postwar period to the attention of Zehra readers. The authors are critical of the politics of the Party of Democratic Action (SDA)41 and the lack of proper reactions to the nationalistic discourse of Serbian and Croatian nationalists. They blame the secular state and the society “without God” for decreasing moral values and accepting everything that the West imposes on Bosnia. These positions invite the highest religious authorities to participate in the political life of BiH, claiming that it is a strong religious obligation (fardh) of the former Reis ul-ulema Mustafa Cerić, the grand mufti of the Islamic Community of BiH, to be thus involved. These perspectives clearly lean toward the de-secularization of the Bosnian society.42

The editorial politics of Zehra that advocate gender division for the transformation and advancement of the Muslim woman’s status in Bosnian society reflect beliefs that there are vocations more suitable to women than to men, and accordingly women are to be excluded from the official political discourse as described by Carol Pateman.43 In gen-eral, complementary gender politics is promoted in Zehra. According to this worldview, a Muslim woman is equal to a man as a human being, but she is not equal in expectation regarding her functions, duties, and responsibilities.44 The same gender politics is advocated by the majority of editorial board members; one of them says, “according to my spiritual understanding, the complementary gender politics is acceptable and of course based on biological and physiological differences of sexes. I think that it is a matter of mutual consent and satisfaction.”45


Two other interesting characteristics of Zehra are its understanding and consequent use of gender and feminist notions, and secondly, its ideas about, and consequent ambivalent presentations of, gender issues. The magazine does not use terms such as “gender” or “feminism” unless they want to underline that they do not want to promote them at all. This thinking is reflected in another study that shows that most Muslim women are reluctant to invoke feminist identity. Powerful stigma and fear of being branded as women who go against tradition and family,46 cause them to distance themselves from feminism. Zehra, for instance, says of Mary Wollstonecraft: “She was not a modern feminist who does not have a sense for boundaries of reason.”47 These texts demonstrate the tendency to oppose and to judge the West and the Western lifestyle, in which a woman’s body is seen as being reduced to a commodity. Such oversimplification and lack of proper, scholarly arguments characterize many of the articles.

The Bosnian woman is encouraged to be educated and to participate in public life, but she simultaneously must “keep her dignity and moral values,” while male dignity and moral values exist without comment. Woman is the embodiment of moral and pious life. Tone Bringa,48 in her prewar period anthropological study from Bosnia titled “Being Muslim The Bosnian Way,” came to a similar conclusion: “It is women who literally embody this morality. Women’s bodies and movements in space are symbolically defined and protected.” In conclusion, Zehra promotes complementary gender politics, and although it encourages women to be engaged in the public life of the community, they are still to be excluded from the official political discourse, within which the “masculine revolutionary” way of making changes remains the norm.

The Bosnian Muslim woman as the reproducer of the Bosniak nation?

Surprisingly, an examination of the articles in Zehra reveals that gender and nation do not intersect as much as one would expect, and the ethno-national politics that have been promoted since the end of the war are nowhere to be found in Zehra. There are a few articles in which authors speak about issues of Bosniak identity. The editor-in-chief and editorial board members of Zehra, who declare their affiliation with Bosniak ethnic/national identity nonetheless, almost all agree upon the preference of


their religious identity over the national one. Though they mostly use the term “Bosniak woman” (Bošnjakinja) in Zehra, Bošnjakinja refers to a Muslim woman (muslimanka).

Both of them (religious and national) are important to me, but I put the identity of a woman believer first, because in its foundations and ending, it exceeds all other identities. I also think that my religious identity motivates me to build various kinds of identities, including the national one that is in focus.49

I prefer my religious identity to all other identities. When I say religious, I mean spiritual identity in general, in the sense of who am I as a human being, why he/she is here, and what is his/her mission.50

For me religious identity is more important, but only for a nuance, because it, to the largest extent defines my personal identity. National identity is also important, and I want to combine my religious and national identity, because as such I am part of this nation.51

Both identities, because both give the real image of myself, who I am, and where I come from.52

These statements are congruent with the editorial politics of the magazine Zehra on the subject of national identity. Going back to this chapter’s earlier discussion of the national identity of Bosnian Muslims, it is important to recognize and analyze what kind of gender politics the magazine promotes.

