Cultural Relations between Austria and South Asian Subcontinent With Special Reference to Iqbal

Abstract

The extensive and deep rooted interactions between Austria and Turkey can still easily be traced in the family and place names, mostly familiar in present day Austria, and also in some of the dialects of the federal provinces like Steirmask and Kainten in which numerous loan– words of the Turkish origin are used. In the comity of world nations, Austria is the third major European power to develop relations with Muslims and it came into contact with the Islamic world through the Ottoman Empire that was knocking the doors of the Eastern Europe in the fourteenth century. After the conquest of Constantinople (1453), the Turks undertook frequent expeditions which took them further and further to the west and thus became a permanent threat to the Hapsburg patrimonial lands. Twice the Ottoman arises reached the gates of Vienna (1529 and 1683) and their proximity affected the development of the knowledge of Muslim society and Islam in Europe. This political expansion led to a new subject of study Islam in its Ottoman context, and Islam being now largely identified with the Turks and their rule.