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Editor's
note: This was originally published in Partisan Review,
Number 3, 2000. Readers will also be interested in Mr. Schwartz's
"A Certain Exhaustion," published in the October 2000
issue of
The New Criterion, and with the report "Religion
in Kosovo" published by the
International Crisis Group. (They have also just published a
timely report, "Bin Laden and the Balkans.") Mr. Schwartz's
most recent piece for NRO was "Seeking
Moderation."
 he
Jewish woman stood in the office of Bosnian president Alija Izetbegovic.
She was distraught. She placed a handful of broken tiles on the
desk in front of her and told the president's adviser, "it's
a crime, a crime against culture. They are destroying a holy place,
a place that is of incalculable value to Sarajevo."
"There's
nothing we can do," the adviser replied sorrowfully. "They
have the money and they are going to do what they want."
The most interesting
aspect of this incident, which took place after the end of the Bosnian
war in 1995, is that the temple the Jewish woman, an art expert
named Zoja Finci, was attempting to protect was neither, as one
might expect, a synagogue, nor even a Serbian church. Rather, it
was the Begova or Governor's mosque, the largest in the former Yugoslavia,
and the main Islamic structure in Sarajevo.
Further, the
presumptive vandals against whom Zoja Finci sought to protect the
mosque were neither Serb extremists nor commercial developers. They
were, in fact, just the sort of people one might have thought would
target a synagogue or a Serb structure: Islamic officials backed
by Saudi Arabia, engaged in a purported reconstruction.
The official
Supreme Saudi Aid Committee occupies one of the largest governmental
buildings in the Bosnian capital. The committee has paid for the
rehabilitation of numerous mosques damaged during the 1992-95 war.
But the aid is not always appreciated by ordinary Muslims, who,
no less than art experts, have ways of expressing their resentments.
At the Alipasha
mosque in Sarajevo, a lovely Ottoman structure with a slender, graceful
minaret, only meters away from the committee's headquarters, the
words "Supreme Saudi" have been scratched off the commemorative
plaque announcing a donation for its rebuilding.
The problem
is that the Saudis and their local agents are Wahhabis, followers
of the main fundamentalist sect in the Islamic world. Wahhabis do
not approve of Ottoman mosques. Rehabilitation of the Imperial mosque,
also in Sarajevo, turned what had been a beautiful, balanced complex
of buildings, which seemed to invite entry, into something not much
different from a parking garage in a Western city.
In October
1999, the Bosnian weekly Dani (Days) published an extremely
revealing interview with Kemal Zukic, director of the Center for
Islamic Architecture in Sarajevo. The interviewer asked Zukic about
the wall decorations in the Begova mosque, i.e. precisely the panels
the removal of which caused so much anguish to Zoja Finci. He answered,
"there were several layers of paintings, so that in the end
we were in a quandary about which layer merited preservation…
the biggest contribution came from a Saudi donor… Parts remain
but most of the walls are now blank."
Pressed as
to whether the panels that were removed would be preserved, Zukic
answered testily, "I find it really hard to get excited over
decorations inside the mosque. We are not in a situation like the
more fortunate European nations, such that we could preserve our
cultural heritage… That was only an internal decoration and
it was not intended to last forever."
Zukic is a
graduate in architecture from the University of Sarajevo who has
never practiced that profession, but who has produced elaborate
plans for new Bosnian mosques. According to one foreign expert who
requested anonymity after an interview with Zukic, "his ideas
for mosque design involve knockoffs of Saudi-modern shopping mall
architecture with odd touches inspired by the décor of the
Love Boat, including portholes! He is the very model of the modern
zealot, narrow minded, arrogant, and so dumb he doesn't even realize
it."
But at least
the Begova mosque's outer walls remained. Elsewhere in Bosnia-Hercegovina
the fundamentalists, away from urban critics, pursue a more aggressive
tactic. Dani reported that Muslims in the rural town of Vrbovik
were angry to find that although they understood funds had been
donated for the reconstruction of their traditional, Ottoman mosque,
that money was diverted elsewhere, while two new mosques and six
smaller prayer structures were erected in the Saudi style. The local
Islamic cleric, Hadji Salih Avdukovic, commented angrily, "These
people are hypocrites. They want to do everything from scratch."
