Urban Muslim migrants in Istanbul: identity and trauma among Balkan immigrants

Since the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-8, approximately two and a half million Muslims living in the Balkans have been forced from their homes.

Some fled following World War II, and travelled east by train to Istanbul with no more than a suitcase. And yet 50 years later, one of their migrant associations was second only to the Red Crescent in providing aid to the urban poor of Istanbul.

Frances Trix analyses the development of the oldest such association, originally founded to welcome new migrants as they arrived from Skopje after World War II, and shows how Islam is central to its structure and practices.