War brought Bosnian Muslim women back to Islam

By Daria Sito-Sucic

SARAJEVO (Reuters) - Film director Aida Begic, a Bosnian Muslim, rediscovered religion when she was trying to rebuild her life after the country's devastating war.

"I was raised in total freedom, not burdened by tradition," said the 30-year old. She is the first woman in her family to wear the headscarf since her great-grandmother.

Although most Muslim girls in Bosnia follow fashion, drink alcohol, smoke and socialise freely, they also increasingly observe fasts and religious holidays. Some, like Begic, choose to wear the headscarf over their Western brand clothes.

"People were surprised, commented, asked questions. Some found it totally unacceptable. But it is absolutely my own choice," she said while waiting for the start of an avant-garde theatre play in Sarajevo.

Bosnian Muslims are Europe's only indigenous Muslim population, Slavs who adopted Islam during Ottoman rule starting in the 15th century. They traditionally practised a tolerant, "gentle" form of Islam that adapted official doctrine to local customs.

Often blond and blue-eyed, they look similar to the Catholic Croats and Orthodox Serbs with whom they share Bosnia. Before the war they were mostly atheist, classified as just another ethnic group in multi-cultural socialist Yugoslavia.

"Most Bosnian Muslim women have been highly secular, well educated and shared their history and heritage with Christians and Jews," said Dino Abazovic, a sociology professor at Sarajevo University. "They also lived in a territory that is far away from other Islamic countries."

But most of the 100,000 casualties of the 1992-95 war were Muslims. So was the majority of rape victims, most targeted by Bosnian Serb forces. The brutality of the conflict reinforced survivors' sense of identity, almost as a form of resistance.