because of their ethnic diversity (Albanians, Turks, Macedonian Slavs, and Gypsies). During World War II Bosnia was annexed by the puppet Croatian fascist state, and some Bosnian Muslims joined the Ustashe terror- ists, often against their better judgment. Both during and after the war, ties to the Ustashe had tragic conse- ‘quences. Under the Tito regime, the situation became even more complex. Beginning in 1960 the government decided to favor the Yugoslav Muslim community by granting them significant freedom of action and material advantages. In 1967 a Muslim Nation was recognized as one of the country’s constituent peoples, although this recognition extended only to Muslims in Bosnia Herzegovina, This privileged status rapidly deteri rated, however, as ethnic and religious tensions grew following the sharp downturn in the Yugoslav economy and the collapse of the Communist regime. Recent events in the former Yugoslavia have affected the three main Muslim groups in different ways. In Macedonia local Muslims are seeking to build stronger ties with their non-Muslim neighbors. Above all, they seek to free themselves from the grip of Alba- nian Muslims from Kosovo, who continue to migrate to western and southern Macedonia in large numbers. In Kosovo the situation is explosive owing to the long- standing enmity between the Serbs and the Albanians, which was raised to a fever pitch during the Communist, cra, It is virtually impossible to say anything precise about the current religious situation of the Albanian community because the assertion of Albanian national- ism monopolizes public discourse, making it difficult to analyze the actual influence of both the mosque and the mystical brotherhoods. Bosnia-Herzegovina has seen Islam politicized by the Democratic Action Party of Alija Izetbegovié, whose theories are clearly presented in two books, The Islamic Declaration (1970) and Islam between East and West (1980; English translation, 1984). Izetbegovié has pushed the various Bosnian Muslim communities to- ward a “holy union,” even though many of them had previously shown little enthusiasm for any sort of reli- gious activism. The country’s Orthodox Serbs and Cath- olic Croats have similarly retreated into hard-line na- tionalism, bolstered by their respective churches. Exploited by leaders who are all former members of the Titoist political elite, this communal division has led to the gruesome combat that began in the spring of 1992. [See also Albania.] BANGLADESH 187 mIBLiooRAPHY Caer Nate. LAlboi pa det dvs Leds mts mic tno ov Aon Pope ps-anomane, 192-1967 Bein and Wade, 190 Kalonty A "The Pomsk Dilemma.” In La raisin dso dans le monde murulman périphérique, Lettre d'information, n0. 13, bp. tat-0, Pai, 1953, Lett, Glam in Hungary" Canal Ain Srey 1.1 (952% 3 Popo, Alexandre. Lam Blane Let muna uber rote dan a pide prtotomane. Bein and Wiesbaden, 1986. Provides an ove view ofthe Musi communis of Southeast Europe, with an extensive angotatediblography aranged by county ad perio Popov, Alenundre, Let mactmons yugoe, 1945-1989: MAd- tia map ase, 190 Auexavone Porome ‘Translated from French by Harry M. Matthews, Jt BANGLADESH. The identity of Bangladesh as a ‘modern nation-state is derived from a cohesive ethnic and regional base in which Islam has long been a key element. Nearly all of the country’s 114 million people are speakers of the Bengali language, and, minor sectar- ian variation aside, some 85 percent are also Sunni Mus- lims governed by the Hanafi school of Islamic law. Most of the remaining 15 percent are Hindus. Islam in Bengal dates from the arrival of Turkic in- vaders in 1200 cE. In 1576 the region was incorporated into the Mughal Empire, which retained hegemony un- til 1757 and the onset of the British empire in India. Military and political domination do not by themselves produce mass conversion; thus one mystery of South Asian history is how the territory today comprising Ban- sladesh came to contain some 4o percent of the Muslims counted in British India at its first census (1872), and to become home to around 30 percent of all South Asian Muslims today. In explanation of this phenomenon, the British scholar-administrators who devised and interpreted the early censuses, notably H. H. Risley, concluded that massive conversion had occurred among low-caste