Zehra emphasizes religion as the common denominator of Bosnian Muslim identity, although its editor and contributors are aware of the fact that there are Bosniaks or Bosnian Muslims who keep the Bosniak Muslim identity in more of a cultural sense. As some Muslim scholars point out: “Islam in Bosnia is the common treasure of all Bosniaks, this precious treasure from which they have drawn for centuries their multiple religious, cultural, artistic, literary, urban, architectural inspirations.”53

My recent study on female, feminist, and Muslim identities in BiH and Kosovo confirmed through its interviews that Muslim women understand Islam as an important part of their culture, but most are secularized Muslims who do not observe religion on a daily basis. They perceive religion as a private matter.54 The magazine Zehra is to a certain extent in line with this understanding of Islam as a faith and culture.

Zehra sometimes presents Bosnian families and celebrities notwith-standing of their attitudes to observance of religion They promote women in these professions: physicians, pedagogues, artists, musicians, actresses, directors, writers, and business women aiming to be socially


engaged and to contribute in certain fields of life. For instance, they featured Dr. Merjema Ismić from Kakanj, who is a pediatrician and also a politician on the municipal council. She speaks in the interview only about her Bosnian identity—belonging to the state of BiH.55 The prominent Bosnian writer Jasmina Musabegović was interviewed, but she did not speak about her religious identity, and she hardly mentioned her Bosniak identity, emphasizing instead her novels and the stories she wanted to tell.56

Motherhood is the most valuable role and mission of women who are portrayed in Zehra magazine. Profiling and discussing varied successful mother images, the magazine warns Bosniaks of the declining birthrates, but is also highly critical of the Bosnian state, which it says does not care about this issue.57 Women are concerned with the low birthrate after the war, when a “baby boom” was expected.58

The ethno-national leaders used and controlled women’s bodies dur-ing the war and after, but were not ready to take responsibility for the needs of women and families. Aida Krzic criticizes Bosnian authorities and their inadequate legislation on issues affecting motherhood and maternity leave, which, she says, is inhuman and degrading to a woman who can hardly harmonize her career and motherhood: “Only healthy and satisfied women will bear and raise a healthy and enthusiastic nation . . .”59 So, these kinds of messages disclose that Bosniak Muslim women would bear more children and help in rebuilding their nation, but social and economic conditions prevent many from having more than one or two children. Women lost the social and economic security that they had under socialism.

Today, Zehra raises the critical issue of birthrate, reminding the state that they cannot reproduce a healthy nation if they are not happy and protected. However, because the role of women as reproducers does not make up the basic premise of the magazine, this issue is argued in only three articles—an insignificant portion of the material analyzed. The entire discourse of the magazine is not oriented to portray woman as a reproducer of the Bosniak nation, but it does make her responsible for keeping and building a moral and healthy family and society. The magazine advocates for the rights of working mothers who feel helpless and unprotected. Yet, none of the women interviewed in the magazine mentioned the redistribution of family obligations or suggested a more inclusive parenthood with an active father involved in the process of rais-ing children and sharing housework. It seems that they still want to keep


up the image of a superwoman who can do everything. Women very often claim that they are able to harmonize motherhood and careers, and as a famous activist from the SDA political party concludes,

As much as a woman is successful in business and career, if her family suffers and is not protected properly due to her engagements, her mission is not fulfilled. It is important to decide about priorities, and it is possible to be an equally good and exemplary wife, mother, and successful professional. All jobs that will not offend her honor and dignity are available to her.60

However, a few Zehra voices disagree with this attitude, emphasizing that there are many tensions between these two roles: an active woman with a career who still takes care of the family and the housewife at home with many children. One of the Zehra journalists has analyzed these tensions in the following comment: “The modern woman plays the lead in this tragicomedy. She has to be a part of everyday social life, including family, hospital, administration, politics, and science. She has to be a part of everything. How?”61 This is the same dilemma women faced during the socialist period, and the same challenges and precon-ditions for women who wanted to be engaged in public life: to be good mothers and wives and still be politically engaged. As a remnant from the socialist period, women still want to be good mothers, workers, politicians and patriots. They are afraid to admit that they cannot do everything, therefore they continue playing the same role they played under socialism. Although Zehra does not explicitly promote the image of a Bosnian Muslim woman as the reproducer of the Bosniak nation, it glorifies the role of motherhood and implicitly underlines the ideal of motherhood as the most important mission for a woman, a mission that needs to be harmonized with a woman’s career.

The Hijabi Bosnian Muslim woman as a marker of internal and external boundaries of the Bosniak nation?

