The archives of Dubrovnik contain a large collection of Arabic manuscripts that show clearly what kind of goods were traded between Arab traders and those of the Balkans over many centuries. But Arab traders did not only bring with them Arabic customs, books, items, ideas, and principles; the Slavs themselves, who served first in the military with the Arabs of al-Andalus and then with those of Sicily and southern Italy, also spread the influence of Arabic culture throughout the Balkans.

Trading contacts were made mainly through the seaports, and it was by these routes that cultural influences also spread. For all that, the Arabic cultural influence began to spread more emphatically with the arrival of Islam in the Balkans. Many peoples of the Balkans began gradually to fall within the ambit of the Islamic cultural sphere.

From the fourteenth century onward, the Arabic language, terminology, expressions, literature, and books – in a word all the important dimensions of Arabic and Islamic culture – spread with great rapidity throughout the Balkans. Why was this so? The answer lies primarily in the fact that the Balkans came within a new cultural and civilizational ambit at that time. The Balkan region experienced profound transformations. Many peoples of the Balkans embraced Islam as their faith and their worldview. With the spread of Islam came the spread of Islamic principles, notions, and Arabic words and cultural influences. And together with this transformation of the spiritual life came profound changes in the material life.

Traded goods, military equipment, books, household goods, clothing, types of food, cosmetics, medicines – all of this reached the Balkans not only from Turkey but also from the Arabic East, which is to say, taken as a whole, from the Islamic East. And, all of these goods were known by their Arabic names. To this day we have thousands of Arabic words and terms relating to science, faith, literature, trade, housing, clothing, cosmetics, medicine, and cookery in the Bosnian, Serbian, Croatian, and other languages of the Balkan region.

Thousands of Arabic Words and Expressions

When speaking of the Arabic cultural influence on the Balkans, then, one must begin with Arabic words. Through their contacts with the Arabic East over the centuries, the Balkan peoples adopted thousands of Arabic words and phrases. All of these words and phrases entered the numerous languages of the Balkans and took up permanent residence there. To give you a brief demonstration of this, I invite you to take a brief look in a traditional Muslim house in the Balkans, where the host wants to offer you ikram, that is, to welcome you as his guest.

The room where guests sit with the host, with its rich decorations, is known to this day as the divan. We have also turned this Arabic word into a verb, divaniti, which in Bosnian, Serbian, and Croatian means “to enjoy pleasant conversation” while sitting in the divan or some other attractively furnished place. In the traditional Bosnian house, you will usually be served kahva and serbet (sherbet). We too use the Arabic word qahwah (coffee), while we use the Arabic word sharbah, in the form serbet or serbe, to denote a sweetened non-alcoholic drink.

You will see that your host pours the coffee from a dzezva, which in Bosnian means jazwah, the usually copper, narrow-necked utensil in which the coffee is made. After being served with coffee you could ask for duhan, and any Bosniac, Serb, or Croat would understand what you mean by this Arabic word for tobacco, and offer you a cigarette. The host might offer you tobacco from his pocket, which in Bosnian is dzep, the Arabic jayb. It is the same word in Serbian and Croatian too. No other local word is an effective substitute for the word dzep.

It is very likely that your host will offer you halva, which in Bosnia and throughout the Balkans is a sweetmeat made of wheat dough and oil. Halva comes from the Arabic word halawah or halawiyat, which also indicates a kind of sweet made of dough and oil. The host will probably bring you the halva in a dish known in Bosnia as a sahan, which is, of course, an Arabic word.

If you look around the rooms of your Bosnian host, you will notice many a sedzada. Thus we in Bosnia, too, use the word sajjadah for a prayer mat, and the word has become completely naturalized here. Taking a stroll around Sarajevo, the capital city of Bosnia and Herzegovina, you will even find streets with Arabic names. For example, Mudzeliti mali and Mudzeliti veliki are two streets in the centre of Sarajevo that acquired their name from bookbinders, and we in Bosnia often call a bookbinder mudzelid, from the Arabic mujallid. Sarajevo is, of course, full of shops, which we call ducan, from the Arabic word dukkan. The city is also full of small streets, which we call sokak in Bosnian, Croatian, and Serbian. This, of course, is zuqaq, a word that one hears every day in Arabic. The word dzada, too, is very much present in the Bosnian and Serbian languages; it would be hard to find anyone in Bosnia, Serbia, or Montenegro who did not know that this Arabic word, jaddah, means road.

In addition to all of this, the entire Balkans is full of place names (toponyms) of Arabic origin. For example, if you travel west from Sarajevo, you soon come upon an attractive town called Ilidza. It acquired its name from its curative mineral springs. The people recognized that the water had healing properties (iladz, in Arabic ‘ilaj), and gave the place the name Ilidza. Indeed, any source of mineral or curative waters in Bosnia is often liable to be named ilidza.

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