Bosnian (white!) Muslim. Fed up of having to explain I'm born Muslim...

[sanellao]

Just that really!
I'm ethnically Bosnian, white with blond hair and green eyes and my whole family for as far back as it's possible to trace on both sides are Muslim.
Why do so many people I come across in the UK seem to equate "being Muslim" with being darker skinned like brown Asian or certain black African peoples? In fairness, the largest Muslim populations in our city are Pakistani and sub-continent, as well as various Middle East background Muslims.... But the Bosnian community is relatively tiny here. But....Why is is so inconceivable that a pale skinned blond person can be of Muslim origin too?
Haha.
I've recently started a new job and keep getting questions from colleagues (they're probably just curious or something), asking "when did you convert" or "what do your family think about you being Muslim"... When I reply that I was born Muslim and my family on all sides are Muslim I get met with looks of confusion.. Colleagues looking at each other then back at me.
Like, what's the issue? Haha.
Just wondering if and other white "born" Muslims feel these frustrations!

Islam is a religion not an ethnicity.

It is interesting how it may come up in conversation. It would be an unusual question for someone to ask your religion. Maybe it comes up if you say you’re going to the mosque, or doing Ramadan, or you only eat halal meat, or wear a hijab. Is it other Muslims who question you (as they’d be more clued up to the cue’s you’re giving)? I think maybe people might remark as there are only a very small number of Muslims who are of European extraction It is not surprising because of your place of origin though. It is fairly well known that those areas in Europe who were colonised by the Ottomans had many in their Christian populations who converted to Islam. It was easier, for a variety of reasons, to convert to the religion of the occupying power. I don’t know if there were forced conversions. Of course, the boys which were forcibly removed/seized from Christian households under ‘Devshirme’ were forcibly converted to Islam by the Ottomans. It was a type of levy on Christian families where they had to give up one of their children to the Ottomans.

The Balkans is quite interesting. How many people (not all of course) adopted a new religion to protect their children from being forcibly taken, having to pay other extra taxes etc. The anomaly of the Pomaks in Greece and Rhodope mountains area (including Bulgaria) is very interesting too.

For those pointing out you can’t be born Muslim, I think what the OP means is that she was born into a Muslim family. In Bosnia and Herzegovina, your religion and ethnicity are strongly intertwined. Whether or not you practice that religion it’s still a strong part of your heritage. So it’s annoying for her that people are assuming that because she’s white, she must’ve converted, when in actual fact, Islam has been part of her family for generations. And yeah it is so much of your identity that it does feel like you’re born that way which is maybe hard for us to understand in some other cultures / countries.

Would a Christian raised in a Christian household, attending a Christian school and church every Sunday, describe themselves as "born Christian"?

A person often finds that they belong in the religion they were raised with. They can also leave that religion and find another, or none.

To be fair, most people think Muslims are either of Pakistani or Middle Eastern origin because that’s the majority of Muslim immigrants to UK.

They might not assume that someone who is Chinese,
Russian or from the balkans could be Muslim.

That’s just poor geography and lack of general knowledge rather than racism to be fair.

like people assuming everyone from Ireland or Scotland is ginger or swedes should all be blonde.

Absolutely - just like you can be a lapsed Catholic.

And of course its rude if people keep asking questions about it. Once you've said that you Muslim is your family religion that should be an end of it. No one would ask such questions of a white (or any) Christian.

I would wonder but I wouldn’t ask you. In general conversation I would probably then be able to work it out if I didn’t understand immediately. People need to hold fire a bit more 😂

I think it is outside a lot of peoples experience and they are asking questions to understand you better? It’s normal to try and understand something new. I appreciate it is frustrating though. I hope it’s not done in a judgemental way. Try and see it as people learning something new.

OP,
I think it's because a lot of people are just too nosey.
I am British but have lived in another European country for a long time. I work in retail, in an area that has a lot of different ethnicities/religions/nationalities/foreign students....basically a bit of everything!
That is what I enjoy most about my job...meeting so many different sorts of people :)

I definitely like to have a bit of a chat with the customers (if they look like they're in the mood for it). But, even if I am a bit curious (which is a natural human trait), I keep it simple, unless the person I'm talking to is:
1: a regular customer, and
2: is already sharing something about their own life/circumstances that invites further questions.

In my experience, this approach is just basic manners and the correct way to interact with people that I don't really know.

If people that you don't know so well are commenting/questioning/passive aggressively judging you then please just ignore them because they are either lacking in manners/a bit stupid or judgemental/racist/trying to be "funny"/just generally not nice people.

You don't owe them (or anyone) an explaination.
Cliche quote here but it helps me a lot:

"the people who mind don't matter and the people who matter don't mind".

Good luck with keeping your own peace!

Plenty do, yes.

I’m also from the Balkans, so white muslims have never occurred to me to be unusual.

Religion in the Balkans does tend to form along ethnic lines - Serbs are Orthodox, Croatians are Catholic, Bosniaks are specifically Muslim (as opposed to Bosnians) and it’s very much part of national and ethnic identity.

People stereotype, it's as simple as that. It's not meant badly, it's what people do.

I'm sorry about that.

I find vegans tend to though.