One of the most powerful symbols and markers of Islam today is the head-covering (hijab) worn by Muslim women. This symbol is used and misused by Muslims and non-Muslims alike to efficiently reduce Islam to mere ideology or politics. Very often, woman’s agency to accept certain religious rules like the hijab is hijacked by Islamists and militant secularists who use woman’s body as a battlefield on which to wage their


political wars. Women’s bodies and sexualities are always controlled, regulated, and interpreted by men in family and society.62 In the secular context of Bosnia-Herzegovina, where hijab was not desirable during the socialist period and where it became attractive after the 1990s, some women—in particular the younger generation—decided to wear it and adjust their lifestyle in accordance to it.

The practice of veiling was legally abolished after World War II in the former Yugoslavia. At the beginning of the 1990s, it was revived as a part of the revival of national and religious identities in BiH. The portrayal of Muslim women wearing the hijab, in Zehra, is important in understanding the dynamics of gender, nation, and sexuality in the Bosnian context. Women were not forced to wear the hijab, but as they affirmed, through it they discovered another dimension of their religion and faith. Hijab was like a “crown” of their faith, and the signal that they were ready to fully submit to God. Such women perceived the hijab as a way to become closer to God and as a permanent reminder of their obligations toward God and other Muslims. As one of the editorial board members said, “Keeping moral boundaries is important, because genuine freedom and inner peace comes only if we are disciplined and aware of these boundaries.”63

Young, beautiful Muslim women who decided to wear the hijab, and to be active in the society—appear on the cover pages of the magazine and also in a special supplement called “The Face Framed by the Hijab.” Although the majority of Bosniak Muslim women in BiH do not wear hijab, and recent research shows they do not find it crucial for their faith, Zehra promotes “The Face Framed by the Hijab” as the ideal image.

The hijab fashion is also promoted in public during the cultural festival “Mošus Pejgamberov,” which is organized by the Kewser organization. During their performances of religious songs, Kewser choir members present stylish hijab dresses, and they also organize a special fashion show every year to give Muslim women a chance to show their creativity and beauty within the “boundaries” of Islam, as they define it.

Hijab on one hand serves as a symbol of a “true woman believer” among Muslims and on the other, as an external marker of a Bosniak Muslim woman’s identity for non-Muslims. Women with hijab are perceived as paradigms of ideal Muslim Bosniak women. Hijab cre-ates distinctions between Bosniak Muslim women and other women, but also makes internal distinctions between hijabi and non-hijabi Muslim women—those who fully embrace religious duties versus


those who practice Islam without hijab, or do not practice it at all, but simply declare faith in God. In her work on Bosnia during the socialist period,64 Tone Bringa recorded the same understanding of the bounda-ries Muslim women keep through wearing the traditional skirt called “dimije.”

That religious virtues of modesty and shyness (haya’), signaling a certain way of life and moral conduct, are promoted by Zehra became clear in interviews with hijabi women. These virtues should govern the life of a woman, and help her be active in public life. They instruct her in proper behavior and interaction, particularly with men. In the magazine, women who are portrayed as successful figures in the Bosnian public eye speak about their discovery of hijab and about the fulfillment of their religious duties.

While reading interviews with hijabi women and articles that elaborate on the obligation to wear the hijab in Islam (fardh), I was interested in understanding how women understood virtues of modesty and shyness and how they accommodate them in their pietistic practices. Searching for an answer to this question, I referred to the critical examination of performativity theory and agency by Judith Butler and Saba Mahmood.65 They both affirm the importance of the performative, but the difference between Buttler’s model of the performative and the one Mahmood found among pious mosque women in Egypt “lies in how each perfor-mative is related to the ones that follow and precede it.”66

The pietistic practice of hijab in Bosnia through the stories of women portrayed in Zehra shows that the majority of these women tried to discipline the self through nurturing the desire to act as pious women in daily life. One of the women interviewed in Zehra admitted: “I decided to wear the hijab when I was ready to show that I was a Muslim woman.”67 But as Mahmood emphasizes “the performative behavior may signify a pious self but does not necessarily form it . . . bodily behavior was there-fore not so much a sign of interiority as it was a means of acquiring its potentiality (abilities one acquires through specific kinds of training and knowledge.” To acquire potentiality, the hijabi women portrayed in Zehra spoke about moral evolution in terms of careful consideration, studying and nurturing the desire to become more pious subjects. However, this is not always the case. Some women who accept hijab as a religious duty expect to understand its meaning through performance.

The statements of women who are portrayed in Zehra indicate that internal ethical and moral evolution precedes the performance of the


wearing of the hijab. However, this is not always the case. Some women who accept hijab as a religious duty expect to understand its meaning through performance. This is similar to the way many believers pray five times a day, hoping to reach a deeper understanding of prayer’s meaning through regular prayers.

