After introduction of the Austro-Hungarian rule to Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1878, Bosnian Muslims became very concerned about preserving their Islamic identity under the rule of Christians. They were particularly disturbed by the modernization processes which have changed the social practices of the inhabitants of Bosnia and Herzegovina, one of which was the entering of Muslim female children into the secular education system and public sphere. This paper deals with the way that the Muslim intellectual circles viewed the emancipation of Muslim women: respectively, how they – to a certain extent – accepted European influences and how they supplemented them with Ottoman practices, having in mind that the modernization process was also evident in the Ottoman society, especially in the second half of the 19th century. The article analyzes the views of the leading Muslim intellectuals on the models for the emancipation of Muslim women in Bosnia and Herzegovina presented in Muslim journals at the beginning of the 20th century.
The principle of equality proclaimed by the Edict of Gulhane (tur. Gülhane Hatt-ı Şerîf) in 1839 resulted in many changes in the socio-political sphere of the Ottoman society, but also with several legal acts regarding education issued by the Ottoman authorities. The Constitution of the Ottoman Empire from 1876 proclaimed equality between all citizens of the state regardless of ethnicity and religion. Even though, relations between the Albanian and Serbian populations in the Kosovo Vilayet were tense in all aspects of socio-political spheres. The representatives of Albanians, as a majority in the vilayet, defended the status of Islam as a dominant religion and Christianity as a religion of slaves (rayah). As the Ottoman authorities issued many legal acts regarding formal basic education in Islamic primary schools (mekteb) during the second half of the 19th century, tensions and misunderstandings between the Serbian and Albanian populations increased. This paper analyzes relations between Serbs and Albanians in the Vilayet of Kosovo in 1878–1912 in the area of implementation of the right to primary education for both communities as this issue has not been researched in detail until now. Our research is based on interdisciplinary approach to the subject and the use of primary archival sources of the Ottoman and Serbian provenance, as well as the relevant literature.
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