Attitudes to Religious Others:
A Conceptual Framework with Application to Bosniak Islam

© Christian Moe 2004

Paper presented at the EASR conference “Religious Tolerance and Intolerance”
Santander, 8 September2004

Also available as PDF

A grand mosque, a Catholic church, an Orthodox church, and a synagogue shoulder to shoulder: This is the image of Sarajevo presented on the cover of a book on its Muslim cultural legacy.¹ It is often used as a metaphor, set in stone, of the tolerant or pluralist inter-religious relations that have characterised Bosnian history, and for which the Bosnian Muslims in particular claim credit. A visitor to Sarajevo, however, will notice that the artist has taken certain liberties with geography in order to make his point more clearly. The four buildings can indeed be found in Sarajevo within the space of a few square kilometres, but they do not, in actual fact, rub shoulders. Similarly, while peaceful co-existence of four major religions has indeed been a feature of Bosnian history, and there are indeed grounds for characterising the Bosnian Muslims as tolerant and pluralist, these claims call for closer examination and analysis.

The present paper, though it has been through several revisions already,² represents work in progress. It is an attempt to deal with the complexity of describing the attitudes of a religious community towards religious others. My motivations for trying to work out this framework are threefold. First, as a student of contemporary Islam in Bosnia I feel the need to problematise the Bosnian Muslims' self-understanding as a particularly tolerant, even pluralist community. Second, an esteemed colleague questioned whether a certain group of Bosnian Muslim intellectuals were unambiguously pluralists, as I had suggested in an earlier paper,³ leading me to consider the matter in greater depth. And third, I find that the term “religious pluralism” tends to be used, and understood, in confusingly different ways.

My aim is to introduce some analytical distinctions that might help us say more precisely what we mean when we speak of pluralism. Using these distinctions, we can work out a typology of attitudes to religious others that may serve as a guide to comparative research and as a point of departure for formulating hypotheses about connections between such attitudes. This also involves examining more closely the largely unexamined notion that religious pluralism is in itself “a good thing.”

The paper falls into two main parts. In the first, I develop the conceptual framework. The second part is a case study, in which I seek to locate the attitudes of Bosniak Muslims within that framework, mainly for the sake of illustration. This simple exercise may indicate whether the framework can be extended and applied to do useful work in the future. Readers' comments⁴ on what remains a very sketchy and tentative approach are warmly welcomed.

Basic distinctions

Pluralism must be distinguished from plurality. Plurality is a state of affairs, pluralism is the attitude supporting that state of affairs, or the idea normatively justifying it.⁵ Plurality is more or less synonymous with “diversity”. There are religiously plural societies in which the idea of religious pluralism does not enjoy widespread support. Furthermore, the attitude, norm, or idea of pluralism must be distinguished from the actual practice of pluralism. In a similar way, the attitudes of inclusivism and exclusivism may be distinguished from inclusion and exclusion (which, in the English language, refer both to practices and to states of affairs).

In drawing on data from the public discourse of the ulama of the organised Islamic Community of Bosnia-Hercegovina, the second part of this paper will be dealing with publicly declared norms, more than with actual social practices. However, there is a performative aspect to public discourse, and in some context the expression of of an attitude to religious others is also an act directly affecting religious others.

Religious others may be external or internal, depending on whether they are perceived as adherents of different religions or as different variants of one and the same religion. The boundary between the two may be contested, as with the question whether the Ahmadiyya are beyond the pale of Islam, or whether the Roman Catholic and Serbian Orthodox Churches are appropriately viewed as different religions (this is arguably the Bosnian perception) or as variants of the Christian faith. Attitudes to internal religious others is just as interesting a topic as attitudes to external religious others, involving as it does issues of sectarianism, heresiology, etc. The internal dividing lines of a single religious tradition may be as conflict-prone as the divisions between the major traditions, and quite possibly more so: Boundary drawing and maintenance may be a more acutely felt need with regard to internal divisions than between major religious traditions, where the borders are relatively clear and settled. However, in the following I will deal only with attitudes to external religious others.. Taking internal others into account would introduce so much complexity as to make my proposed model unmanageable, especially within this short time frame. Let me only note here that the contemporary Islamic scene in Bosnia is exhibits far more internal plurality now than in the previous half-century, and that attitudes to religious others are correspondingly diverse.

Domains

Religious pluralism takes on a variety of meanings according to the domain in which it applies. Let me just suggest three such domains (there may be others⁶): the theological, the social, and the public. In the theological domain, attitudes to religious others focus on the truth claims, and in particular the salvific efficacy of other religions. That is, Are their teachings true? And can they provide salvation for their adherents, in whatever sense the one uses that word? Attitudes in the social domain concern human relations with religious others. Attitudes in the public domain concern the relationship between the state and a plurality of religions, including forms of regulating their presence in the public sphere.

