Dear Friends:
We will gather as planned on Sunday, October 22 at 10 am (US Central Time) for a special Zoom discussion with Reis-ul-Ulema
Join the Zoom meeting at this link.
Dr. David Pettigrew will moderate our discussion and will explore with Reis Kavazović these topics:
- Assessment of the political situation in BiH
- Memorialization of war crimes sites
- Attacks on returnees
- Perspective on the attack by Hamas and the crisis in Gaza
- How the Working Group can support the Islamic community in BiH to further interfaith dialogue
Your questions are invited and welcomed. Please send them in advance to David at: pettigrewd1@southernct.edu
Reis-ul-Ulema Husein Kavazovic
Biography
Since 2012, Husein Kavazović has been the Grand Mufti of Bosnia and Herzegovina (Reis-ul-Ulema), after having been Mufti of Tuzla.
Reis Kavazović attended primary schools in Gradačac and then enrolled at the Gazi Husrev-begova Medresa in Sarajevo, where he graduated in 1983. He left Yugoslavia to study Islamic law from 1985 to 1990 at the Al-Azhar University in Cairo, then came back to defend his master’s thesis at the Faculty of Islamic Studies at the University of Sarajevo.
In the early 1990s, Reis Kavazović was elected a member of the Council of the Islamic Community of Bosnia and Herzegovina. During the war, Reis Kavazović survived six months in a concentration camp run by the Croatian Defense Council (HVO). Reis Kavazović has said that nations are not to blame for crimes and that it is necessary to build peace and a united BiH.
In 2012 the Islamic Community elected him to succeed Mustafa Cerić as 14th Bosnian Grand Mufti since 1882. In his election program, Kavazović advocated for cooperation with other religious communities and a wider “incorporation of women into the work of the Islamic religious community.”
