"Bosnian Muslims and Bosnian Jews are one body" - The Grand Mufti of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Husein Kavazović, at the conference, "Coexistence of Muslims and Jews in Bosnia and Herzegovina: 200 years of the Sarajevo Purim." 1/ #Bosnia#MuslimsandJews radiosarajevo.ba/amp/metromahal…
The conference commemorates 200 years since the Bosnian Muslims rose against the Ottoman governor, who imprisoned the leader of Sarajevo Jews and demanded a huge ransom. The Muslims not only freed Rabbi Moše Danon but sent the governor back to Istanbul.
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"Today, when the evils of anti-Semitism and Islamophobia are getting stronger in our region, and around Europe and the world, we need to renew our commitment to one another to be good neighbors and to watch over one another, as we did in the past." - Mufti Kavazović
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Jakob Finci, President of the BH Jewish community, "This event that took place 200 years ago has equal importance today when Islamophobia threatens diplomatic relations and when the status of Muslims in some countries is simply unacceptable."
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David Kamhi, a prominent Bosnian Jewish leader, "this (conference) is about the coexistence of Muslims and Jews which started much earlier, with the Madinan Charter, given by (Prophet) Muhammad a.s., which gave the Jews full rights. This is the community, this is the ummah."
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When the Nazis occupied Bosnia and Herzegovina (BH) in 1941, a group of Bosniak leaders, led by the Muslim scholars, raised the voice against the Nazi mistreatment of the "unwanted" groups of people, mainly Serbs, Jews, and Roma ("Gypsies").
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In a recently published book, which I co-edited with @hikmet_karcic and Ferid Dautovic, we collected the "Muslim resolutions," as they are known, translated them into English, and added several essays to provide a context. Excerpts included at the link. 2/ contemporaryislam.org/muslim-resolut…
The Nazi-puppet regime, the Independent State of Croatia (or, NDH), instituted their version of "racial purity" laws which deemed the populations above unacceptable. They practically ruled BH during WW2 and instigated inter-ethnic violence and hatred.
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The role of the Serbian Orientalists in justifying genocide against the Bosniak population of Bosnia is not well known. Norman Cigar wrote an excellent paper in which he analyzed the way in which the Serbian scholarship on Islam enabled genocide.
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The Orientalists used every trope known to an Islamophobe in order to justify genocide and ethnic cleansing against the Muslim population of Bosnia and Herzegovina. In some ways, they have created a playbook from which the Islamophobes freely draw until today. 2/
The nationalist rhetoric created in Serbia against the Balkans Muslims, but especially the Bosniaks, set the stage for the aggression against Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1992, and for the ensuing ethnic cleansing and genocide campaigns. 3/
The horrors of the genocide in Srebrenica (in Bosnia and Herzegovina in general) are becoming more vivid as more and more survivors share their stories. For some of them, it took more than two decades to finally be able to speak publicly.
Omer Dudić was a young man, living in Srebrenica, when the war started. Srebrenica was attacked by the Serb forces in 1992. By 1993, the humanitarian situation was unbearable. In April 1993, Srebrenica was designated a "safe area" by the UN.
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The Bosnian army (largely Muslim) surrendered its weapons. In return, the UN would protect Srebrenica and the Serbs would not attack it. By 1995, the Bosnian Army was growing stronger in other parts of Bosnia. The Serbs decided to finish what they started in 1992.
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"Dictatorship is immoral even when it prohibits a sin, democracy is moral even when it permits it. Morality is inseparable from freedom. Only a free behavior is a moral behavior."
"By negating freedom, and with it a possibility of choice, dictatorship in its very premises contains a negation of morality. Hence, in spite of the appearances, dictatorship and religion are mutually exclusive."
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"Just like in the spirit-body dilemma religion always chooses spirit, so will the choice between will and behavior, between intention and deed, always opt for will and intention, regardless of the result or the consequence."
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