Motivation varies, and individual agency in this matter is crucial, because in BiH there is no law of the land that compels women to wear or not wear the hijab, nor is there a law that compels anyone to observe or not observe religion.

Pressure to comply with the modesty code can flow from family and marriage settings,68 though the women promoted in the magazine are not the ones subject to this pressure. Some women accept the hijab as a political statement against Western media portrayals of Muslim women as backward, oppressed, and helpless beings who need white “civilized” women to teach them and help them discard the oppression of the hijab.

Though women writing in Zehra assert that the hijab is mandatory essential practice for them, most women in BiH who declare their reli-gious identity do not find the hijab to be important for their faith.69 In fact, hijabi women are a minority in Bosnia today. The hijab, in addition to being a visible sign of religion is also a marker of the woman’s internal and external boundaries. Her hijab makes it easier for her community to attempt to impose traditional gender norms regulating how she behaves, communicates, and participates in both the public and private spheres. Traditional understanding of the hijab confines women to the privacy of their homes and families. Hijabi women of Zehra provide another image of the hijabi woman: one who is educated, engaged, active, and useful for both her family and the community.

These women are pioneers, asking that their presence and religiosity be taken into account and respected. Muslims who traditionally and cul-turally belong to Islam, but do not necessarily observe ritual aspects of religion, those who are secular, and non-Muslims are thus all unfamiliar with how to interact with hijabi women who are now in the public realm, working, running businesses, teaching, coaching, doing humanitarian work, and being profiled as human rights activists. These hijabi pioneers question the secular-religious-gender divide and want to be active agents of change in contemporary pluralistic societies where a hijabi woman is just one of the threads in the Bosnian tapestry.

Nonetheless, the tendency of the magazine editorial board is to trivi-alize a part of that tapestry by portraying the Bosnian Muslim woman as


the keeper of morality in family, community and the ethnic/nation, with this message:

Instead of being a factor, which helps in healing of the society, women make things worse. They wear such poor and provocative outfits, as if they want by the language of their bodies to announce to other people: I am available. Every man who is attracted to that kind of woman does not have moral val-ues and that kind of woman does not have a true natural moral value given to her by God.70

This message clearly makes a distinction between pious and chaste women with the hijab, and those who do not embody that moral code. Hijab is understood as useful in the protection of women from men, but also as protection of (male) society from lustful women. Women are responsible for keeping morality, and accordingly, the entire burden of social order rests upon proper concealment of their bodies; even as they are invited to protect and heal their society, they are denied access to truly revolutionary power. What their society needs protection from is not explicitly stated, but it is obvious through all that has been discussed in this chapter. The morally downgraded postwar society needs to be rebuilt on the foundation of moral virtues and traditional teachings of Islam. Women should take part in that process, but only in ways that do not expose their bodies to the male gaze. This is congruent with the mainstream teachings of the Islamic Community of BiH, which encour-ages women to be educated and to engage in public life, but highly cir-cumscribes their freedom of dress. The message of the magazine is that women’s bodies communicate Islam’s religious and societal boundaries. Women are expected to stay modest and virtuous in order to heal the society and to not “devastate it” by their nakedness.

Most articles in Zehra also discuss and criticize the Western under-standing of freedom, in which the female body is exploited by the media and the beauty industry, which reduce it to a sexual object. Opposite arguments by Western feminists describe the hijab as an oppressive practice that reduces women to sexual objects and turns their sexuality into something dangerous for men. There is no proper dialogue between these two perspectives, and the arguments on each side are weak and essentialist.

Interestingly, the magazine rarely criticizes men who do not comply with the moral dress code and do not fulfill their obligations of modesty, although the Qur’anic recommendations on modesty refer first to men and only then to women. (Qur’an, 24:30–31). I have found only one


article in the last 11 years that provokes a discussion about male modesty: “Male covering (hijab), in other words, his clothing of modesty should not be avoided.”71 The woman’s body is the focus of religious and social discourse in Zehra. The magazine is an unambiguous supporter of the hijab, which, it claims, maintains a woman’s dignity and obliges her to adhere to a certain code of conduct. The hijab is a powerful motivation for some Muslim women of BiH to build Islamic values and keep their family together, which according to the prevailing social discourse in BiH, is a precondition to building healthy communities and nations.