I here distinguish between the social and the public. The public sphere is an abstract concept which applies to a subset of highly formalised social relations. When I speak of the social, then, I speak of the remainder of social relations when the public is abstracted, that is, of such relations as between family members, neighbours, people in a crowd, and so on. The public sphere, I believe, was differentiated out from social relations in general in the modern era, in connection with the rise of the modern state, and the notion of citizenship. This limits the full applicability of the proposed framework to the modern era and to societies that have experienced a degree of modernisation. With many caveats, however, I think the notion of a public domain can reasonably be applied to the “affairs of state” of pre-modern rulers.

Attitudes in the theological domain: Pluralism, exclusivism, inclusivism

In Christian academic theology in the West, there is a tendency to distinguish theological religious pluralism from exclusivism and inclusivism, thus creating a tripartite typology of models of inter-religious attitudes. As I understand the use of these categories, theological religious pluralism is the idea that the beliefs of other religions are true on their own terms, and that their adherents may achieve salvation in some sense of the word. Exclusivism, on the other hand, means to claim truth value and salvific efficacy for one's own religion only, denying it to other religions. There is also an intermediate position: Inclusivism means to acknowledge a restricted, derivative truth value and salvific efficacy for other religions, not on their own terms, but inasmuch as they reflect the truths of one's own religion.

The cross-cultural applicability of the exclusivist-inclusivist-pluralist typology is contested. The centrality of truth claims and salvation in the proposed definitions of these categories derives from Christian theology, which historically has placed great importance on dogmatic orthodoxy, even if these categories are not defined so as to prejudice the substantive content of truth claims or the type of salvation (used here in a rather open-ended Weberian sense): The typology refers to the attitudes of a religious self holding views of whatever type vis-a-vis others holding views of whatever type. Even so, however, the typology arguably serves ideological purposes of some Christian groups both vis-a-vis other Christian groups and vis-a-vis religions such as Islam; i. e., it may be used to underline the moral superiority of pluralists vis-a-vis those who might claim that mantle, but are reduced, in this scheme, to mere inclusivists. The less other religions resemble Christianity in being universalist religions with a systematic theology, the less apt these categories may seem to be.

The scheme may be attacked from various points of view. Those categorically suspicious of any cross-cultural comparison employing emic categories will obviously have problems with it; I cannot assuage their concerns except to suggest that our understanding is best enhanced by the complementary use of both emic and etic approaches, the present paper being only an example of the former. Others might support the emic approach, but require categories to be as universal and neutral as possible, i. e. not derived from any particular religious tradition. While there is obviously much to be learned from the exercise of seeking to formulate such neutral categories, I do not think an “immaculate conception” is achievable. Taking the categorical tools available in our own cultures and seeking to apply them to others is a first step towards understanding; a second step is listening to the objections of those others (and fellow scholars) as to why, precisely, these categories are inappropriate, and attempting to modify them. This is a hermeneutic process that points, ideally, towards cross-culturally negotiated common terms. With this extremely summary discussion I leave open the question of to what degree these concepts, categories and definitions are cross-culturally applicable, and invite specific objections to be raised.

Following closely, but sometimes extrapolating from a very enlightening discussion of this model by Kate McCarthy,⁷ let me make the following claims:

(1) Actual attitudes may not correspond perfectly to these ideal types, but may overlap at the borders between the types in ambiguous ways.

(2) The typology cuts across religious divisions. That is, within each major religious tradition, all three attitudes are possible, and we may expect to find each of the three represented, though whether we will actually do so is a question to be settled empirically.

(3) However, each major religious tradition may be characterised as historically being typically or predominantly exclusivist or inclusivist. This of course is a controversial claim (suggested, but not explicitly made by McCarthy), and like all sweeping generalisations it needs to be appropriately qualified. To the extent that this typology is cross-culturally applicable, we might tentatively describe Judaism and Christianity as predominantly exclusivist, at least until the 20^th century, whereas mainstream Islam has shown a considerable inclusivist streak, Buddhism has been strongly inclusivist, and Hindu inclusivism shades over in pluralism. The point I wish to argue here, however, is not whether e. g. Christianity has been mainly pluralist or inclusivist; I with to argue only that this question can be answered and that it makes sense to argue over it.

(4) Religious pluralism is the rarest of these models and is not widely represented within any of the major religious traditions. It may be found in its most developed form as a radical strand of liberal academic Christian theology. However, most Christians are probably neither academic theologians nor theologically liberal.