OP I think people old enough to remember the Yugoslavian wars don’t find it that unusual.,I also think people are curious - jut say that your ancestors are from Bosnia where there is a sizeable Muslim community.
my husbands cousin is Moldovan and pre-communism they would have all been Muslim too.

Agree and it wasn't that long ago!

@Cailleach1 you might want to rethink your attitude a bit.

I say this as someone who was born into a majority Established Christian community and has never left the faith

Why are you assuming that all these Muslims are only Muslim for pragmatic security reasons?

It works the other way too. I worked in an inner city prinary school that was 99% Muslim pupils, most of whom were of Pakistani heritage, with a few Somali pupils and even fewer white Christian pupils. We would have a religious assembly once a week; an Islamic assembly in the hall and a handful of students would attend a broadly Christian type assembly in the library.
We had a new pupil start from Bosnia, who came to the Islamic assembly in the hall. The rest of the pupils were frantically waving and pointing because they assumed she was in the "wrong" assembly. Most of them had never encountered a white Muslim before.

I think it’s because people usually do assumptions based on their personal experience and their personal experience in this country is that Muslims usually have brown skin. it’s just that, lack of information.
I suspect a lot of people don’t realise that there are about 20 million catholics in India.

It's interesting you mention this but in those times families gave up their sons to the ottoman army where they were trained early on to move up and get paid decent salary so it was quiet lucrative for families to do this. You need to voice facts that are relatable in those times and not 2024. The sons then moved up in the army chain and became the right arm and advisors to the sultans and many Albanians, Bosnians, Bulgarians became viziers in those times and with their ruling expanding to mid Europe and how powerful they were, it was wiser for them at the time to be on the powerful side. If they were forced to convert at least 30% of Europe today would be Muslims. Also with the army moving to mid Europe they ruled there for several hundred years where soldiers settled then married local women/men etc and blended and there are many families who have been there for centuries yes Bosnians who are Muslims. Marriages happened between the palace and other kingdoms in the Balkans to expand power for instance Serbian Princess and Ottoman Sultan. The expansion was very strategic. Even during their warfare you would get Christian's selling arms to the ottomans etc so it was all about business and power and not some hopeless historian telling you that they came and converted people at gunpoint.

Many people expect Muslims to look and act a certain way. I’m a brown Muslim, but because I’m very sociable (well used to be pre children!), wear short skirts and like to have fun, people are stunned when they find out I’m a Muslim. I also have a white husband who’s a convert so that blows their mind even more as I’m the opposite of the stereotype. It’s the stereotype that they expect and you don’t fall into it.

I wished a group of Muslim mums at school Eid Mubarak last year and it occurred to me that none of them looked like what you'd expect Muslims to look like.
They were all white, a couple blonde. They were from Bosnia, Turkey, Albania and Kosovo.

@merryhouse “all these Muslims are only Muslim for pragmatic security reasons?”

Where did I write that? Especially the ‘all’ bit. ‘Are’ is a bit off too as I am not talking about present day conversions.

I stated that many did so as not to be uniquely taxed as Christians in children or extra money in the areas of Europe during the times they were colonised by the Ottoman Empire. To avoid oppression and repression. Which is entirely correct.

I can only say that ‘You might want to rethink your own (sic) attitude and assumptions”. It is what it is.

Indeed, in Albania there were periods of increased pressure from the Ottomans on the population (both Catholic and Orthodox) at various times to convert to Islam. They were viewed as traitors by their colonisers in the various wars of the Ottomans against Catholic Europe and also with Orthodox Russia. With reprisals, repression and pressure were increased on those populations to convert to Islam by the Ottomans during and following those wars.

Or maybe they all had a great epiphany in huge numbers, around similar times. Independent of everything going on.

Coming back to the conversation I'm Albanian and Muslim fair skin, green eyes and light brown hair and people are surprised when I say I'm a Muslim too but it's not something I will ever get worked up about to create a thread lol. Same thing can be said about the Turks as there are many dark hair/dark eyes but white or blonde/coloured eyes or dark hair/dark skin. It's such a mixture. I'm probably guessing peoples ignorance is based on the UK's Islamophobic press and current affairs in the Middle East as if Muslims only come in one shape.

@merryhouse “I say this as someone who was born into a majority Established Christian community and has never left the faith”

What is that sentence supposed to mean and why is it at all relevant? I’m not referring any of the different belief systems themselves; just the historical shifts and the links to Ottoman colonisation of the area in which they occurred.

The majority of Moldova population is Christian at least for a couple of centuries.

@pizzaHeart I suspect a lot of people don’t realise that there are about 20 million catholics in India.

I didn't know that!! Genuinely surprised, that's a lot of people.

Well, the more you know!
Until I saw this post I was subconsciously assuming that any white British Muslim women I saw had converted. I’ll definitely stop doing that now, sorry OP.
Still, I would’ve never dreamed of verbalising that assumption, or asking you personal questions about it. Particularly not in the workplace.
I’m sorry you have to deal with that, and it must be really annoying.
Of course, it’s not your job to educate people, and you shouldn’t have to. You’re just a person, not a case study. But I want to thank you for posting all the same. It might mean that other white Muslim women have to deal with less frustrating nonsense in the future.