Hussain has a contagious curiosity and such enthusiasm for the topic that, when combined with a healthy dose of historical detail, he is able to keep you engaged and entertained throughout. The book also has an unpretentious charm, mixing the facts with casual chats with locals, fellow tourists and family time, for those little moments of laughter and authenticity that really make travelling so special.

Tharik Hussain comes upon a Europe that would be unrecognisable to most of us who call the continent home. He found towns where “everything was halal” and the sound of the Muslim call to prayer is as normal as the ringing of church bells. This was not the constructed Europe found in books on politics and philosophy that tries to make the case for co-existence. The Europe he discovered is “organic” and “natural”; not just existing, but also flourishing with the confidence of that which is anchored deeply and proud. The Portal, between Michael and Eichorn Minarets, is not really a pass or even a good way to cross the range, but it is a prominent landmark for climbs of these two minarets. The east side of the portal is Amphitheater Chute, a difficult 5.6 climb with horrendously loose talus. The west side is class 4-5 via Michael's or Starr's Chute.T urner Minaret - 11,600ft, class 4 The traverse from Jensen Minaret is class 3. The East Face is 5.8, the East Side is 5.4. Eighteen years on, and we were about to visit again Bosnia and Herzegovina. We drove down from Austria, through Slovenia and Croatia. As we drew closer to Sarajevo, passing through what is a lush green landscape, we saw minarets spiking the sky, marking even the smallest villages. Against all of these issues, the travel writer Tharik Hussain has made a valuable contribution to increasing religious and cultural literacy through his account of travelling through the Western Balkans to learn about its Muslim history. To do this, he relies on the routes provided by the famous Ottoman explorer Evliya Çelebi (1611–1682), who is known for his celebrated ten-volume travelogue Seyāḥatnāme.

Islamophobia is real and it could have started since long before. There have been aggressive attempts in replacing Muslim cultures, and deliberation of destroying them to the extent of writing up new and alternative narratives which is saddening. There are certainly historic blurring of religious lines across the Balkan.Please consider supporting the show with a few dollars a month, less than a cup of coffee, to help keep our show alive and advertisement-free. Bedayan Minaret - 12,080ft, class 4 The Northwest Chute, leading to the notch north of Bedayan, is class 4. The traverse from Rice Minaret is class 3.

A tour through the Balkans unearthing Islamic European history. I appreciated the depth of his research and the lightness of touch in his many fascinating encounters” How can we care about something we don’t even know is there?’ asks Tharik Hussain. Europe has long turned a blind eye or, worse, looked askance, at its own Islamic self – the Muslims of the Balkans. Tharik Hussain opens our eyes to this vivid, varied and still vital Muslim presence. His title is romantic, but not his vision: he ignores neither current sectarian tensions, nor histories scarred by violence and hatred. And yet he constantly reminds us of the long periods of tolerance and symbiosis, often forgotten in the din of war. This is a richly detailed travelogue by a humane and passionate pilgrim.”What might otherwise have been a fairly dry description of buildings, dates and historical facts is rescued by his warm interactions with locals and the inclusion of his travelling companions: his wife and two daughters. The girls ensure that, alongside minarets, caravanserais and Tekkes, we’re treated to explorations of swimming spots and art galleries, which the book is all the richer for. They have a particular preoccupation with street food – pides, pizzas, kofte and ice cream all play starring roles – meaning the reader is given a taste of local life as we explore the beauty of the region. The old bridge in Mostar, which defied the laws of physics for five centuries before it was blown up by Bosnian Croats in 1993, and was seen by Victorian travelers as being Roman (the inferior Turks, it was felt, could not possibly have engendered such masterful engineering), says Hussain, “belonged to the ‘other’ history I was told had nothing to do with Europe’s history, yet here I was travelling through Europe with my family, encountering places and people that tangibly connected me to the continent’s cultural landscape and its Muslim heritage, my Muslim heritage”. Thomas analyzed the views from the still-extant towers, and found that most of them did not command vistas that extended beyond the valley. Rather, many of the towers seem to have been constructed to conduct surveillance of the valley itself. Thomas speculates that the fortifications might have been built in the wake of the religious riots that swept Firuzkuh toward the end of the Ghurid Dynasty’s reign. It’s possible that even after the Ghurid sultan Ghiyath al-Din quit the remote summer capital for Herat, he wanted to keep an eye on his rebellious subjects in Firuzkuh. A network of fortifications intended to monitor threats inside the capital, rather than approaching foes, might have been a result of his concern. The sultan was perhaps right to be preoccupied with the possibility of internal instability. His successor was assassinated in 1215, an event that led to the collapse of the Ghurid Empire. It had lasted less than 70 years in all. Historically, people of different faiths in the Balkans did exist. The Muslims live alongside the Christians and Jews harmoniously eventhough the Muslims ruled the states or countries.

The Ottoman Empire had absorbed Bosnia by the middle of the 15th century, and the Ottomans were to leave indelible marks on the Balkans for centuries to come. One demonstration of prowess was built in 1566 through the inspired vision of the architect Mimar Hajrudin: the Stari Most, which was, and is again, one of the world’s most imposing bridges, soaring over the Neretva River at Mostar in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Minarets". Geographic Names Information System. United States Geological Survey, United States Department of the Interior . Retrieved 2009-08-10. Joining me today is Tharik Hussain. We’re talking about his debut book, Minarets in the Mountains: A Journey into Muslim Europe, which was published in June 2021 by Bradt and nominated for the Baille Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction. Today, while my wife and two daughters were lying on a beach in Vlore, Idar’s home town, he was helping me follow in the footsteps of Evliya. In the beginning, in 2003, I was a philo-Serbian slightly Islamophobic journalist, who wanted to see for himself Europe’s last pariah state, whose bad-boy status placed it in the same unenviable company as Iraq, Libya, North Korea, and Cuba – countries that raised a collective middle finger to the US; a people, many of whom when America started bombing Iraq in 2003 cried: “Bravo Saddam!”Disassociating cultural accomplishments from their indigenous Muslim heritage is intended to erase the right of Muslim Europeans to exist today and a well-known tactic of Islamophobes and fascists that continues to this day. During the war, Croat paramilitary forces literally blew up the Mostar of the bridge in November 1993, yet this did not prevent it from being rebuilt in 2004 by a team of people passionate about maintaining Ottoman monuments with the support of UNESCO, European Bank and others. Sarajevo today is gorgeous and not a little hectic. They sure drive fast in the city, and there seemed to be a Dervish-like whirl of dense traffic. The call to prayer must be something of a novelty for many of the tourists. The magic prevails, however, for there can be no more compelling sound in a public place than this most evocative call to piety. Many of the women in Sarajevo wore the hijab. True, some of the souvenirs may possibly be Made in China, but there is sufficient local color and exoticness to make your head swivel. We drank an awful lot of Turkish coffee, and none of it was awful. Nor was the baklava, or the ubiquitous Turkish delight. You can have falafel and doner kebabs coming out of your ears.