The terrible events afflicting Muslims in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Tajikistan fill the news, commanding the world's attention. This timely volume offers rare insight into the background of these catastrophic conflicts. First published in German on the eve of the breakup of the Yugoslav and Soviet republics, it is one of the few books in any language to analyze, in detail and in depth, the historical and contemporary situation of Muslims in former communist states and thus clarifies the sources, development, and implications of the events that dominate today's foreign news.
In fourteen...

Evading Reality treats the great ideological/political struggle embroiling literate Central Asia during the early 20th century. One of the region's leading cultural intellectuals, Abdalrauf Fitrat (1886-1938), in his Bukharan and Turkistan homeland, for over two decades fought against the restrictive notions of arch-conservative Muslim hierarchies as well as the rigid dogmatism of communists. This study translates and analyzes three (one in two versions) of Mr. Fitrat's key writings composed in the second stage of this war of ideas. The early 1920s, already a period of state thought...

For centuries, Central Asia has been a leading civilization, an Islamic heartland, and a geographical link between West and East. After a long traditional history, it is now in a state of change. With the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, five newborn Central Asian states have emerged in place of the former Soviet Central Asia and Afghanistan. "Central Asia" provides the most comprehensive survey of the history of the impact of Russian rule upon the political, economic, social, intellectual, and cultural life of this diverse region. Together, these essays convey a sense of the region's...