It is critical to emphasize that the Bosniak woman’s hijab does not segregate her from men, as is the case in some Muslim countries. One reason for this more relaxed approach to gender relations can be traced back to the long period of secular statehood, during which the mixing of men and women was enforced. The socialist era empowered and encouraged women to participate equally with men in public life. Another explanation comes from examining the fiqh (Islamic jurispru-dence) of Bosnian Muslims scholars (ulama), including Grand Mufti Čaušević, theologians such as Handzić, Đozo, Trebinjac, Dobrača, Smajlović and others who were inspired by the ideas of reformist Islam emerging from Egypt and Pakistan (where most of them studied). They have interpreted Islam in a more gender inclusive way, one that enables women first to study theology and then to work together with men. The virtue of modesty is advocated, but does not exclude women entirely from public life, as it does, for example, in Saudi Arabia. On the contrary, women wearing the hijab are highly active and visible in the media, cultural events including music festivals, art, and film, and in the fashion world of BiH.

Based on analysis of many articles and images in Zehra, it can be con-cluded that messages about Bosniak women’s role in family and society are ambivalent. Complementary gender politics prevail in the magazine’s discourse, but there are also messages and images of women who pursue egalitarian gender politics. Taking into account that the former grand mufti of BiH, Reis Mustafa Cerić, is supportive of Zehra, and that Zehra features him and his wife in the magazine, it is important to hear his perspective on gender politics from one of his interviews in Zehra:

I will be happier with your work when you, women will force men to appre-ciate values you produce. It is the only way to change relations. But I do not support imitation of anybody from West or East; West where they interpret freedom of woman as her enslavement and East where a woman is protected


from something that does not really exist. Actually it is the insecurity of man, who feels insecure towards woman and who wants to secure himself claiming that he protects her [sic].72

Bosnian Muslim women are encouraged by the highest religious author-ity of BiH to build their own identity, one that should be somewhere between the Western understanding of freedom, which brought more duties and challenges to women, and the Eastern fear of a woman, her body, and her appearance in public, which is established as something threatening to the morality of men and the masculine society. The fact that the grand mufti of BiH participated in events where hijabi women sang and played together with men is encouragement to continue the struggle against gender segregation.

Conclusion

Analysis of the magazine Zehra reveals that ethnicity/nation, gender, and religion intersect in the case of Bosnian Muslim women’s identity. Emphasis is placed on Islam as the most important signifier of Bosnian Muslim identity. Religious identification is preferred and affirmed to be the most important element of ethnic/national identity, and a precon-dition for building a healthy and successful nation. Although Bosnian Muslim women do not have clear and highly developed feelings about ethnic/national identity, the magazine Zehra emphasizes the crucial role of women in building the Bosniak nation.

The most influential image of Bosnian Muslim women is Mother, who is portrayed as a keeper and transmitter of Islamic religious values, and consequently as a bearer of the Bosniak nation. Zehra also promotes and advocates complementary gender politics, which produce tensions between motherhood and career, between a woman’s obligation in the private and public spheres. This tension is particularly visible when we analyze how Zehra portrays motherhood: The magazine does not portray Bosnian women unambiguously as the physical reproducers of the Bosniak nation. Rather, it emphasizes both political action and motherhood as a way to build their Bosniak identity. However, this political action is bounded by ideas about the appropriate social role for Muslim women. Zehra is not promoting the restriction of women exclusively to the roles of wives and mothers, but it is also not promot-ing a true revolution in Bosnian gender roles. It attempts to straddle the


ambiguous “middle” position: women should work and be educated, but they should not place privilege, power, or success over domestic success and consequent happiness. They should seek to work and be successful within the Bosnian patriarchal social order rather than overturn it.

The analysis demonstrates that hijabi Bosniak Muslim women serve as markers of the internal and external boundaries of the Bosniak nation. They are considered true believers and keepers of morality among Muslims, and through wearing the hijab, have the power to form clear boundaries between Muslims and non-Muslims and sustain the code of conduct (haya’) that accompanies the hijab. Yet, a woman with hijab is not excluded and secluded, but very much engaged and visible in Bosnian social life, particularly in the fields of culture and education. Her social engagement should be “in accordance with Islamic principles” (modesty and shyness), but as we have seen, those principles are ambiguous and vague in the Bosnian secular context. Although the magazine Zehra does not explicitly advocate pro-life politics, its emphasis on motherhood and maintaining morality through the control of woman’s sexuality—Islamic dress code—implicitly supports, through adoption of the hijab, both the physical and spiritual healing of the Bosniak nation during its postwar transition and recovery.

Notes

1. Religious identity was written with a lowercase “m” musliman while writing national/ethnic identity was written with capital “M” Musliman.

