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Yugoslavia Islam
Yugoslavia's Islamic community, the largest in any European
country west of Turkey, included about 4 million people
concentrated among three ethnic groups: Muslim Slavs, located in
Bosnia and Hercegovina and Kosovo; ethnic Albanians, primarily in
Kosovo, the town of Novi Pazar in Serbia, and Macedonia; and
Turks inhabiting the same regions as the Albanians. Most of the
Muslim Slavs and Albanians converted to Islam in the early stages
of Ottoman occupation to gain the higher social status that
Ottoman policy afforded to converts. They were the only groups in
the European provinces of the Ottoman Empire to convert in large
numbers.
In 1930 Yugoslavia's separate Muslim groups united under the
authority of a single ulama, (religious scholar), the
Rais-ul Ulama, who enforced Islamic religious and legal dogma and
managed the affairs of the Islamic community. Headquartered in
Sarajevo, Yugoslavia's Islamic community included about 3,000
religious leaders and 3,000 mosques in the 1980s. Some Yugoslav
Muslim officials studied at Islamic institutions abroad.
Financial contributions from Islamic countries such as Libya and
Saudi Arabia helped fund many of the 800 mosques constructed in
Yugoslavia after World War II. In 1985 a "grand mosque" was
opened in Zagreb after years of delay. The only Islamic school of
theology in Europe was located in Sarajevo, and Islamic secondary
schools operated in Sarajevo, Skopje, and Pristina. A religious
school for women, attached to the Islamic secondary school in
Sarajevo, had a capacity of sixty. The Islamic community of
Yugoslavia published a variety of newspapers and periodicals.
Relations of the postwar communist government with the
Islamic community were less troubled than those with the Orthodox
or Roman Catholic churches. Yugoslavia's Islamic leaders
generally had kept a low profile during World War II, although
the authorities condemned the mufti of Zagreb to death for
allegedly inciting Muslims to murder Serbs. In the 1960s and
1970s, Tito used Yugoslavia's Islamic community to maintain
friendly relations with oil-producing Arab countries because
Yugoslavia needed access to inexpensive oil. But after the 1979
fundamentalist revolution in Iran, the Yugoslav government
reviewed its policy on potentially destabilizing contacts between
Yugoslav Muslims and Middle Eastern governments. The ulama
responded by disavowing all connection with the pan-Islamic
movement.
Besides mainstream Sunni Islam, the Yugoslav Muslim
population also included several small groups such as the
Bektashi dervishes. Founded in the thirteenth century, the
Bektashi sect was one of the official religions of Kosovo under
the tolerant policy of the Ottoman Turks. Its practice disregards
much of traditional Islamic ritual and contains some Christian
elements, especially in areas where Christianity is the prevalent
religion. After Turkey dissolved its Bektashi orders in 1925, the
sect survived only in the Balkans.
Data as of December 1990
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