Hin- dus seeking refuge from caste oppression in the egalitar- ian fold of Islam, Seen as an insult to Islam, this conclu- sion was vigorously opposed by English-educated ‘Muslim intellectuals such as Khondkar Fazli Rubee, whose Origins of the Musalmans of Bengal (Calcutta, 1895) attempted to show that the Muslim population of Bengal was mainly descended from Arab, Mughal (Tur-188 BANGLADESH kkic), and Afghan invaders. Muhammed Abdur Rahim (1963, 1967) has more recently sought to reiterate the argument, but with statistical evidence that few other historians accept. A contrasting view has it that Bengal was the last bastion in India of a corrupt and effete Bud- dhism, and so its people were ripe for the appeal of $f mystics who followed the first Muslim rulers. In one way or another, historians universally empha- size the role of Sufism in the initial stages of Bengali conversion to Islam. Current explorations of Bengali Muslim history link the earliest phase of islamization to the deforestation of the Bengal Delta by land-hungry peasants of no discernibly stable religious commitment, spurred on by the revenue-famished rulers of both pre- Mughal and Mughal Bengal. In Richard Eaton’s (1993) analysis, $0 adepts also figure prominently as charis- matic pioneer leaders or ghdsi-pirs (“warrior saints”) who organized the spread of farming, protected cultiva- tors from the natural and supernatural hazards of the forest, and spearheaded development of rural communi- ties, linking them to the Muslim rulers. Over time, de- votional cults initiated by these $aff pioneers came to focus on them as “saints,” and their religious ideology, Islam, thus embryonically embedded itself in the deltaic countryside. This amalgam of agriculture and religion ‘ight be seen as the first stage of islamization in Bengal. Is legacy lives on in the myth of creation found today among Bengali Muslim cultivators, who, as described by John Thorp (1978), see themselves as descendants of a primordial Adam, the first Prophet of Islam and also the First Farmer, created by God for the express pur- pose of mastering the earth. ‘A second stage of islamization in eastern Bengal may be witnessed in the development of a tradition syncretiz- ing popular forms of Islam and Hinduism. Asim Roy (1983) argues that the formal doctrines of Islam were at first absorbed only lightly by the largely rural Bengali population. Their folk religious culture mingled beliefs in the fantastic with perceptions of the natural world, and mixed superstition, myth, and magic with faith. This was no less true of Bengali Hinduism, since it was Vaishnavism (Krishna-focused worship) and not ortho- dox Brahminical codes that captured the imagination of rural people who identified themselves as Hindus, pro- viding forms of religious devotion as emotionally satis- fying and evocatively mystical as the Safi pirism that had enthralled converts to the Muslim fold. ‘The result was a syneretic folk religion in which $0 pirs and Vaishnavite saints were worshiped interchange- ably by both Hindus and Muslims. Worship itself com- monly took form (and to this day often occurs) in di- dactic narrative exposition by local or itinerant charismatics, or it featured folk music whose devotional lyrics were imbued with spiritual metaphor and allegory intelligible to Hindus and Muslims at once, and whose performers might claim to be either or both. Indigenous healers and shamans might proffer curatives whose power was derived from Qur’n and Krishna alike. ‘There was, however, a considerable gap between the popular religion of most rural Muslims—descendants of indigenous converts known as the ajlaf or ajraf (“low ranked”) social classes—and Muslim lites or ashraf noble”) classes who claimed Middle Eastern descent and espoused a version of Islam that looked to North India, Persia, and Arabia for its inspiration and its lin- guistic expression (in Persian and Urdu, not in Bengali). That gap was bridged by religious guides, preceptors, philosophers, and poets whose writings introduced or- thodox Islamic dogma by seeking its broad parallels in Hinduism. For example, accounts of the life of the Prophet might be couched in terms accommodating to the Hindu belief in divine incarnations, and descriptions of Fatimah might evoke the Mother Goddess of popular