2. Mustafa Imamović, Historija Bošnjaka (Sarajevo: Preporod Bošnjačka zajednica kulture, 1997), pp. 138, 564–565.

3. Adrian Hastings, The Construction of Nationhood—Ethnicity, Religion, Nationalism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), pp. 130, 139, 140–142.

4. Different conflicting theories were developed about the Bosnian Church: the prevailing one is that the Bosnian Church is connected to Bogomils who embraced dualistic and Manichean heresy with completely different teachings and organization from the Catholic and Orthodox churches; the second one is that the Bosnian Church was a branch of the Eastern Orthodox Church, probably Serbian, which then fell into schism due to the aforementioned heretical ideas. See Noel Malcolm, Bosnia: A Short History (New York: NYU Press, 1996); Mustafa Imamović, Historija Bošnjaka, pp. 138, 564–565.

5. Rusmir Mahmutćehajić, Živa Bosna, 2nd ed. (Slovenia: Oslobodjenje, 1994), pp. 24, 139, 199–200.


6. Tone Bringa, Being Muslim the Bosnian Way (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995), pp. 80–84, p. 86.

7. During the war, Bosnian Muslim intellectuals organized two Sabor sessions in 1993 and 1994, with the main purpose of fortifying the defense strategy and reaffirmation of the Bosniak nation in the independent state of Bosnia-Herzegovina. One of the suggestions was the dissolution of Bosnia-Herzegovina, a proposal that, according to Mahmutćehajić, also contributed to the nationalist politics of destruction of the Bosnian State (Rusmir Mahmutćehajić, Živa Bosna, 2nd ed [Oslobodjenje, Slovenia, 1994], pp. 24, 139, 199–200).

8. Research analysis of “The Religious Ethos in BiH,” conducted by the University of Bielefeld and the University of Sarajevo during 2009–2010 shows that Kewser is one of the most well-known organizations among Bosnian Muslims in terms of distribution of their activities among people and presentation of their activities in media.

9. Julie Mostov, “Sexing the Nation/Desexing the Body: Politics of National Identity in Former Yugoslavia,” in Tamar Mayer (ed.), Gender Ironies of Nationalism—Sexing the Nation (London and New York: Routledge, 2002), p. 89.

10. Carol Pateman, The Disorder of Woman: Democracy. Feminism and Political Theory (Cambridge: Polity, 1989), p. 1.

11. Gordana Stojaković, Neda: Jedna biografija [Neda: A Biography] (Novi Sad: Futura publikacija, 2002), pp. 47–48.

12. Zilka Spahić-Šiljak, Women, Religion and Politics (Sarajevo: IMIC, CIPS, TPO, 2010), p. 161.

13. Quoted in “Gender and Ethnic Identities in Transition the Former Yugoslavia-Croatia,” in Rada Iveković and Julie Mostov (eds), From Gender to Nation (Ravena: Longo Editore, 2001), p. 65.

14. Floya Anthias and Nira Yuval-Davis, Racialized Boundaries: Race, Nation, Gender, Colour and Class and the Anti-Racist Struggle, New edition (London: Routledge, 1993), pp. 6–11.

15. Vesna Kesić, “Gender and Ethnic Identities in Transition the Former Yugoslavia-Croatia,” in Rada Iveković and Julie Mostov (eds), From Gender to Nation (Ravena: Longo Editore, 2001), p. 65.

16. Quoted in Sita Ranchod-Nilson and Mary Ann Tetreault, Women, States and Nationalism: At Home in the Nation? 1st ed. (New York: Routledge, 2000), p. 43.

17. Zilka Spahić-Šiljak, “Images of Women in Bosnia, Herzegovina, and Neighboring Countries, 1992–1995,” in Faegheh Shirazi (ed.), Muslim Women in War and Crisis: From Reality to Representation (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2011), pp. 213–226.

18. Anđelka Milić, Women, Politics, Family (Žene, politika, porodica) (Belgrade: Institute for Political Studies, 1994), p. 155.


19. Zilka Spahić-Šiljak, “Images of Women in Bosnia, Herzegovina, and Neighboring Countries, 1992–1995,” pp. 213–226.

20. Ibid.21. Zilka Spahić Šiljak, Sjaj ljudskosti—životne priče mirotvorki u Bosni i Hercegovini

(Shining Humanity/Life Stories in Women in Bosnia and Herzegovina) (Fondacija, Sarajevo: TPO), 2013.

