The image of Serbia in the minds of many Muslims is associated with an ancient and long history of the struggle against the Ottomans and with a recent memory of the bloody Srebrenica massacre, in which thousands of defenseless women and children were killed by units of the Serbian army in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the mid-1990s, which is considered the most heinous massacre in Europe. Since World War II.

This country, located at a crossroads between central and southeastern Europe under Ottoman rule for about 6 centuries after the famous battle of Kosovo in 1389, was considered its capital, Belgrade - according to some references - along with Sarajevo as "the largest cities and centers of Islamic culture in the Balkans until the middle of the 19th century." ".

The Islamic presence in this country, in which Orthodox Christianity lived for about a thousand years, began with the victory of the Ottomans in the Battle of Maritsa in 1371, which formed a turning point that opened to the Turks the gates of Macedonia and Greece, and later paved the way for them to enter Serbia and neighboring Bosnia.

But the position of Muslims in Serbia and throughout the Balkans changed radically following the Balkan War (1912-1913), which inaugurated the beginning of the disease of the Ottoman Empire, which turned 10 years later into the “sick man of Europe.”

The imams of Serbian mosques on a religious occasion in the province of Sanjak (websites)

traitors and defectors

This Ottoman weakness caused the destruction of almost everything related to Islam and Muslims in the region. The Serb Muslims were seen as traitors and dissidents, and a massive wave of persecution, murder and attempts to convert them and forcibly deported them began.

The religious and ethnic composition of Serbia was also affected by the Balkan wars, the First and Second World Wars, and the Civil War (1992-1995) that followed the disintegration of communist Yugoslavia, as one of its most important results was the elimination of any friendly feelings that existed between Serb and Muslim nationalists, and opened the door wide to the exercise of the Serbian authorities. Racist policies and mass crimes against Muslims.

After they represented a large part of Serbian society, Muslims now constitute only about 3.1% of the total population (between 200,000 and 400,000), compared to 85% of Orthodox Christians and 5% of Catholics, then other minorities of Protestants and Jews, in addition to that. A large number of atheists. Recent surveys show a marked decrease in the level of religiosity in the general Serbian population.

It is estimated that in the Serbian capital Belgrade alone, there are currently between 20 and 50 thousand Muslims, and some believe that the number is much higher.

Bushnaq and Albanian

The Muslims of Serbia consist of two main nationalities: the Bosniaks, who make up 70% of the country's total Muslims, then the Albanians (25%), and the Roma and other ethnicities represent about 5%.

The majority of Serbian Muslims, specifically Bosniaks (about 145,000), live in the region of Sandžak, known as "Raška" to the Serbs, a region located in the southwest of the country and its territory is divided today between the Republics of Serbia and Montenegro (Montenegro), and its largest city is Novi Pazar ( Novi Pazar), and Albanians live in Preševska dolina to the south and border with Macedonia, and they number about 67% of the total local population.

The Bosniak minority descends from the Slavic dynasty, and the Albanians descend from the Alerian dynasty, and they speak two different languages ​​(Albanian and Serbian) and have heterogeneous cultural traditions, but the social distance between them is very small because the psychological and social ties between them derive their strength from Islam, which is its mainstay.

The former media official of the Islamic Sheikhdom in Serbia, Khair al-Din Palic, confirms that there are also Serb Muslims who convert to Islam annually, but not in large numbers as is the case in other European countries, and often these people migrate to areas with a Muslim majority after their conversion to Islam or choose to hide their Islam, As some do in Belgrade.

The Swedish researcher in sociology and theology Anders Backstrom, in his book Welfare and Religion in a European Perspective, sees that the Bosniaks and Albanians, despite the differences between them, work on active involvement in the Serbian society in which they live, They affirm the commitment of the Muslims of Serbia to the values ​​and morals of their religion, which encourage the renunciation of violence and living in peace with their opponents in faith and religion.

Bagracli Mosque, which dates back to 1575, is the only mosque in the capital, Belgrade (Reuters)

bitter reality

In Novi Pazar in particular, the city offers a completely different atmosphere than other Serbian cities. In a country that prides itself on its Orthodox Christian affiliation, this Muslim-majority city is a culturally distinct place, where the call to prayer can be heard clearly and bearded men can be seen roaming the streets, as well as girls and women Veiled and non-alcoholic restaurants.

But this peculiarity, which the city was able to preserve for centuries, hides a bitter living reality, as Novi Pazar and the whole of the Sanjak region are among the poorest regions of the country. economic.

The poverty rate in the region is 50%, according to the Serbian Institute of Statistics, which makes it the most deprived region in Serbia, after it was an important center for the textile industry, as many warehouses where thousands of workers worked were neglected, no factory opened, and no investment effort was witnessed. .