Hinduism. There developed a “Muslim-Vaishnavite” synthesis in Iyric poetry; similar efforts at harmonizing Hindu and Muslim cosmological, mystical, and esoteric traditions arose. Thus was constructed a syncretic ver- sion of Islam that aimed at accommodating elite, Perso- Arabic versions as well as the devotional, pir-focused folk traditions of rural non-elites who had identified themselves with the Islamic faith. This may be seen as the second stage in the islamization of eastern Bengal. A third stage may be posited with the rise of several strains of revivalism confronting the homegrown, syn- cretic Bengali variety of Islam in the early nineteenth century. Among the most important was the Fari’ (Fard’idi) movement (from Arabic fard, recalling the obligatory duties of Islam), founded in 1818 by Hajii Shari‘atullah (1781-1840), an East Bengali whose twenty years in the Arabian Muslim heartland had im- bued him with Meccan standards of belief and practice. Spreading rapidly throughout eastern Bengal down to 1900, this movement called upon the local Muslim faith- ful to abandon pirism and eschew Hindu-tainted cus- toms and beliefs. The Fariizis presented what they considered orthodox models of Islamic credo and con- duct and insisted that belief and behavior be shaped in conformity with the Five Pillars. They also became ac-tive in agrarian struggles, which often pitted Muslim peasants against Hindu and European landlords, thus adding a religiously communal element to the social and political antagonisms spreading in the Bengali country- side at this time, Another movement, the Tariqah-i Mubammadiyah, an Indian counterpart to the Wahhabt movement of eighteenth-century Arabia, had been initiated in Delhi in 1818 by Sayyid Ahmad Shahid (1786-1831). Intro- duced into western Bengal by Titu Mir (1782-1831) in 1827, it also became involved in peasant struggles. A key feature of this movement was its emphasis on strict adherence to the shari‘ah; one of its offshoots, the Abl-i Hadith (“people of hadith”) movement, was vehement in stressing ijikad, The Ahl-i Hadith movement is the most visible remnant of the last century’s reformist movements in Bangladesh today, with a reported two thousand local branches and two million adherents in the mid-1980s, especially in the northern districts of the country. Its local groups display distinctive variations in ritual performance but otherwise avoid exclusive, sect- like behavior and are open to relationships with Mus- Jims of other persuasions. The Ahli Hadith is led by highly educated and articulate spokespersons, such as its long-standing amir, Professor Muhammad ‘Abdul Biri, a respected Islamic scholar and top university ad- ministrator; these leaders have developed the original movement's doctrines toward progressive social reform along Islamic lines. The revivalist “purification” of Bengali Islam under- mined its earlier syncretism by stressing the differences between Islam and Hinduism. As Rafiuddin Ahmed (1981) has argued, these militant movements deepened Islamic consciousness in late nineteenth-century East Bengal and paved the way for effective mobilization of its Muslim peasantry by the Muslim elites who would lead the Pakistan movement in the twentieth century. Such elites included in their number many belonging to an Islamic modernist tradition, begun in the late nine- teenth century and similar to its counterparts elsewhere in the Muslim world, which advocated Western educa- tion and stressed the utility of European science in har- monic combination with classical Islamic scientific and humanistic learning and moral ideals. Thus, in its Is- lamic dimension, by 1947 the maturing national identity of East Bengal not only retained remnants of Sufism and syncretism but also contained elements of orthodox fun- damentalism and modernism. From a large survey she has recently conducted of BANGLADESH 189 Bangladeshi Muslims claiming an active faith, Razia Akter Banu (1992) has identified three basic tendencies in present-day Bangladeshi Islam, all of which have their roots in these historic movements. Nearly half of her rural and a quarter of her urban respondents evinced the syncretism of folk belief and practice de- scribed above. Followers of popular forms of Islam most often represent lower levels of income, education, and ‘occupation. Attribution of supernatural power to pirs is an espe~ cially salient feature of popular Bangladeshi Islam. Commemorative gatherings (‘urs) at the ubiquitous tombs (mazar) of the pirs occur year-round, and major shrines are located throughout the country. At least one ‘major $afi order (tarigah), the Qadiriyah, has a large following, with a national center in the Chittagong dis- trict village of Maijbhandar. These Maijbhandari, as they are called, meet in weekly gatherings (mahfil) where religious folk music forms the centerpiece of de- votional worship, and they have an annual conclave at their national center. The nature and extent of $afi ac- tivity in Bangladesh needs much further study, but it is widespread and attracts persons of all social, educa- tional, and occupational backgrounds. Another 5o percent of Banu’s rural sample, and more than 60 percent of her urban respondents, claimed ad- herence to orthodox forms of Islam: literality in accep- tance of Qur’én and hadith, strictness in observing the obligatory duties, and total obedience to the Hanafi school of law. Both urban and rural people of moderate ‘educational background register among the ranks of the ‘orthodox; in the rural areas orthodoxy is associated with relatively higher levels of land ownership, in contrast to its correspondence with middle levels of income in the cities. Finally, while very few rural Bangladeshi Muslims es- pouse an Islamic modernist point of view, with its em- phasis on rationalism and scientism and rejection of lit- ceralistic determinism, Banu found that 12 percent of the urbanites in her sample adopted this perspective. Not surprisingly, espousal, of this viewpoint was associated with high levels of Western education as well as with higher occupation and income. Banu’s study also suggests that adherents to both the Popular and orthodox versions of Islam hover between. high and moderate levels of actual practice, as measured by the degree to which they claim to carry out the daily and annual obligatory duties of the faithful. Modernists tend toward moderate and lower levels of practice, as190 BANGLADESH one might surmise. In my observation, the daily and weekly requirements of prayer and the mandate of the annual fast are widely met by rural Bangladeshis, and a good deal of social pressure is exerted via shaming mechanisms and fear of embarrassment toward the maintenance of Muslim propriety in public conduct. In urban areas, where normative conformity is more diffi- cult to exact, performance in these areas is more varied. The Islamic component of East Bengal’s regional identity was at the forefront of its people's political con- sciousness during their struggle for an independent Pa- kistan until 1947. Thereafter, however, the Bengalis in ‘what became East Pakistan became disillusioned as they perceived their economic, political, and cultural inter- ests increasingly subordinated to those of their confiréres in non-Bengali West Pakistan. Accordingly, the ethno- linguistic element of their national identity, especially Pride in their language and its associated cultural tr tions, took political primacy, and although their reli- gious commitment to Islam by no means waivered, it no longer shaped their immediate political goals. By the ‘mid-1950s Bengali enthusiasm for the Muslim League, which had spearheaded Pakistani independence, became deeply eroded. The growing rift between Pakistan’s eastern and western wings broke into rebellion in 1971, and, led by the secular nationalist Awami League, an independent Bangladesh was born. [See also Muslim League; Awami League.] In part because members of Islamic political parties had—sometimes violently—opposed separation from Pa- kistan, the first constitution of Bangladesh (1972) pro- claimed secularism as a principle of state policy and pro- hibited political parties based on religious affiliation. Individuals thought to have stood against independence on religious or other grounds were stigmatized, and, not uncommonly, ordinary Muslims visibly observant in dress and ritual performance could find themselves shunned or mocked by supporters of the party in power. A great many Bangladeshi Muslims, however, were uncomfortable with official secularism. Daily religious practice went on unabated, as did the expressions of popular