22. Zilka Spahić-Šiljak, “Women’s Civil Scene as an Example of (De) Secularization of Bosnia and Herzegovina,” http://www.kas.de/proj/home/pub/41/1/year-2008 /dokument_id-14782/index.htm, accessed October 24, 2009.

23. Elissa Helms, “The Nation-ing of Gender? Donor Policies, Islam, and Women’s NGOs in Post-War Bosnia-Herzegovina,” Anthropology of East Europe Review 21(2) (2003), p. 3.

24. Sadika Avdić. “Imam Homeini, revolucionar ideje i misli” [Imam Homeini Revolutionist of Idea and Thought], Zehra 39 (June 2008), pp. 16, 38–41, 50.

25. Đermana Šeta, “Zašto marama? Bosanskohercegovačke muslimanke o životu i radu pod maramom” (“Why the Headscarf?—Muslim Women of Bosnia and Herzegovina Speak about their Experience of Living and Working with the Headscarf ”) (Sarajevo: CNS and Center for Interdisciplinary Postgraduate Studies of University of Sarajevo, 2011), p. 98.

26. Dževad Hodžić, “Macho razumijevanje islama” (Macho Understanding of Islam), Ljiljan 25 (February 2005), p. 41.

27. Zilka Spahic-Šiljak, Women, Religion and Politics: Impact Analysis of Interpretative Religious Heritage of Judaism, Christianity and Islam on the Engagement of Women in Public Life and Politics in Bosnia and Herzegovina (Sarajevo: IMIC, CIPS, TPO, 2010).

28. Šeta, “Zašto marama,” p. 98.29. Ibrahim Avdić, “Hrvati Dolaze” [Croats Are Coming], Zehra (October–

November, 2001), p. 3; Ibrahim Avdić, “Bosnjacko nejedinstvo” [Bosniak Disunity], Zehra (August 2009), p. 19.

30. Magazine Zehra, M.Z.O. Kewser website http://www.kewser-Zehra.com.ba /index.php?sec=magazin (Accessed on October10, 2009).

31. Sadika Avdić, “Editorial,” magazine Zehra 3 (June, 2001), p. 2.32. Anthias and Yuval-Davis, Racialized Boundaries, pp. 6–11; Deniz Kandiyoti,

“End of Empire: Islam, Nationalism and Women in Turkey,” in D. Kandiyoti (ed.), Theory (Cambridge: Polity, 1989); Ann McClintock, Imperial Leather: Race, Gender and Sexuality in the Colonial Contest (London and New York: Routledge, 1995).

33. Mahira Šeko, “Muslimanska Cosmo djevojka” [Muslim Cosmo Girl], Zehra 35 (August–September 2007), pp. 38–39.

34. After 1990, BiH experienced encounters with different branches and teaching of Islam, primarily Selefi Muslims called Wahabis; and Shi’a Muslims who established their cultural and educational centers, humanitarian organizations,

http://www.kas.de/proj/home/pub/41/1/year-2008/dokument_id-14782/index.htm

http://www.kas.de/proj/home/pub/41/1/year-2008/dokument_id-14782/index.htm

http://www.kewser-Zehra.com.ba/index.php?sec=magazin

http://www.kewser-Zehra.com.ba/index.php?sec=magazin


and schools, and media. Kewser organization is established with the support of Iranian funds and, therefore, the magazine Zehra includes some themes about Shi’ism. See more in Harun Karcic, “Islamic Revival in Bosnia and Herzegovina 1992–2010,” http://http//cns.ba/docs/islamic_revival_in_Bosnia _and_Herzegovina_1992–1995.pdf.

35. Sadika Avdić, “Imam Homeini,” Zehra 39 (June 2008), pp. 38–41.36. Ibid., p. 2.37. Irfan Subašić, “Ašura i Kerbela iz drugog ugla” [Ashura and Kerbela from

Other Perspective], Zehra 22 (February–March 2005), p. 44.38. Sadika Avdić, “Imam Homeini,” p. 2.39. Ibrahim Avdić is the author who mostly covers the themes of politics and

ethnic/national identities in BiH. Other male authors also occasionally write for Zehra covering world politics and Shi’a history and philosophy. This is also evidence that in woman’s magazine there is space for men to write, but typical “male themes” such as politics.

40. Ibrahim Avdić, “Šta je to u Bošnjačkom biću što od njeg pravi siću” [“What is in the Bosniak Being that Makes Him Minuscule”], Zehra 8 (September 2002), pp. 4–6.

41. SDA (Party of Democratic Action) is a political party established by the Bosniac Muslims in 1990 as the first ethno-national political block in the country accompanied latter by Croatian Democratic Party (HDZ) and Serb Democratic Party (SDS).