(5) I would further like to make a normative claim about the so-called scientific study of religion, as it seeks to distinguish itself from theology: As students of religion we do not take a stand on religious truth claims. Therefore, we also do not take a stand on religious attitudes to the the truth claims of religious others. The practical point is that, I believe, we should avoid expressing ourselves as if theological religious pluralism is a desirable attitude that ought to be promoted at the expense of exclusivist and inclusivist attitudes. Of course, outside our professional roles, to the extent we are believers, we may favour one or the other. Non-believers, too, may in their role of high-minded citizens favour theological pluralism, if they suppose it to be conducive to desirable social outcomes.

A two-dimensional model of inter-religious attitudes

We now have the makings of a two-dimensional scheme. One dimension concerns the qualitatively different domains – theological, social, and public – in which we find different meanings of the term religious pluralism. The other dimension, which we have so far considered only in the theological domain, concerns the attitude towards other religions, which varies along a discontinuous scale from exclusivism via inclusivism to pluralism. At this point, one cannot resist the temptation to display these two dimensions as orthogonal axes and derive a three-by-three matrix of possible inter-religious attitudes. I have one here:

Now that we have a nice-looking framework, does it make any sense? We are making the risky double move of (1) applying a typology appropriate for Christian theology to other religions, and also (2) extending these categories from their domain of origin, the theological domain, to the social and public domains. Ad (1), I have already briefly discussed the problem of cross-cultural application, and will not revisit it here except to suggest that the culture-specific (here: Christian) origins of a typology become less of a problem when the typology is applied outside its original (here: theological) domain, because this application is equally novel to the tradition of origin.

Ad (2), we may ask whether the extension of the attitudinal categories from the theological to other demains is not rather forced. When extended to the social and public domains, do the categories of exclusivism, inclusivism, and pluralism take on meanings that do not parallel those in the religious realm? Would not other categories take better account of the different nature of the social and public realms? In the following, I will only seek to fill in the blanks by providing sensible-seeming definitions of the new categories, and then, in the second part of the paper, attempt to apply them.

Social religious pluralism

Social religious pluralism is about accepting social relations with religious others. It is a norm that may be said to predominate in a religiously plural society where this plurality or diversity is considered desirable, so that not only are religious others tolerated, their otherness is considered to enrich society. It means measures of social distance between adherents of different religions (such as those that form the Bogardus scale) would be low. It is an attitude best captured by fulsome phrases such as “a rich tapestry of belief.”

Social religious exclusivism, on the other hand, is the rejection of social relations with religious others. To introduce some sub-distinctions is what is obviously a very broad category, social exclusivism may be selective or comprehensive. Comprehensive social exclusivism is the attitude that society has place only for one's own religion, and takes forms ranging from mere avoidance of religious others to support of forced conversions and pogroms. Selective exclusivism may relate only to some areas of life, such as marriage and commensalism, while not affecting e. g. workplace relations. (Note that we are dealing with ideas and attitudes: With inclusivism and exclusivism, not with the actual fact of inclusion and exclusion.)

Now, if the scheme is to make sense, there also needs to be something we can meaningfully call social religious inclusivism. It is not quite clear what that might be. We might perhaps describe it as the attitude by a dominant religious group that some other groups are sufficiently similar to be acceptable as members of society, though possibly in a subordinate position and subject to assimilatory pressures. The classical Muslim notion of dhimma, the protected but subordinate status and the close but asymmetric social relations offered to Jews and Christians, would be one example.

As a digression: With reference to the former Yugoslavia, where for several groups ethnicity and religious affiliation were two sides of the same coin, we might broaden our view a little to speak of an ethno-religious field. In the former Yugoslavia we find a particularly insidious form of religious inclusivism that aimed at the incorporation and assimilation of another ethnic group. This characteristic feature of both Greater Croatian and Greater Serbian designs on Bosnia was most strikingly expressed by the Ustaša leader Ante Pavelić in his embrace of the Muslims as “the flower of the Croatian nation.”

Public religious pluralism

Public religious pluralism, I think, is usefully defined as the view that the state should extend the same treatment to other religions as one wishes for one's own religion, and that other religions should have equal access to the public sphere. This would place the state in the role of a neutral arbiter treating the different religions equally, not favouring one religion or a select group of religions.

The question arises, however, whether the term must also imply that the state takes a positive view of religious plurality and of religion as such. Some might maintain that the phrase is meaningless unless the state takes such an attitude and manifests it by actively supporting religion or acting in a spirit of partnership with religious communities. Others might protest that e. g. French or Turkish laïcism is a form of public religious pluralism, indeed, the only practically possible form in some societies. Possibly, public religious pluralism spans options ranging from multi-culturalism (the active fostering of different religious communities, giving equal consideration to all by giving special consideration to each) via liberal democracy (giving equal consideration to all by giving special consideration to none, leaving communities to sink or swim in the marketplace of identity) to laïcism (the active fostering of a civic identity to supersede religious ones, excluding all equally from the public sphere).