and orthodox Islam noted above. The Delhi- based Tablighi Jama‘at, which aims at strengthening Is- lamic faith and practice among believers, became highly active in the country, attracting large numbers and pre- saging an Islamic resurgence. In 1975 the increasingly dictatorial Awami League was overthrown; a more fa- vorable domestic climate for the political expression of Islam was ushered in. Against this domestic background, one should also note that Bangladesh was receiving mounting propor- tions of its foreign aid from the oil-rich and conservative Arab states, where Bangladeshis were working in mas- sive numbers, especially in Saudi Arabia. The post-coup government of Ziaur Rahman (1975-1981) became prominently active in Islamic international organiza- tions, and increasing ties to the wider Muslim world ‘may have prompted it in 1977 to replace the secularism clause of the constitution with a proclamation of “abso- Jute faith and trust in almighty Allah,” mandating that government strengthen “fraternal ties with the Muslim states on the basis of Islamic solidarity.” The Zia gov- ‘ernment began to sponsor Islam as well, in its establish- ment of a cabinet-level Division of Religious Affairs, creation of an Islamic Foundation for research, and plans for a new Islamic University. Under a separate directorate in the Ministry of Education, since 1975 the number of madrasahs in Bangladesh has increased by 50 percent, their teachers by one-third, and students by well over two-thirds. The subsequent government of H. ‘M, Ershad (1982-1991) continued in this vein; the pres- ident and members of his cabinet publicly associated themselves with a famous and politically active pir. In 1988 the National Assembly passed a constitutional amendment declaring Islam the “state religion” of the country. The intent and import of this change remain unclear. Ie did not, however, result in institution of the shari‘ah. Bangladeshis have not recently been prone toward fund- amentalist government. In the first post-independence National Assembly election (1979) that permitted Islam- ‘oriented parties to compete, the conservative but non- theocratic Muslim League won 19 of 300 seats and 10 percent of the popular vote; no fundamentalist parties contested. But in the parliamentary election of 1986, the Muslim League's mere four seats were surpassed by ten that went to the Jama‘at-i Islimi (Islamic Assembly), which advocates a fullfledged Islamic state. Harbinger of things to come, the Jama‘at’s student front, the Islamiya Chhatra Shibir (Islamic Student Group), emerged as a major force in Bangladesh's politically vol- atile universities. Not surprisingly, then, the Jamé‘at garnered nearly 12 percent of the popular vote in the 1991 National Assembly elections, winning 18 (6 per- cent) of all 300 seats, and 8 percent of the 221 it con- tested. It remains to be seen whether Bangladesh will ever become an Islamic state. Its past has shown, however,that Islam seeks perennial renewal in the dynamic inter- play between Bengali nationalism and Muslim universal- ism that lies at the heart of its national identity. {See also Islam, article on Islam in South Asia; Pir.] BIBLIOGRAPHY Abmad Khan, Muin-ud-din. History ofthe Fara'idi Movement in Ber- gal, 1818-1906. Karachi, 1965. Definitve work t0 date on the ‘Faris and their relations with other movements; essential read- ing on Islamic revivalism in nineteenth-century Bengal. Ahmed, Rafiuddin. The Bengal Mustims, 1871-1906: A Ques for Iden- ti. Delhi, Oxford, and New York, 1981. Best general study of nineteenth-century Bengali Muslim society, covering religious, s0- cial, and politcal development in an integrated manner. See also his Islam in Bangladesh: Soci, Culte, ond Politics (Dhaka, 1983), and Religion, National, and Politics in Bangladesh (New Dethi, 1990), both collections of orginal esays on social and politi cal aspects of Islam in Bangladesh since 1971 Ahmed, Sula. Muslim Community in Bengal, 1884-1912. Dhaka, 1974. Comprehensive study with chapters on educational, social, economic, and political development, focusing on elites. Banu, U. A. B. Razia Akter. Islam in Bangladesh. Leiden and New York, 1992. Unique and highly imaginative social science survey esearch study of current atitudes and beliefs, with informative historical background