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Transforming Islam among Roma communities in the Balkans: a case of popular religiosity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Ksenia Trofimova
Ksenia Trofimova*
Affiliation:
Institute of Philosophy, Russian Academy of Science, Moscow, Russia
*
*Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

In recent decades, numerous popular shrines devoted to saints have emerged in Romani settlements, usually in urban areas. At first sight, these shrines and the veneration of saints are reminiscent of the cult of saints and tombs common in regional Muslim traditions and beyond, and possess particular local features. A detailed analysis of this local case shows new meanings and forms the “wider” tradition gains under new conditions. This paper explores the way the regional Muslim tradition of worshiping holy sites is localized and elaborated within popular religious practice of certain Romani communities in the Balkans. Specifically, it focuses on the contestation of the issues of authenticity and marginality of this vernacular practice in order to reveal the peculiarity of images and meanings Islam gains at the intra-confessional level in a quite heterogeneous social and cultural environment. The material discussed in this paper was collected during ethnographic fieldwork conducted between 2011 and 2014 in Serbia, Macedonia, and Kosovo.

Keywords

IslampilgrimagetraditionBalkansRoma
Type
Special Section: Localizing Islam: National paradigms, new actors, and contingent choices
Information
Nationalities Papers , Volume 45 , Issue 4 , July 2017 , pp. 598 - 612
Copyright
Copyright © 2017 Association for the Study of Nationalities 

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