It seems to me that these questions are all connected with a state-centric perspective on the issue, which tends to inform models of state-church relations. In keeping with the rest of my model, however, I want to take a religion-centric view, or rather, look at attitudes to religious others from the point of view of the believing subject, the adherent of a religion. It is dubious whether the state can be said to have religious others in any meaningful sense: the state is not a religion nor, except as a metaphor, a believer.⁸ In the state-centric perspective, therefore, the degree of acceptance of religious others may not be a meaningful dimension. In the state-centric perspective the relevant dimensions are two, namely the degree of acceptance of religion, and the degree of acceptance of plurality.

Following the same perspective, public religious exclusivism would be the demand that the state protect and promote one's religion, the effect being state religion and the privileging of the state's chosen religion in the public sphere. We may wish to include Marxism and state-sponsored atheism in a broad conception of state religion. Appearances may deceive: Norway, for instance, has a state religion (Lutheran Protestantism), and that religion enjoys both de iure and de facto privileges in the public sphere, yet at the same time the Norwegian system is in practice highly pluralist, e.g. subsidising all religious communities equally in proportion to their membership.

And what of public religious inclusivism? I submit that this obtains when a religious community is willing to extend to select religious others the treatment it demands for itself from the state. The parallel with theological inclusivism is not perfect, since the main point about theological inclusivism is not its selectivity, but its tendency to subsume or subordinate to itself those religions it shows tolerance. Still, perhaps public inclusivism usually involves recognising in those other religions an inferior but sufficient reflection of the qualities that make one's own religion supremely deserving of state protection. These qualities may not be purely theological in nature; the historical presence of a religion in a given territory, for instance, might qualify it for inclusion on the grounds that it is equally “national” as the dominant religion.

Some conceptual tweaks are clearly necessary if the extension of these categories from the theological domain is to make sense. One might prefer to look to the plethora of church-state models already developed in sociology and law for meaningful categories in the public domain. Still, I don't think my model breaks down completely when applied to the public sphere, at least if we keep in mind that we take a religion-centric and not a state-centric perspective. We get a tripartite division which I think is actually quite suited to describe current debates in the Balkans, as well as in the wider post-Communist part of Europe: Is the state to protect and promote one religion, a handful of “traditional” religions, or all religions equally?

Correspondences and correlations

In her article on religious pluralism, Kate McCarthy makes some provocative claims: That religious exclusivists are not necessarily averse to inter-religious dialogue – indeed, they are sometimes highly motivated and valuable dialogue partners – and that religious pluralists, however much they may be motivated for dialogue, may in fact bring comparatively little to the table. The theological exclusivists may be as interested in inter-religious cooperation to deal with social problems as anyone, and they may be additionally motivated for dialogue by their zeal to convert others. They also bring valuable resources to the table: Being solidly grounded in their own faith, they have a lot to talk about, and being in tune with the majority of ordinary believers, they may be able to deliver mass support for any efforts jointly agreed.

I would like to expand on McCarthy's point to make the following claim about relationships between the categories in my model:

There is no logically necessary correspondence between attitudes across domains. Empirical study is likely to find varying combinations.

For instance, it appears possible to combine theological exclusivism with social and public religious pluralism. It is possible to have cordial professional, neighbourly, or even marital relations even with someone one believes to be destined for hell.⁹ And though one may hold his own religion to be the only true faith and the only one ultimately deserving of the state's protection, he may yet be pragmatic enough to support a secular, neutral state, as a better slternative than civil war. To what extent such combinations actually exist is obviously a matter for research. Still, I risk the claim that it exists, because if it did not, given the high prevalence of theological exclusivism, our religiously plural societies simply would not work.

At the same time, some correlations are likely to be far more probable than others. In particular, theological pluralists may usually be assumed to be highly motivated for social and public religious pluralism. Also, though traditional Muslim social inclusivism may stem in great part from the administrative needs of a multi-religious empire, it must also have been helped by its fit with Islamic theological inclusivism

If this is so, an interesting research programme could begin with the question: What attitudes combine across domains in what situations, and what are the dynamics behind these tendencies?

Application: Bosniak Muslims

I am not going to carry out that research programme here. Instead, as promised, I am finally going to apply the model to Bosniak Muslims in order to consider whether and in what sense they are religious pluralists in each of the three domains. In the present paper, my only ambition for the case study is to illustrate the use of the model. Therefore I will, in a none too systematic fashion, pick some data points from the public discourse of the Islamic Community and some anecdotal experiences, and plot them on my grid.

