Bosnians elect new Grand Mufti

SARAJEVO: Bosnian Muslims have elected Hussein Kavazovic, as their new spiritual leader or Grand Mufti, the Islamic community said yesterday in a statement. Kavazovic replaced Mustafa Ceric, who served as Grand Mufti for 19 years, notably during the 1992-1995 inter-ethnic war, said the statement published on the community’s web site.
Ceric stepped down after serving his maximum two mandates under the rules of Bosnia’s Islamic community.
Kavazovic, who has been the mufti of the north-eastern region of Tuzla since 1992, completed Islamic law studies at Al-Azhar University in Cairo.
According to local analysts, the 48-year old is a moderate religious leader looking for appeasement in a country deeply divided among its three ethnic groups — Muslims, Catholic Croats and Christian Orthodox Serbs — even 17 years after the end of the war.
After the July 1995 massacre of some 8,000 Muslims in the eastern enclave of Srebrenica by Bosnian Serb army, Kavazovic urged his community to avoid acts of vengeance.
“Innocent people do not deserve our contempt and they do not deserve a punishment,” he said earlier this year in a speech at the site of a mass grave containing victims from Srebrenica.
Muslims represent some 40 percent of the estimated 3.8 million inhabitants of Bosnia.