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Ina Merdjanova, Rediscovering the Umma Muslims in the Balkans between Nationalism and Transnationalism, Oxford University Press, 2013, xvi + 198 pp., £53 (hardback), ISBN 978-0-19-996403-1.
Ina Merdjanova is a senior researcher and an adjunct assistant professor in religious studies at the Irish School of Ecumenics, Trinity College Dublin. She has held a number of prestigious visiting fellowships and is the recipient of various research grants from international foundations and academic institutions. She is the author of four books and numerous articles on religion and politics in postcommunist societies.
Merdjanova's new book-Rediscovering the Umma Muslims in the Balkans between Nationalism and Transnationalism-was published in a context in which Islam has become one of the major topics of international political and scholarly debates. It discusses issues related to the dynamics of Islam in contemporary Europe viewed in a longue durée perspective. The ambition of the author was to present historical processes in Southeastern Europe in their interdependence and their impact on the dynamics of the religious affiliation of selected groups. Although the title of the book implies a study of Muslims in the Balkans, the author has focused mostly on the significant and most studied groups of Turks and Pomaks in Bulgaria, Muslims in Bosnia, Albanian Muslims in Macedonia and Kosovo, and partly Muslims in Romania. Ina Merdjanova draws attention to the Roma Muslim groups too. In recent years, the processes of "radicalization" within Roma Muslim groups are attracting greater attention from politicians, the media, and scholars.
The methodology used by the author is multidisciplinary. Merdjanova uses not only...