As a starting point, whatever sweeping generalisations we are able to make about Islam in general and about Hanafite Sunni Islam in particular are likely to hold true for the Bosnian Muslims. As already indicated, I believe the broad sweep of Muslim history could be characterised as theological and social religious inclusivism.

According to Muslim belief God has revealed his authentic message to many peoples through history, and e.g. Christianity and Judaism started out as authentic pre-Muhammadan forms of “Islam” in the broad sense of the word. Muhammad was the last Messenger, sealing God's revelation, and bringing a new dispensation for all humanity, not for a particular people. The message he brought confirms the authentically divine origins of Christianity and Judaism and, though Muslims believe that the believers of those religions have adulterated their scriptures, there remains unadulterated truth in these religions of the book. Importantly, however, Muslim scholars have tended to agree that the duties these religions prescribe have been abrogated by the law brought by Muhammad.

The theological inclusivism of classical Muslim scholarship is thus a rather qualified one. Only some truth claims of Christians and Jews are only partially and cautiously recognised, while others are rejected as falsehood, in particuar the Christian doctrines of the Trinity, the Incarnation, and the death of Jesus. Their prescribed practices have been superseded by a better law, and their failure to abide by this law, if they are aware of it, seriously imperils their chances of salvation. Muslim scholars have given various answers to the question of whether Christians and Jews will be saved.¹⁰

And yet, this qualified theological inclusivism carried the day, justifying a high degree of social religious inclusivism in Muslim societies. Dhimmi status, though a clearly second-class citizenship by modern standards, gave Jews, Christians, Zoroastrians (and in some instances others as well) security for the persons and their property, freedom of worship, access to most spheres of social activity (though not to government), and even provided them with a degree of legal autonomy. Until the modern age, the position of these minorities in Muslim societies as a general rule compared favourably with the position of Jews, not to mention Muslims, in European Christendom. Pressures to assimilate and convert to Islam, though ever present, could be subtle and indirect, and only exceptionally took the form of direct coercion. The form the system took, though not the rationale behind it, bears some resemblance to the ideas of modern multiculturalism. To speak of medieval Muslim societies as religiously pluralist, however, I think is an exaggeration; they may be better described as inclusivist.

To the extent that we may retrospectively identify a public sphere in premodern Muslim societies, however, Muslims tended to be public religious exclusivists. The religion of the state was clearly Islam, the rulers were required to be Muslims, and while the state protected all religions of the Book, it generally promoted only Islam. There were individual exceptions, to be sure, e.g. cases of financial support by Muslim rulers for the building of churches. In some cases, Christians could attain high positions in government, but they could not reach the top.

There is no single modern Muslim position on the issue. Modern Islamist thought, such as that of Mawdudi or Khomeini, tends towards a public religious exclusivism far more rigid than that of medieval Muslim societies, because of their understanding of Islam as the total ideology of the modern state, but it also makes concessions to public inclusivism by granting religious minorities reserved seats in parliament with separate electorates.

So what of the Bosniak¹¹ Muslims? They take great pride in what they say is their tradition of ethnic and religious tolerance, often asserting that they have always practiced multiculturalism and religious freedom, and that the international community has nothing to teach them in that regard. For evidence they point to the existence of large Catholic and Orthodox communities, the Jewish community that found shelter there after being run out of Spain in 1492, the preservation of churches in Muslim-controlled territories through centuries of Ottoman rule as well as through four years of bitter war in the 1990s. Often cited is the Ahdname or charter of freedom granted to the Bosnian Franciscans by the Sultan after his successful conquest of Bosnia. (The many subsequent decisions by Bosnia's Ottoman rulers imposing restrictions on the Catholic faith, such as that of Gazi Husrev-beg forbidding the construction of churches where churches had not previously existed, are never recalled in this context by Muslims, but have been carefully chronicled by Franciscan historians.)

To speak of the Bosnian Muslims in isolation from Bosnian Catholics and Orthodox is a bit like “one hand clapping.” Their lives and fates intermingle and their beliefs and attitudes sometimes come to mirror one another, and all that I say about the Muslims should ideally be set in perspective by comparison with the other two major groups. For the limited purposes of this paper, however, I will focus only on the Muslims.

Bosniak social religious pluralism-cum-exclusivism

A number of other qualifications would be in order, but in brief, I would say that in the social domain, Bosniak Muslims practiced a fairly benevolent inclusivism as the privileged under Ottoman rule (said inclusivism always being subject to the harsh vicissitudes of imperial politics and external warfare);¹² though in the mid-19^th century, their elites militantly resisted Ottoman reforms that aimed inter alia at introducing a social and public pluralism of equal citizen. In the 20^th century, they have largely supported social religious pluralism. There is no need to idealise this attitude or to romanticise its motives. Under the Ottomans, motives included the need to keep a sprawling multi-ethnic state from coming apart. Since the departure of the Ottomans, an important motive for promoting an ethos of social pluralism has been the survival of the Muslims themselves in a minority situation surrounded by often hostile Christian neighbours.

