Smail Balić

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

Life

After his childhood in Mostar Balic studied Islamic theology in Sarajevo. This was followed between 1941 and 1945 to study in Vienna, Leipzig and Breslau in the fields of Turkish, Arabic and Slavic. He received his Ph.D. in 1945 in Vienna with a thesis on the intellectual driving forces in Bosnia and Herzegovina Islam Dr. phil.

After 1945, the Orientalist took over in the public school for world trade of Vienna a teaching position. 1962/63 he was a lecturer in German language at a private college in as- Salimiyya (Kuwait). Then he moved to the Austrian National Library, where he worked as a research librarian between 1963 and 1984. In this role, Balic accompanied the body of specialist speakers for Linguistics ( Oriental Languages ​​) and was the head of its 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. Expression of this is his intention, "Islam must be decoupled from politics " and the positions "Violence is not a hallmark of Islam, whose" first principle " is to protect human life. His criticism was directed against the political instrumentalization of his faith.

Balic is the author of a large number of journal articles and author of various books. As a lecturer he was in demand internationally.

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: Southeast Research, vol 23 (1965 ), pp. 19-35.
  • The culture of Bosniaks, Vienna (1973, 1978) / Kultura Bošnjaka, Tuzla (1994 )
  • The unknown Bosnia, Cologne, Weimar, Vienna ( 1992)
  • Islam in the field of tension between tradition and modern times (1993 )
  • Islam - europe compliant? (1994)
  • The forgotten Islam or Euro -Islam (2000)
  • Islam for Europe, New Perspectives of an ancient religion, Vienna (2001)
  • Catalogue of Turkish manuscripts in the Austrian National Library: New Acquisitions 1864-1994: with an appendix: Bosnian Aljamiado manuscripts. In: Museion. 4th row, Publications of the manuscript collection Ankara ( Türk Tarih Kurumu ) 2006
  • Editorship of the journal The Straight Path ( Sirati müstekim ) Bulletin of Muslim refugees in Austria and Germany. ( Muslim Social Services ) 1958-1979

Appreciations and Memberships

  • Austrian Cross of Honour for Science and Art First Class (1995 )
  • International Symposium in Sarajevo: Smail Balic as a thought leader of a European Islam. ( 2 to 4 November 2006)
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