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The snowball called Wahhabism has been rolling down the Bosnian hill, but it is still not certain which side is going to be struck by the avalanche. However, a meticulous analyst should be able to predict it quite precisely.

The Islamic Community in Bosnia has finally voiced its opinion, yet inadequately and euphemistically, without even naming the threat hovering over Bosnia. At the same time, Wahhabi efforts are extremely decisive and resolute, and they are likely to succeed. Nevertheless, even such an effort by the Islamic Community is to be applauded. However, we need to indicate that the Resolution of the Rijaset [Administration] of the Islamic Community on the Interpretation of Islam, and the press conference on its issuance are completely inadequate to respond to the energetic efforts of the Wahhabis. Even if it is not too late – which may not be true – the response has to be more appropriate and urgent.

Retrograde Wahhabi activism is covered both in media and the Islamic Community inadequately or with a cosmetic makeover of its essence. Its radicalism is detrimentally minimized and the essential aspects of its predictable future conduct are obscured. Naturally, that's what Wahhabism prefers, so as to develop deep roots, with any additional action being unnecessary, except that involving powerful international institutions, as part of a planned reactionary strategy to destroy any trace of the local Bosnian Muslims. Many local institutions are responsible for such a situation – political, academic, educational, then the [official Islamic] weekly newspaper Preporod [Revival], the Council of the Congress of Bosniak Intellectuals (VKBI), etc. However, the greatest responsibility rests with the institutions of the Islamic Community, since it has both the ability and the obligation to act most efficiently, categorically and decisively, by means of its powerful infrastructure and its respectable ideological position. Many non-Wahhabi believers, as I have been able to witness, are affectionate towards Wahhabis, including many officials from the Islamic Community, not knowing or ignoring the ultimate objectives of that movement, which are for now only manifested through publicized incidents. Such a position clearly reminds us of the untimely recognition of danger at the time of [the 1992 Serbian] assault on Bosnia, which understanding only came when the border areas of the country were already being burnt -- yet the people thought that it would end quickly, and it would not extend into the interior. I am convinced that many Wahhabi-recruited Bosniaks are unaware, at this stage of the movement's expansion, of the ultimate objective of their sheikhs; however, by the time they recognize it, the stream will be too strong for them to reach the shore. Consequently, the chief deceptions need to be brought up in public, including by those who make official statements about the problem, regardless of how tentative they are.

Wahhabi activity here is understood as being confined to a negligible number of foreigners who came during the war against Bosnia (hence the recent statement about how they did not have to come, and how they do not have to stay here either). The deception is in the fact that there are many more domestic Bosniaks among the Wahhabis, with the likelihood of constant expansion. While such people have nowhere to go, they do certainly know how to drive someone out, or down.
There is an attempt to define the polarization between Wahhabis and so-called traditional Muslims as involving immaterial differences in religious practices (how to pray, one's posture during the prayer, etc.), external manifestations (long beard – short pants), and, ultimately, all incidents are confined within the walls of places of worship. All these are dangerous illusions, since the ideological and political objectives of the Wahhabis are much more serious, and they will surely move on with their implementation once they feel sufficiently strong.
Institutions need to educate the public that the Wahhabis, in their military campaigns, in the [Arabian] cradle of Wahhabism, continuously and atrociously murdered traditional Muslims, burning all books in the conquered cities except for the Qur'an, believing as they do that books are the source of differences. They destroyed numerous monuments, more than one thousand years old. They killed tens of thousands of traditional, moderate, and observant Muslims across the world. They consider this to be their duty, with a conviction that traditional Muslims are unbelievers who either need to be converted or liquidated. There is no room for tolerance. Therefore, the same fate awaits the local traditional Muslims [in the Balkans]. It is puzzling to see that the people who are aware of this are not warning anybody about it. Their most powerful blow will hit traditional, moderate Muslims first – the Rijaset must be aware of this.
Do we need to elaborate that such a scenario is the most dangerous internal assault on the remaining Bosnian Muslims in Bosnia-Herzegovina?!
Some in the world favor a future of Wahhabism in Bosnia, and, therefore, it will be encouraged by them. Consequently, according to their intentions, Muslims in Bosnia need to be radicalized to the maximum in order to establish the most convincing argument for their absolute and lasting marginalization and devastation (they have been searching in vain for a decade, for alleged terrorist camps in Bosnia). Naturally, Wahhabis are wrong when they think that they can act as a Taliban in Europe (just as they are wrong about everything else). However, at that very historic moment (if no timely and adequate action is taken), when Islam in Bosnia, which has managed to continue to function here for centuries thanks to its prudent and truthful cosmopolitanism as an instinct of humanity and self-sustenance, is given an image of Taliban Islam, it will be time for a final showdown for both forms.
Not out of malevolence, bur rather fearing the outcome, I have to say that the Declaration of European Muslims [by Mustafa efendija Cerić – see http://www.islamicpluralism.org/texts/2006t/bosnianclericsdeclaration.htm] is an insufficient addition to the inadequate official reaction to the efforts for a Taliban-style Islam in Bosnia.

The public in Bosnia has to most seriously comprehend the magnitude of the cataclysmic threat. Everyone has to act in a preventive fashion, through enlightenment, deliberately and decisively. As far as the Islamic Community is concerned, I would not like its leaders to express anger at me, although I do not seek tranquility at any price, because I will suggest where their main effort should be, among other things, because my intention regarding them is as honest as are those of all people who cherish the culture of dialogue and a peaceful, diversity-enriched life.

Wahhabis have deeply penetrated some institutions, both secular and Islamic. It is that much more inadequate and misleading to confine them to those who came to Bosnia during the war to aid in saving the very lives of local Muslims. Wahhabis are also acting institutionally, through Islamic academies, with instructors who completed their education in the well of uncompromising Wahhabism. True, the penultimate paragraph of the Rijaset's Resolution states that "khatibs [Friday preachers] shall read the contents thereof at jumaa prayers at all mosques, while professors at all medresas and universities sponsored by the Islamic Community shall clarify it to all students, and they shall strictly adhere to it in its true letter and spirit as the official position of the Islamic Community in Bosnia." However, apart from the long-awaited Resolution, which is to be applauded, we have to admit that the problem has developed in proportions that cannot be countered by the reading of a Resolution, but rather some people have to face official action by the Rijaset, which it is entitled to carry out, in line with the heavy historic responsibility before it. Let it be seen how many indoctrinated Wahhabi lecturers there are at the academies, medresas, and on mosque pulpits. It is a known fact that classes of religion in Bosnian public schools, mostly elementary and some high schools, are taught by people who received their education at retrograde Wahhabi or "Salafi" universities. Paragraph 2.4 of the Resolution, which states that "the Rijaset of the Islamic Community believes that Bosnia has no extremist individuals or groups which may undermine the unity of Muslims," was rendered ineffective by reality even before the ink on it dried.

Those are the right courses of decisive and responsible action – it is a lot of work. We have to act immediately.

[Translation by Faruk Bogučanin and Center for Islamic Pluralism]

[Note: Academician Esad Duraković is Professor of Arabic at the University of Sarajevo.]

Related Topics: Balkan Muslims, Bosnian Muslims, European Muslims, Wahhabism, WahhabiWatch receive the latest by email: subscribe to the free center for islamic pluralism mailing list