How much is left of the pluralist attitude after the 1992-1995 war, after ethnic cleansing, the redrawing of ethnic maps, and the carving up of the country into fiefdoms run for the exclusive benefit of one or the other nationalist political elite? What is left of the Bosnia where once – just to cite one of innumerable anecdotes -- two small boys grew up together as neighbours, inseparable, the Catholic tagging along with his Muslim friend to hang out in the mosque yard, the Muslim accompanying his Catholic friend to church, to be kindly and politely rebuffed only when he wanted to take Communion like his friend?¹³ In the small Central Bosnian village studied by Bringa in the 1980s, will Muslim and Croat women ever again hang around in each others' kitchens, gossiping and drinking coffee, as they did until a few years before all the Muslims were driven out by Croat forces?

I have not done anything like the fieldwork that would help answer those questions, having focused on the public discourse of the Muslim religious elite in speeches, formal interviews, and publications. It may, however, be briefly and correctly stated that on the declarative, normative level, the mainstream Muslim clergy, firmly organised in the Islamic Community, remains committed to social religious pluralism.¹⁴ There is, however, a new presence of so-called “Wahhabis” on the fringes of the established Islamic Communitym, with more exclusivist views.

The war had to strengthen exclusivist tendencies and increase social distance between the groups. One example of Muslim social religious exclusivism that came to the fore during the war was the “ban” on “mixed marriages”, that is, religious intermarriage, that was pronounced by the IZ in 1994, and that is supported by the mainstream as well as by the new fringe. Ethnic/religious intermarriage was considered a positive sign of increasing social integration by the Communists, but to the Muslims, it had been a source of concern, mainly because the children of such marriages were usually “lost to Islam.” Both proponents and opponents entertained exaggerated notions about its prevalence, which was thought to be high and rising.¹⁵ The Islamic Community's “ban” was anomalous (though not unprecedented or unparalleled) in that it also covered marriages between Muslim men and Christian women, which are otherwise allowed in Islamic law. On this point, then, Bosniak Muslims turned more exclusivist than traditional Islamic law. Reasons include a war-induced sense of threat to the survival of the nation, anecdotal indications of bad things happening to Muslim spouses during the war, and a rejection of all things Communist. To put the matter in perspective, it should be noted that the canon law of the Orthodox and Catholic churches as well as that of Islam make such mutually exclusive demands on the religious upbringing of children that the option of mixed marriage is in effect precluded for partners who both wish to live by the precepts of their religious community.

As for the Wahhabi fringe, an example of social religious exclusivism is the long-bearded activist youths who, in one incident, distributed handbills calling on Muslims not to wish their Christian neighbours “Merry Christmas.” This is something many mainstream Bosnian Muslims find in bad taste.

Bosniak theological religious inclusivism-shading-into-pluralism

The theological rationale for the ban on mixed marriages was found in a minority tradition in Islamic law that considered marriage to women of the Book forbidden, based on a saying by a Companion of the Prophet that he knew no worse polytheism (shirk) than saying “Jesus is the son of God.” This problematic argument would seem to undermine the case for Islamic religious inclusivism across the board, not just in the case of marriage. As such it sits uncomfortably with the mainstream Muslim inclusivism, and in particular with the pluralist tendencies that seem unusually influential in Bosnian Islam.

The Qur'an provides resources from which one can construct a case for pluralism, as did Enes Karić, Bosnia's preeminent Islamic exegete. Just before the war, he argued on the strength of verses often cited in Bosnia, such as 49:13, that religious diversity is the will of God, and he compares the Qur'anic message to the pluralist ideas of Catholic theologian Hans Küng, according to whom God is not the property of either Christians, Muslims or Buddhists. The Qur'an shows, argued Karić, that God “did not want people to be of one religion, he wanted differences, dynamics – in a word, he wanted life.”¹⁶

There is an influential group of Islamic intellectuals in Sarajevo, most notably Rusmir Mahmutćehajić, who promote, as the only true remedy for Bosnia's and global conflicts, a theological religious pluralism based on Bosnian tradition interpreted through a “perennial wisdom school” recension of Sufi thought and other religious mysticisms. I have dealt with this so-called “Bosnian paradigm” at length elsewhere, and will only make a few brief points here.¹⁷

(a) The main thrust of the “Bosnian paradigm” is a strong theological pluralism that portrays different religions as “paths leading to the same mountaintop”. Perhaps typically for strong theological pluralism, it is actively promoted only by a very small, elite group of scholars, and it is based on premises that are highly controversial in mainstream theology – namely the ideas of the “perennial wisdom” school of Rene Guenon, Frithjof Schuon, S. Hossein Nasr and others. Still, this school enjoys a considerable popularity in Bosnia and the scholars in question enjoy an influence out of all proportion to their number.

