The terrorist attack on Israel on October 7 and the current war in the Middle East have not disrupted or even ended the long tradition of interfaith tolerance and understanding in Bosnia and Herzegovina. This is what the Grand Mufti of Sarajevo – a city with a Muslim majority – Husein Kavazovic said in an interview.
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Kavazovic made the comments in an interview with Austrian newspaper “Standard” on Thursday. Shortly after the Hamas attack, he stated in a joint statement with Jakob Finci, president of the Jewish community of Bosnia and Herzegovina, “that the conflict in the Holy Land is not of a religious nature, but of a political nature. It is about territories. “Faith is abused for political mobilization at local and global levels”, Kavazovic echoed the Muslim-Jewish position. This common message was intended to maintain peace and good relations between Jews and Muslims in the world and especially in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
“The conflict in the Holy Land is not religious in nature, but political”
“It is up to us to value every human life equally and fight for a just solution and lasting peace,” emphasized the spiritual leader of the Islamic community in the Balkans. Islam sees Jews and Christians as “followers of the book.” Kavazovic concluded: “A Muslim cannot be an anti-Semite.” Most of God's messengers that Muslims believe in were “descendants of Israel,” and the Arabs – including Muhammad – were a Semitic people.
“A Muslim cannot be an anti-Semite”
Commenting on the fact that many Muslims in Bosnia and Herzegovina also show solidarity with the Palestinians, Kavazovic said: “Muslims must and can only stand by the victim, regardless of the religion they belong to. For us, every life is equally sacred.” It is not only Muslims who show solidarity with the suffering of the Palestinian people, for whom common faith is, however, an additional factor. “But we see that Christians in Gaza also suffer and that some of the oldest churches in the world were destroyed.” The Grand Mufti distanced himself from the voices that wanted to “build a so-called clash of civilizations”: “These people do no one any favors.
(kap-sst)