Thanks to the
seemingly inexhaustible financial resources of the Saudis and Kuwaitis,
Wahhabis have appeared all over Bosnia-Hercegovina and Kosovo since
the bloodshed here ended. According to a September 9, 1999, news
release by the Saudi Joint Relief Committee for Kosovo, out of four
million Saudi riyals spent by the committee on the ground in Kosovo,
nearly half was spent to sponsor 388 religious "propagators,"
i.e. missionaries, with the intent of converting Kosovars to Wahhabi
fundamentalism.
Another 600,000
riyals went for the reconstruction of 37 mosques, and 200,000 riyals
was spent on two schools. The amount of money involved was fairly
modest (4 million riyals is a little more than a million U.S. dollars),
except when one considers that the Saudis had only been on the scene
in Kosovo for a little over two months at that point. It was characteristic
that a greater proportion of Saudi aid was spent on fundamentalist
"propagators" and on mosque building, as opposed to broader
humanitarian needs.
Mosque architecture
is not their only interest. Walking the streets of Sarajevo, one
might think they have gained considerable influence. Many young
men wear "Islamic" beards, and numerous young women have
adopted head and shoulder coverings, or hijab. The campus of the
University of Sarajevo is especially notable for this habit, and
a women's store with the amusing name "Hijab Boutique"
opened near the old Ottoman market.
As the defaced
plaque at the Alipasha mosque demonstrates, the fundamentalists
are definitely unpopular with Balkan Muslims. In Sarajevo, hijab
may be more a fad than anything else; and it certainly has not caught
on in Kosovo.
There are other
things that Balkan Muslims favor, but which Wahhabis disapprove
of. One is veneration of the dead. In Saudi Arabia itself, fundamentalists
have, over the past 200 years, destroyed all the tombs of the companions
of the prophet Mohammed. In Kosovo, the Saudis offered to rebuild
several mosques in the area of Vucitrn, which were destroyed during
the 1998-99 fighting. They promised the new mosques would be "better
and more Islamic." But first, they said, the Albanian Muslims
would have to uproot the Ottoman graveyards nearby.
Andras Riedlmayer,
a Harvard University librarian and expert in this field, recalls
that in the Kosovar town of Peja/Pec, "I was told about an
incident in 1998, when, as the villages in the surrounding Kosovo
countryside were in flames, a group of Wahhabi missionaries —
both Arabs and their Kosovar acolytes — came to town and tried
to impose their own way of praying (the locals said it involved
some 'odd' body movements...
"When
the Wahhabis took out sledgehammers and set about smashing the 17th
century gravestones in the garden of Peja's ancient Defterdar Mosque,
angry local residents beat them up and chased them out of town.
I was shown the damaged gravestones, beautifully carved with floral
motifs and verses from Qur'an. That was in the late summer
of 1998. Six months later, in the spring of 1999, Serb paramilitaries
came and burned down the mosque. Unlike the fundamentalist missionaries,
they were not interested in the gravestones."
This sort of
hardshell outlook can scarcely appeal to the nationalistic Albanians,
who, rather like their Serb adversaries, consider their graves to
be proof of their claim on Kosovo. But fundamentalist proscriptions
go on and on. They do not like music, except for the drum. They
do not accept Sufism, or mysticism, as a part of Islam. Both of
these strictures run counter to Balkan Muslim traditions.
Balkan Muslims
are especially devoted to a practice that drives Wahhabis to fury:
mawlid, or, as it is locally called, mevlud, the commemoration of
Mohammed's birth. To the fundamentalists, celebrating the prophet's
birthday smacks of Christian-style worship of Jesus. Abdussalam
Chouia, a leading spokesman for the so-called Council on American-Islamic
Relations (CAIR), a body which has spent considerable time harassing
the American media over the very use of such terms as "Islamic
fundamentalist," professed not even to know what mevlud is.
"It isn't part of Islam," he insisted.
CAIR are, to
put it delicately, masters at twisting words. The very idea of an
organization concerned with "American-Islamic relations,"
as if all Americans agreed on Islamic issues, as if Muslim citizens
of the U.S. were not Americans, and as if the Islamic world were
united in a supposed confrontation with America, is absurdly presumptuous.
But CAIR have succeeded in intimidating numerous American newspaper
editors into a form of political correctness that involves coddling
Palestinian and other extremists under the pretext that "American
bigotry" threatens Muslims.
