Michael Sells

He completed a new and expanded edition of his 1999 book Approaching the Qur'an: the Early Revelations which was at the center of the case Yacovelli v. Moeser about the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's summer program in 2002.

[3]: backcover  He wrote about the religious ideology of Christoslavism:[3]: 36  In the nineteenth century, the three myths – conversion to Islam based only upon cowardice and greed, stable ethnoreligious groups down through the centuries, and complete depravity of Ottoman rule – became the foundation for a new religious ideology, Christoslavism, the belief that Slavs are Christian by nature and that any conversion from Christianity is a betrayal of the Slavic race.

Religious symbols, mythologies, myths of origin (pure Serb race), symbol of passion (Lazar's death), and eschatological longings (the resurrection of Lazar) were used by religious nationalists to create a re-duplicating Miloš Obilić, avenging himself on the Christ killer, the race traitor, the alien, and, ironically, the falsely accused 'fundamentalist' next door.

Survivors of concentration camps report that during torture sessions or when they begged for water they were made to sing Serbian religious nationalist songs reworded to reflect the contemporary conflict.

Sells argues that these acts were seen as ethnoreligious purification:[3]: 51  Christoslavism – the premise that Slavs are by essence Christian and that conversion to another religious is a betrayal of the people or race – was critical to the genocidal ideology being developed in 1989.