Full Description
A magical, eye-opening account of a journey into a Europe that rarely makes the news and is in danger of being erased altogether. Another Europe. A Europe few people believe exists and many wish didn't. Muslim Europe. Winner of a BGTW Members' Excellence Award: Travel Narrative Book of the Year - The Adele Evans Award. Longlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize 2021. Shortlisted in the Edward Stanford Travel Writing Awards 2022: Stanford Dolman Travel Book of the Year.
Londoner Tharik Hussain sets off with his wife and young daughters around the Western Balkans, home to the largest indigenous Muslim population in Europe, and explores the regions of Eastern Europe where Islam has shaped places and people for more than half a millennium. Encountering blonde-haired, blue-eyed Muslims, visiting mystical Islamic lodges clinging to the side of mountains, and praying in mosques older than the Sistine Chapel, he paints a picture of a hidden Muslim Europe, a vibrant place with a breathtaking history, spellbinding culture and unique identity.
Minarets in The Mountains, the first English travel narrative by a Muslim writer on this subject, also explores the historical roots of European Islamophobia. Tharik and his family learn lessons about themselves and their own identity as Britons, Europeans and Muslims. Following in the footsteps of renowned Ottoman traveller Evliya Celebi, they remind us that Europe is as Muslim as it is Christian, Jewish or pagan.
Like William Dalrymple's In Xanadu, this is a vivid reimagining of a region's cultural heritage, unveiling forgotten Muslim communities, empires and their rulers; and like Kapka Kassabova's Border, it is a quest that forces us to consider what makes up our own identities, and more importantly, who decides?
Contents
Contents
Introduction An Intimate Tolerance - Palamartsa, Bulgaria
Part One: Bosnia and Herzegovina
An Ottoman City - Sarajevo
The Bridge Built by Barbarians - Mostar
Mystics and Mountains - Blagaj
The Bloody Bridge on the Drina - Visegrad
Part Two: Serbia and Kosovo
Serbia's Dirty Little Secret - Rudine and Sjenica
'A Muslim Town' - Novi Pazar
Pokémon in Hammams - Novi Pazar
The Grandfather of Muslim Europe - Pristina, Kosovo
An Orthodox Town - Nis
Part Three: North Macedonia
Whose Heritage Is It, Anyway? - Skopje
A Macedonian Imam - Skopje
The Fool's Tekke - Tetovo
Part Four: Albania
Taken by Albanians - Vlore
A Beer with a Muslim - Llogara National Park
The Town 'Addicted to Prayer' - Gjirokaster
The House the Pasha Built - Gjirokaster
A Fairy-Tale Ottoman Village - Berat
Capitals Old and New - Durres, Tirana and Kruje
Part Five: Montenegro
Muslim Montenegro - Podgorica
Part Six: Return to Bosnia and Herzegovina
The Effendi's Library - Foca and Zenica
Coffee with Bosnian Kings - Vranduk and Travnik
Dumped for De Niro - Sarajevo
Back in 'Jerusalem' - Sarajevo
Remembrance in Sarajevo - Sarajevo
Glossary
Acknowledgements