In Bosnia-Hercegovina,
local Islamic officials dislike fundamentalist activities but are
reluctant to denounce them. The Bosnians are avid for the money.
Only a few local Sufis have strongly criticized Wahhabi missionizing,
arguing that the long presence of Sufi spiritualism in the Balkans
is incompatible with fundamentalist fanaticism. In the end, Balkan
Muslims are desperate to be viewed as European, and submission to
the will of the Wahhabis will certainly do nothing to advance that
agenda.
Kosovo Albanian
Muslims have been more forthright in airing their irritabilities
on this issue. After all, they do not need the money. The Kosovars
have a large emigration that supports their various reconstructive
activities, and, in addition, the Kosovo Albanians are far more
enterprising than the Bosnians. This is also an incentive for the
Kosovars to express greater independence from those in the international
community who seek to use a kind of "aid blackmail" to
get the Albanians to do what they want. For example, Albanians are
inclined to rebuild their homes themselves, rather than, as is the
Bosnian habit, to wait for the UN or Europe or the U.S. to do it
for them.
In one of the
more surprising recent developments in Kosovo, the fundamentalists
came under verbal fire from the Kosovapress news agency, universally
considered to be the media arm of the Kosovo Liberation Army. Kosovapress
declared, "For more than a century civilized countries have
separated religion from the state. (However), we now see attempts
not only in Kosovo but everywhere Albanians live to introduce religion
into public schools… Supplemental courses for children have
been set up by foreign Islamic organizations who hide behind assistance
programs. Some radio stations… now offer nightly broadcasts
in Arabic, which nobody understands and which lead many to ask,
are we in an Arab country? It is time for Albanian mosques to be
separated from Arab connections and for Islam to be developed on
the basis of Albanian culture and customs."
Dr. Rexhep
Boja, president of the mainstream Islamic Community of Kosovo, expressed
himself similarly, stating boldly that Albanian Muslims had followed
their faith for more than 500 years and did not need anybody to
teach them how to be Muslims or how to decorate their mosques.
Nevertheless,
notwithstanding Albanian tetchiness and the fashion addiction of
Kosovar Albanian women, which makes hijab a rare sight indeed, the
Wahhabis are making much greater inroads in Kosovo than in Bosnia-Hercegovina.
Here, too, it has to do with elemental requirements. The Bosnians
lack financial resources but they do not want for books or trained
imams. The Kosovar Albanians do not need money but they have a thirst
for books and a shortage of clerics. Many of the latter now go to
the Saudis for training.
But locals
are not the only people concerned about the infiltration of Wahhabis
in the Balkans. In Albania as well as Bosnia-Hercegovina and Kosovo,
anxiety over the activities of Bin Ladin supporters has led American
diplomats to entrench themselves behind high, thick walls and to
observe exceptional security measures at their embassies and other
diplomatic facilities.
At the end
of March 2000, a group of Saudi "aid workers" was rousted
by UN police from a building in Prishtina, accused of surveilling
foreign vehicles, presumably in preparation for a terrorist attack.
A representative of the Saudis, one Al Hadi, complained that the
telephone in the building where they resided had been tapped.
The upshot
of this situation was visible in the first week of April, when Prishtina
saw a spectacle unheard of in Sarajevo. A massive fundamentalist
"cultural program" was held in the local sports stadium
to celebrate the beginning of the Muslim new year. Thousands of
Albanian Muslims, young and old, walked away from the event happily
clutching printed works of propaganda, in Albanian, professing the
principles of Wahhabi fanaticism.
Is there a
solution to this problem? Surely, but it is ignored by the foreign
authorities in Kosovo. Albanians in the region include a considerable
Catholic minority, with a distinguished cultural legacy, as well
as thousands of followers of heterodox Islamic sects such as the
Bektashis, who drink alcohol and follow a kind of Islamic Unitarianism.
In the city
of Gjakova, for example, Bektashis and Catholics far outnumber Sunni
Muslims. Both the former groups merit assistance in such matters
as education, care of orphans, and the reconstruction of destroyed
religious architecture. But the foreigners pay no attention to such
details. They dismiss the Catholics contemptuously as too few, and
know nothing of the Bektashis. Somewhere down the road, however,
the consequences of such cultural obliviousness could be disastrous.
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