One of the many torments of the Bosnian War was seeing this Ottoman heritage blown to pieces in a deliberate and self-conscious element in the conflict, driven by mystical and corrupted historians, whether it was the destruction of the bridge at Mostar or the targeting of the Orient Institute in Sarajevo. These were attempts to deny the legitimacy of Muslims as European citizens at all, when of course they are ancient European citizens, drawing on a great, refined and beautiful culture which ruled much of south-east Europe for far longer than any of its successor states.