chapters. Eaton, Richard Maxwell. The Rite of Islam ond the Bengal Frontier, 1204-1760. Berkeley, 1993. Path-breaking reassessment of the spread of Islam as seen in the context of Bengali agrarian and eco- omic history. Hag, Muhammed Enamul. A History of Sufciom in Bengal. Dhaka, 1975. Detailed, if not particularly critical, history through the me- dieval period, with an outline of major beliefs and biographical Karim, Abdul. Social History of the Musims in Bengal, Doun t A.D. 1538. Dhaka, 1959. Covers intellectual development, social organi zation, and daily life in the eatly Islamic period Mallick, Azizur R. British Policy and the Musims of Bengal, 1757- 1856. Dhaka, 1961. Focus on educational policy and its impact on Muslim society; background on religious syncretism and revivalist, Rahim, Muhammed Abdur. Social and Cultural Histry of Bengal. 2 vols. Karachi, 1963-1967. Tour de force survey of Bengal’s medieval history from a Muslim nationalist perspective; covers all aspects, including both Hindu and Muslim societies, Raychaudhuri, Tapan, Bengal under Akbar and Jahangir: An Inroduc- tory Study in Social History. Delhi 1953. Seminal study ofthe early ‘Mughal period, with important chapters on religious development Roy, Asim. The Islamic Syncreistic Tradition in Bengal. Princeton, 1983, The best study of beliefs and practices in the prerevivalist medieval period; essential for the study of popular Islam in Bangla- desh today. ‘Thorp, John P., Jr. “Masters of Earth: Conceptions of ‘Power’ among ‘Muslims of Rural Bangladesh.” Ph.D. dis., University of Chicago, 1978. Pioneering anthropological study of community organization and religious culture among Bangladeshi Muslim peasantry. Perer J. Bextocet BANKS AND BANKING 191 BANKS AND BANKING. Modern banking was first established in the Islamic world in the mid-nine- teenth century. Financial intermediaries of course were ‘not new to the region, as the sophisticated Moslem trad- ing economies had long used specie as a means of ex- change, and money changers and moneylenders carried out their business in most urban centers. Money chang- cers were especially active in the cities of the Hejaz, such as Mecca and Medina, catering for needs of the Pi agrims, demonstrating that there was no Islamic objec tion to currency dealings and the exchange of precious metals. The prohibition of ribé (“interest”) in the Qur'an, however, meant that there was much suspicion of conventional commercial banking in the form in which it had developed in Europe. The Penetration of Colonial Banking. The early commercial banks were all European owned, the Impe- rial Ottoman Bank being an Anglo-French venture, and the Imperial Bank of Persia was British owned and man- aged. Much financial intermediation in the Ottoman ter- ritories was in the hands of Greek Christians or Jews rather than Muslims. The latter were keen traders, and. indeed the prophet Muhammad had been a trader, but there was a reluctance on religious grounds to get in- volved in the collection and lending of money. Muslim traders granted credit in kind on a deferred-payment bi sis rather than charging interest. Advances were covered from personal and family equity rather than from sav- ings attracted from strangers by the promise of interest. ‘The Imperial Banks served the government and the trade of the European empires rather than the local Muslim business community or the wealthy landlord class. The management of Ottoman debt was a major undertaking, and the Imperial Ottoman Bank acted on behalf of the sultan in arranging bond issues in London and Paris. The Imperial Bank of Persia was closely in- volved with the Anglo-Iranian oil company, later to be- come British Petroleum. The National Bank of Egypt, a wholly British-owned institution, was mainly involved in the finance of cotton exports, on which the Lanca- shire textile industry depended. This trade was con- tolled by Greek and Levantine merchants rather than Egyptian Muslims. In Malaya the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank was active in the finance of the rubber trade, but even the plantation workers were immigrants rather than indigenous Muslims. ‘Muslim-owned Commercial Banks. It was not until the 1920s that groups of Muslim businessmen began to realize that traditional financial intermediation was of