The Role of Muslim Migrants and the Legacy of Habsburg Bosnia in the Austrian State’s Legal Recognition of Islam in 1979

In 1979, the Austrian state recognized Islam as a religious community, a legal status that provided the community with certain measures of autonomy, such as the right to teach Islamic religion classes in Austrian public schools. The Muslim Social Service (MSS), an organization led by Bosnian Muslim migrants, played a leading role in applying to the state for recognition. This paper examines MSS publications, including the journal The Straight Path (Der Gerade Weg, 1958-1979) and the book The Muslims in the Danube Region (Die Muslims im Donauraum, 1979). The MSS invoked the historic relationship between Bosnia and the Habsburg Empire to argue for recognition and more broadly for a place for Islam in post-1945 Austria and Europe. The MSS also challenged the idea that Islamic gender roles were incompatible with Austrian society. Turning to state archival documents, the paper will then demonstrate that the MSS’s perspective informed the Austrian state’s understanding of Austria’s Muslim population as primarily Bosnian and its decision to recognize Islam. Both Muslims and the state compared Austria to Germany, which has never recognized Islam, and discussed how recognition in Austria would promote a more “European” Islam than Muslims practiced in Germany.

Historical scholarship on Islam in postwar Europe has primarily focused on state and media discourse about the alleged incompatibility of Islam with so-called European values, especially sexual freedom. This paper shifts the focus to the perspectives of Muslims in Austria who argued against the alleged antagonism between Islam and European values—with legal consequences. The paper explores the extent to which the history of the Habsburg Empire and Habsburg Bosnia shaped understandings of Islam in Austria after 1945, contributing to new efforts to connect Habsburg history to migration in Central Europe after 1945.