Abstract
The conference focused on the relations of Austrian and Austro-Hungarian policy to the Balkans, especially from the viewpoint of the annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1878, and the ensuing admission of Islam among the official religious creeds of the Austro-Hungarian empire by the Emperor Franz Joseph I, considering the solutions proposed for the situation of the Muslim populations in the coeval national states of the Balkans. It was also intended to investigate the nature of the northwestern border area of the Islamic umma, subject to the Ottoman sultanate, specific features of its situation, and various forms of Christian-Muslim relations following out of the particular historical situation of the Austrian and Austro-Hungarian empire and the late Ottoman administration.
Another topic to be tackled is the onset of gathering deeper knowledge of the Islam in the Austrian and Austro-Hungarian empire of those times, beginning with the presence of Islamic artifacts beyond the borders of the umma, and, via the singular situation of Bohemian and Moravian Orientalism, as far as the reflexion of Islam in coeval works of literature and the arts, and emergence of scientific studies of Islam and cultures of Islamic lands.