Bozović, Mihajlo Zoran

Belgrade University

Research Topic: Islamisation of Anatolia Through Popular Narratives of Late Medieval Anatolia

Mr. Bozovic is a PhD candidate at the Department of Oriental studies of Faculty of Philology in Belgrade. His doctoral thesis is titled “Islamization of Anatolia as seen in popular narratives of 12th, 13th and 14th century” and it focuses on the religious transformation of Anatolia in aspect of its population and especially its population’s intercommunal and interreligious interactions and islamization processes. In the course of his research, he works on determining ethnical, religious and social self-identification of Anatolian population on the basis of Byzantine and Arabic popular narratives. Nonetheless, his project at ANAMED is focusing on how the events such as dissolving of the Byzantine Empire, coming of a vast population of Turkish nomads, Islamic rule and Islam as religion influenced the population of Anatolia, and especially perception of them by the local Muslim population in the popular narratives of Anatolia, i.e. Danishmend-name, Vilayet-name, Battal-name and Saltuk-name. The main premise of his research is the reinterpretation of the islamization of Anatolia through reexamination of the texts and their influences using Brian Stock’s ‘interpretative communities’ concept along the lines of Tijana Krstic’s and Ahmet Karamustafa’s research.