diff --git a/inc/fulltext.php b/inc/fulltext.php
index 6c4e148a26417602e083040519cdd04fb821d1e4..ff29f9deb4b9283f3df769df3c72feedc5781437 100644
--- a/inc/fulltext.php
+++ b/inc/fulltext.php
@@ -76,6 +76,48 @@ function ft_pageSearch($query,&$poswords){
     return $docs;
 }
 
+/**
+ * Returns the backlinks for a given page
+ *
+ * Does a quick lookup with the fulltext index, then
+ * evaluates the instructions of the found pages
+ */
+function ft_backlinks($id){
+    global $conf;
+    $result = array();
+
+    // quick lookup of the pagename
+    $page    = noNS($id);
+    $matches = idx_lookup(array($page));
+
+    if(!count($matches)) return $result;
+    require_once(DOKU_INC.'inc/parserutils.php');
+
+
+    // check instructions for matching links
+    foreach(array_keys($matches[$page]) as $match){
+        $instructions = p_cached_instructions(wikiFN($match),true);
+        if(is_null($instructions)) continue;
+
+        $match_ns =  getNS($match);
+
+        foreach($instructions as $ins){
+            if($ins[0] == 'internallink' || ($conf['camelcase'] && $ins[0] == 'camelcaselink') ){
+                $link = $ins[1][0];
+                resolve_pageid($match_ns,$link,$exists); //exists is not used
+                if($link == $id){
+                    //we have a match - finish
+                    $result[] = $match;
+                    break;
+                }
+            }
+        }
+    }
+
+    sort($result);
+    return $result;
+}
+
 /**
  * Quicksearch for pagenames
  *
diff --git a/inc/html.php b/inc/html.php
index 6797d0467f899fb7a8c6d729b9a3ba007b90c624..7c4e62cda75b92dbddc434ab244f804b5320ee59 100644
--- a/inc/html.php
+++ b/inc/html.php
@@ -668,28 +668,18 @@ function html_buildlist($data,$class,$func,$lifunc='html_li_default'){
  * @author Andreas Gohr <andi@splitbrain.org>
  */
 function html_backlinks(){
-  require_once(DOKU_INC.'inc/search.php');
+  require_once(DOKU_INC.'inc/fulltext.php');
   global $ID;
   global $conf;
 
-  if(preg_match('#^(.*):(.*)$#',$ID,$matches)){
-    $opts['ns']   = $matches[1];
-    $opts['name'] = $matches[2];
-  }else{
-    $opts['ns']   = '';
-    $opts['name'] = $ID;
-  }
-
   print p_locale_xhtml('backlinks');
 
-  $data = array();
-  search($data,$conf['datadir'],'search_backlinks',$opts);
-  sort($data);
+  $data = ft_backlinks($ID);
 
   print '<ul class="idx">';
-  foreach($data as $row){
+  foreach($data as $blink){
     print '<li>';
-    print html_wikilink(':'.$row['id'],$conf['useheading']?NULL:$row['id']);
+    print html_wikilink(':'.$blink,$conf['useheading']?NULL:$blink);
     print '</li>';
   }
   print '</ul>';
diff --git a/inc/search.php b/inc/search.php
index af7506f780bb6e62513d0946583f2f24fe17bc37..ffe85adc1b5d892485555449eb0019fbc6f05676 100644
--- a/inc/search.php
+++ b/inc/search.php
@@ -252,6 +252,7 @@ function search_allpages(&$data,$base,$file,$type,$lvl,$opts){
  * $opts['name']  name of the page without namespace
  *
  * @author  Andreas Gohr <andi@splitbrain.org>
+ * @deprecated Replaced by ft_backlinks()
  */
 function search_backlinks(&$data,$base,$file,$type,$lvl,$opts){
   //we do nothing with directories