(b) These scholars combine a cultural outlook that poses as a conservative rejection of modernity and liberal theory in favour of ancient tradition, and a practical outlook on life that is, paradoxically, often liberal, cosmopolitan, at times post-modern. The ends they seek are social and, as far as I can make out, public religious pluralism (possibly public inclusivism).

(c) They are not unambiguously theological pluralists. Their writings oscillate somewhat between pluralism and classic Islamic inclusivism.

Besides this elite movement, however, there are also popular brands of theological pluralism among Bosniak Muslims, at least among secular, educated people who typically have an Islamic faith, experience it as a private matter of intimate conviction, lack a traditional and formal training in Islamic theology, and keep their distance to the clergy. Several such people have told me in private conversation that an educated person should read not only the Qur'an, but the Bible and the Bhagavad Gita. They had done so, and found that at bottom, the holy books all carried the same message (an observation they then sometimes wanted me, as an expert on religion, to confirm). We might call it a kind of layman's theological pluralism.

As for the new “Wahhabi” fringe, theological exclusivism may be identified e. g. in their tendency to place emphasis on the adulterated nature of Christian and Jewish scriptures, an issue often revisited in their writings and in conversation with non-Muslims. While the mainstream, too, holds the traditional position that the Bible and Torah were revealed by God but that changes have been introduced to them by Christians and Jews, they would normally not speak too much of this in polite conversation with non-Muslims. Unlike some of the “Wahhabis”, also, the mainstream clergy does not seek to proselytise non-Muslims.

Clerical public religious inclusivism masquerading as pluralism?

Finally, let us consider whether the Bosniak Muslims are public religious pluralists. Certainly, it seems clear that the vast majority of Bosniaks, be they believers or non-believers, do not want some kind of “Islamic state”, and they would generally assert that fair and equal treatment should be given to the different religions in the public sphere. Bosniak believers and Bosniak atheists would differ sharply only over the degree to which religions should at all be visible in the public sphere. Nor is it certain that a majority of Bosniaks would wish new religious movements such as Hare Krishna or Sai Baba to enjoy equal treatment with the big traditional religions.

Clearly, the clerical establishment would not. This is not a question of Muslim attitudes, however, as much as it is a question of concerted action by the Islamic, Catholic, Orthodox, and Jewish leaderships, working through their joint forum, the Inter-Religious Council. However, it is my impression that the Islamic Community in practice often takes a kind of implicit leadership role in this cooperation, and it chaired the Council at the time the draft was presented. The Council was established in 1997 in an effort to knock religious heads together to kick-start reconciliation processes after the war. Despite the very bad blood between, particularly, the Orthodox on the one hand and the Muslims on the other, the communities have proved fairly adept at working together to advance what they define as their common interests, such as demanding the return of nationalised property. Their crowning achievement, in this regard, was Bosnia's new Law on freedom of religion and the legal position of churches and religious communities, passed by parliament in December last year. (Please note that the comments in the present paper relate only to the draft presented by the Inter-Religious Council in 2002, not to the law finally adopted by Parliament*).¹⁸

This was actually drafted by the Inter-Religious Council (aided by legal experts) and the parentage shows.

A new law was certainly needed to replace the existing law from 1976, a Communist instrument for controlling religious communities. The law drafted by the four major religious communities in most regards lives up to their claim that it reflects the very highest international human rights standards. Its article 15 on relations between the state and religious communities, for instance, very nicely embodies the principles of public religious pluralism. I am sure both that, on the one hand, the Islamic Community's basic support for liberal values and a secular state helped contribute to that outcome, and that on the other hand, the process of working out this draft helped educate the Islamic and other communities in the requirements of religious freedom.