Some sources indicate that due to massive unemployment, deprivation and a feeling of exclusion, the Sanjak region in southwestern Serbia has become a fertile ground for "extremism", as a number of its residents left to join the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, some of them were killed there and others returned to their homes to be monitored by the The powerful Serbian intelligence services dating back to the Yugoslav era.

double standards

In addition to the deteriorating economic situation, the Muslims of Serbia have become "victims of double standards", according to the Mufti of the local Muslim community, Mufid Dodic, who mentions that Serbs in Novi Pazar, for example, make up 80% of the police force, even though 80% of the city's population is Muslim, and after Repeated attempts to establish a kind of balance now constitute about a third of this force.

The representation of Muslims in important positions and in local government institutions in Sanjak province and Muslim-majority provinces is very low, as all important jobs in various sectors - political, economic and educational - are run by Serbs.

In addition, the percentage of Muslims with a higher or university education is very low, and school administrators in Muslim areas are forced to put the image of the founder of the Serbian Orthodox Church, Saint Sava, in all classes, including those with fully Muslim students.

It can be said that Muslims in Serbia lack many citizenship rights, to the extent that the word “Serb” means “Orthodox Christian” in the mainstream, and does not include Muslims, meaning that it acquired a religious burden instead of its ethnic description.

Serb Muslims inside a house prepared for prayer in the Sremica district of the capital, Belgrade (Reuters)

hidden runner

On the other hand, a general atmosphere prevails in Serbia that glorifies the aggression against Bosnian Muslims in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the period between 1992-1995, and the accompanying genocide that was the worst on European soil since World War II.

Serbs commemorate the Srebrenica massacre with the Muslims in Serbia and portray the two military leaders responsible for these atrocities, Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic, as "national heroes", which makes them role models for all Serbs in their dealings with Bosnian Muslims and Albanians.

The authorities in this country also avoid punishing any individuals and associations that advocate and incite hatred and hostility against Muslims and Islam, and even went so far as to allow local municipalities to name the names of war criminals Karadzic and Mladic on the streets in a number of Serbian cities.

demolition of mosques

Another dark aspect of the hostility and systematic targeting of Muslims by the Serbian authorities is manifested in the demolition of mosques and the restrictions on their construction or restoration.

In the first period (1820-1834) of the Serbian campaign against the Islamic presence in the central Serbian regions, hundreds of mosques were demolished to force Muslims to change their beliefs and to erase all Islamic monuments and manifestations in them, and only two mosques remained of them, a mosque in Belgrade and a mosque in the city of Nis, which were also burned. In anti-Islam protests in the past few years.

These campaigns also marked the policy of the Serbian authorities in the province of Sanjak and the Preševska Dolina region;

A large number of mosques were demolished, especially in the late 1990s until the independence of Kosovo in 2001.

In a relatively short period, the Muslim community in Serbia built 180 mosques in the regions of Sanjak (120 mosques) and Preševsko Dolina (60 mosques), and the number of built mosques is still increasing, according to Fred Muhic, a specialist in Balkan affairs and a lecturer at the University of Saints in the Macedonian capital Skopje.

As for the capital, Belgrade, it included alone when the Ottomans left Serbia, more than 300 mosques, of which there remains today only one mosque that has escaped demolition, the “Bajraklı” mosque, which dates back to 1575.

And Reuters quotes the Mufti of the Muslim community in Serbia, Muhammed Hamdi Yusuf Spahic, that the Muslims of Belgrade have "sought to obtain permits to build mosques for decades, but all these requests are placed in the drawers, and do not even reach the stage of qualifying to submit the papers."

The agency notes - citing testimonies of Serb Muslims - that the Belgrade authorities have repeatedly ignored requests to build new mosques, noting that the shortage in the number of mosques raises questions about the state's commitment to minority rights, an important measure of its readiness and the possibility of accepting its candidacy in 2009 to join the European Union.

A 2016 progress report by the union warned that Serbian officials must "fully guarantee the rights of persons belonging to a national minority to establish and register religious institutions, and to build and use places of worship."

Serbian women pray in a public park in the capital Belgrade (Reuters)

autonomy

In view of the systematic and escalating restrictions against them, Khair al-Din Palic believes that the greatest ambition of the Muslims of Serbia today is to benefit from autonomy in their regions, especially in the Muslim-majority Sanjak region, without having any separatist intentions or ambitions to establish independent states, due to the difficulty of achieving this What is meant is also because of the lack of support from the countries of the Islamic world, as he put it.

He added, "The country's Muslims do not have ideas to secede from Serbia, or to establish a state for them, and frankly there is no possibility for that. The Islamic world, unfortunately, only turns to Muslim regions in case of wars and crises, and of course it can do a lot in other stages, but it is absent from Sanjak and regions other from the Balkans.

The former Muslim Serbian official says, "Not a single Arab country has made efforts to communicate with the Muslims of Serbia." Despite the efforts made by the Islamic sheikhdom in this country to build relations with Islamic institutions in the Arab world, they have never received the desired response.