Smail Balić

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Smail Balić (born August 26, 1920 in Mostar , † March 2002 in Vienna ) was an Austrian cultural and religious scholar and librarian of Yugoslav origin.

Life

After childhood and school in Mostar, Balić studied Islamic theology in Sarajevo . Between 1941 and 1945 he studied in Vienna , Leipzig and Breslau , where he devoted himself to the fields of Turkic , Arabic and Slavic studies. 1945 doctorate he in Vienna with a thesis on the intellectual driving forces in Bosnia and Herzegovina Islam to Dr. phil. .

After 1945 he took on a teaching position at the Public School for World Trade in Vienna. In 1962/63 he was a lecturer in German at a private college in as-Salimiyya ( Kuwait ). Then he moved to the Austrian National Library , where he worked as a scientific librarian between 1963 and 1984. In this role, Balić held the position of specialist linguistics (oriental languages) and was the head of the Arabic manuscript collection .

As a prominent Islamic scholar with a personal European background, he campaigned for an integrative-cultural perception of Islam in Austria and other European countries. An expression of this is his intention that "Islam must be decoupled from politics" and the positions "Violence is not a trademark of Islam, whose" first principle "is the protection of human life. His criticism was directed against the political instrumentalization of his faith.

Balić was the author of a large number of journal articles and authored several books. He was in international demand as a speaker.

He was one of the Fellows of the Royal Aal al-Bayt Institute for Islamic Thought (Royal Aal al-Bayt Institute for Islamic Thought), Jordan .

Selected Works

  • Islam in medieval Hungary (Islam u srednjovjekovnoj Madjarskoj) . In: Südost-Forschungen, Vol. 23 (1965), pp. 19-35.
  • The culture of the Bosniaks , Vienna (1973, 1978) / Kultura Bošnjaka, Tuzla (1994)
  • The Unknown Bosnia , Cologne, Weimar, Vienna (1992)
  • Islam in the field of tension between tradition and contemporary times (1993)
  • Islam - conforming to Europe? (1994)
  • Forgotten Islam or Euro-Islam (2000)
  • Islam for Europe, New Perspectives of an Old Religion , Böhlau, Vienna / Cologne / Weimar 2001, ISBN 3-412-07501-9 (= Cologne publications on the history of religion , Volume 31).
  • Catalog of the Turkish manuscripts of the Austrian National Library: New acquisitions 1864-1994: with an appendix: Bosnian Aljamiado manuscripts . In: Museion . 4th series, publications of the Ankara manuscript collection (Türk Tarih Kurumu) 2006
  • Editing of the magazine Der direkt Weg ( Sirati müstekim ), a bulletin for Muslim refugees in Austria and Germany. Muslim Social Service , 1958–1979.

Awards and memberships

literature

  • Murad Wilfried Hofmann : Smail Balic. Islam for Europe: New Perspectives on an Old Religion. In: Islamic Studies. Vol. 41, H. 3 (Fall 2002), pp. 521-526 ( JSTOR 20837216 at JSTOR ).
  • Aleksandar Stipčević: Balić, Smail. In: Hrvatski Biografski Leksikon. Volume 1, 1983, p. 396 ( online ).
  • Johanna Thiel: Balić Smail, Kultura Bošnjaka. In: Biblos. Vol. 29 (1980), H. 4, p. 327 f.
  • Nedžad Grabus, Richard Potz , Bernhard Stillfried (eds.), Izeta Džidić (transl.): Smail Balić. Pioneer of a European Islam (= law and religion in Central and Eastern Europe. Special Volume 2). Facultas, Vienna 2009, ISBN 978-3-7089-0169-5 (files from the international symposium “Smail Balic as a thought leader of European Islam” in Sarajevo, November 2006).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hariz Halilović: Bosanskohercegovačka dijaspora u vrtlogu globalnih migracija: izazovi i šanse za Bosnu i Hercegovinu . In: PREGLED. Periodical for Social Issues. University of Sarajevo, vol. 86 (2006), volume 3, p. 198 ( Memento from April 17, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) (accessed December 9, 2009; PDF; 2.7 MB)
  2. ^ Obituary from the Austrian St. Georgs Congregation in Istanbul ( Memento from July 3, 2007 in the web archive archive.today ) (accessed December 9, 2009)
  3. ^ Aalalbayt.org: The Late Fellows
personal data
SURNAME Balić, Smail
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Balić, Ismail; Baliç, İsmail; Bālītš, Ismāʿīl; Balic, Smail
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian orientalist and librarian
DATE OF BIRTH August 26, 1920
PLACE OF BIRTH Mostar
DATE OF DEATH March 2002
Place of death Vienna