Still, there were some notable problems with the draft law that reisu-l-ulema Mustafa Cerić, on behalf of the Inter-Religious Council, proudly handed to the Bosnian Presidency in late 2002. The chief problem¹⁹ was the extremely high threshold for registering a new church or religious community as a legal entity: This required 1,000 signatures of adult Bosnian citizens acting as as “founding members”, complete with their birthdates, current addresses and personal identity numbers (art. 18). (Those religious communities already registered under the existing law, however, would not need to re-register.) Coupled with the fact that, under the draft law, all the rights and capacities – indeed, the very definition -- of churches and religious communities were tied to their status as legal entities, this barrier to registration could easily be seen to discriminate against and restrict the religious freedom of new entrants to the marketplace of belief.²⁰

In addition, new entrants could not “use the same or a similar name” or “use the symbols, insignia or attributes” of an existing religious community without the said community's consent. One wonders if this in effect could turn e.g. the word “Islamic” or a symbol such as the cross into a registered trademark, that new religious bodies would have to license from the established communities. The Assembly of the Islamic Community had in fact in 1995 considered demanding that the state ask the state to ban any other institution or media from calling themselves “Islamic” or “Muslim.”²¹ Though at the time wiser counsels prevailed, and no such demand was pressed, the organisation's wish to monopolise Islam has remained, and the idea seems to have returned through the back door of the religious freedom law.

The four “historically established” religious communities – the Islamic and Jewish communities and the Catholic and Orthodox churches – were singled out for special recognition. They alone were mentioned by name in the preamble, which recognised their contribution to “the advancement [of] mutual understanding, tolerance and respect for the right to freedom of conscience and religion” (quite a mouthful in light of Bosnia's recent history). They were also explicitly granted continuation of their legal personality (art. 9.2), i. e., they would not be required to gather the 1,000 signatures. The fact of special recognition is not reprehensible in itself (many countries combine religious non-discrimination with a symbolic recognition of their historically dominant religion e.g. in their constitution), and it does not appear to imply any actual discrimination. Still, it is noteworthy how the four religious communities wrote themselves into the law they drafted.

In the case of the law on religious communities, then, the Islamic Community – acting in concert with the other traditional churches, but taking a leading or at least secretarial role – blended the public religious pluralism required by international standards with a strong concession to public religious inclusivism. That is, it gave special consideration to a select group of “traditional” religions by protecting them from encroachment by foreign churches and new religious movements. In this the Bosniaks are not alone in former Socialist Europe, and one can to some extent sympathise, particularly in the light of the insensitive and aggressive proselytising carried out e.g. by some American Evangelical groups. Still, the Islamic Community should not be assumed to fully support religious pluralism in the public domain. It should be noted, however, that its Christian counterparts that co-signed the draft law are at least equally averse to full public religious pluralism (and the Serbian Orthodox Church is by all accounts far more so).

Conclusion

We find that the Bosniak Muslims are prevailingly theological inclusivists, but that there are also important trends, both elite and popular, towards theological pluralism. Social religious pluralism has been their ideal. Resarch is needed to learn how far the war experience has strengthened exclusivist tendencies. At least one social exclusivist policy of the Islamic Community, that on intermarriage, was defended i. a. on theological exclusivist grounds.

Social religious inclusivism does not appear to be a viable option. The dhimma system is sometimes spoken of as an ideal minorities' rights regime, but this is historical apologetics, not policy. The Islamic Community's commitment to public religious pluralism is qualified by its wish to bar new competitors from entrance, leading it to promote a form of inclusivism for the select group of “historically established” religions. So we find the Muslims and their religious community all over the map.

This need not surprise us, nor does it necessarily devalue the proposed conceptual framework as an analytical tool, once it is realised that there may not be any simple answer to the question: “Is such and such a religious communty pluralist?” At least it gives us a map across which to find them. Thus mapped out, they may be easier to compare with other groups, though not in terms of a ranking table.²²

The proposed framework appears to me to make a reasonable degree of sense of attitudes in a Muslim community in the Balkans. The limited feedback I have had so far from scholars in the region (including one Muslim) concerned suggests that it makes sense to them as well. As to whether the framework can usefully be extended to other regions and religions, the proof of the pudding will be in the eating.

In my view, the greatest problem with the proposed framework lies not in a priori objections as to its cross-cultural applicability, but in its lack of certain crucial distinctions. Particularly problematic, in that regard, is the category of social religious pluralism, where I have so far lumped e. g. the practice of religious endogamy together with e. g. the practice of genocide – a very different proposition. Though I have sought to distinguish further between selective and comprehensive exclusivism, that still does not capture the difference between such forms of social exclusivism that may lead to tensions, violence, and discrimination, and such forms that do not. For reasons I will not go into here, for instance, a policy promoting religious inter-marriage might be a cause of inter-religious tensions, rather than of inter-religious harmony.

Finally, the empirical findings briefly surveyed here do not give much support to my thesis that attitudes vary independently across domains. At both the extremes, at least, examples of social exclusivism go hand in thand with theological exclusivism, and the examples of theological pluralism goes hand in hand with a strongly expressed normative preference for social pluralism. Nearly every possible position, however, co-exists within what I have broadly characterised as the contemporary Bosnian Muslim mainstream.

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