ABSTRACT
This chapter examines how Bosnian Muslims treat and remember their dead, setting the stage for a subsequent discussion of memory of the dead in reference to historical space, material culture and funerary text. Death, after all, is an aspect of ritual life whose continuity relies on communal presence and engagement more than theoretical prescriptions. The historical presence of three monotheistic teachings coupled with the legacy of secularism and communism in the modern period have left all Bosnians, including Bosnian Muslims, without a unified view as to what to expect in death or from dead. Common Bosnian Muslim views and beliefs about death are predictably eclectic considering diverse means employed to spread Islam across the region. In the course of the sixteenth century the Khalwati/Halveti order spread across Bosnia, very much in association with the dominant religious class. 'Syncretism' suggests a lack of authenticity and a certain level of impurity, lack of awareness and even conscious manipulation of official religious norms.