42. Since religious scholars (ulama) in Shi’a Islam in today’s Iran have leading positions in the politics and the society, the author of the text, Ibrahim Avdic, perceives the grand mufti’s duty to be involved in the political life of Bosnia-Herzegovina (Avdić Ibrahim, “Šta je to u Bošnjačkom biću što od njeg pravi siću,” p. 6).

43. Carol Pateman, The Disorder of Woman: Democracy: Feminism and Political Theory (Cambridge: Polity, 1989), p. 1.

44. Azra Hasanović, “Ravnopravnost žena i muškaraca” [Equality of Women and Men], Zehra 14 (September 2003), p. 6.

45. Sadika Avdić, Personal Interview, October 26, 2009.46. Zilka Spahić Šiljak, Contesting Female Feminist and Muslim Identities: Post-

Socialist Contexts of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo (Sarajevo: CIPS of the University of Sarajevo, 2012), p. 131.

47. Sadika Avdić, Žena iz perspektive drugih religija (“Woman from the Perspective of Other Religions”), magazine Zehra 11 (April, 2003), p. 16.

48. Bringa, Being Muslim the Bosnian Way, pp. 80–84, 86.49. Elvira Velić-Muftić, Personal Interview, October 26, 2009.50. Sadika Avdić, Personal Interview, October 26, 2009.51. Merisha Hadžipašić, Personal Interview, October 26, 2009.52. Zehra Aličković-Ćesir, Personal Interview, October 26, 2009.

http://http//cns.ba/docs/islamic_revival_in_Bosnia_and_Herzegovina_1992-1995.pdf

http://http//cns.ba/docs/islamic_revival_in_Bosnia_and_Herzegovina_1992-1995.pdf


53. Quoted in Xavier Bougarel, “Bosnian Islam as ‘European Islam, Limits and Shifts of Concepts,’” in Aziz al-Azmeh and Effie Fokas (eds), Islam in Europe Diversity, Identity and Influence (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), p. 110.

54. Zilka Spahić Šiljak, Contesting Female, Feminist and Muslim Identities, p. 131.55. Elvedina Plasto, “Doktorica velikog srca” [Physician of Big Heart], Zehra 45

(January 2009), pp. 22–23.56. Medhija Maglajlić, “Bošnjakinja je ponosom nadivisila sramotu koja joj je

namijenjena” [Bosniak Woman Surpassed the Shame Intended for Her by Her Pride], Zehra 18 (June 2004), pp. 34–37.

57. Ibid.58. Aida Kahriman, “Baby-Stop!?” Zehra 21 (September 2004), pp. 4–9.59. Aida Krzić, “Šta nam je žena” [What Woman does Mean to Us], Zehra 28

(June 2006), pp. 11–12.60. Sadžida Ćelebić, “Odgoj, obrazovanje i karakter žene” [Upbringing, Education,

Character of Woman], Zehra 21 (December 2004), p. 34.61. Smaragda Klino, “Savremena žena je tragikomičan lik” [Modern Woman is a

Tragicomic Figure], Zehra 14 (September 2003), pp. 5–6.62. Nilufer Göle, The Forbidden Modern: Critical Perspectives on Women and Gender

(Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1996), p. 79.63. Zehra Aličković-Ćesir Personal Interview, October 26, 2009.64. Bringa, Being Muslim the Bosnian Way, pp. 80–84, 86.65. Saba Mahmood, Politics of Piety: The Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject

(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005), pp. 40–70, 158–159, 163.66. Ibid.67. Đermana Šeta, “Hidžab bez granica” [Hijab without Borders], Zehra 37

(January-February, 2008), pp. 38.68. In the families who are exposed to Salafi and Iranian influence, women

face challenges and pressure to accept modesty code and hijab, but it is not genuine Bosnian Muslim practice of Islam where women enjoy freedom to choose to comply or not to comply with these norms of modesty.

69. Zilka Spahić-Šiljak, Contesting Female, Feminist and Muslim Identities, 2012.70. Sadika Avdić, “Sotonske sluge” (Satan’s Servants), magazine Zehra 24 (July–

August, 2005), p. 3.71. Aida Krzić, “Šta nam je žena” (What Woman does mean to Us), magazine

Zehra 28 (June, 2006), pp. 11–12.72. Velić-Muftićc Elvira and Mediha Džamkić, “Intervju s povodom” (Interview

on the Occasion), magazine Zehra 41 (September, 2008), p. 5.

Nation Religion and Gender

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