Reis Kavazović: Orban's statements are a demonstration of harmful ignorance about Islam and Europe

Regarding the interview that Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban gave to the German magazine Focus No. 43/2015, the Grand Mufti of the Islamic Community in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Husein ef. Kavazović, issued a statement which the Patria news agency transmits in its entirety.

- Any ignorance is harmful, especially that which is publicly advocated by high-ranking political officials who have social power and the role of publicly influencing the opinions of others. The fact that they possess somewhat greater knowledge about something does not give them the right to act as experts on everything else, and especially not on what most people know better.

The recent interview of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban in Focus is an example of demonstrating harmful ignorance about Islam and Europe and advocating highly controversial views on democracy. The Hungarian Prime Minister says that „Islam never belonged to Europe, it came“ and explains this by saying that through Turkish „guest workers“ Muslims are part of Germany and Europe, but that in a „spiritual sense Islam does not belong to Europe. It is a set of rules from another world.“

It would be difficult to assume that there are citizens of Hungary, for whom Europe is a unity of geography and history, who do not know that Islam indeed „came“ to Europe, and especially those who do not know that Christianity and Judaism also „came“ to Europe.

But it is equally difficult to believe that those with higher education among them are not aware that in the vast expanses of northern Europe, Islam was present several centuries before Christianity and that, as the Tübingen theologian Karl-Josef Kuschel writes in his monumental work Jews, Christians, Muslims, „none of the three religions has ever completely dominated Europe.“

Europeans, of course including Hungarians among them, who base the concept of Europe on values such as democracy, know that democracy is not an original European product either. It originated in Greece at a time when Europe as a cultural identity did not exist and when Greek cities were part of a world that civilizationally gravitated toward the East.

Those Europeans, however, are well aware of the original and intermediary contribution of Islam and Muslims to the cultural and economic life of medieval European societies and their role in the modern civilizational rise of those societies.

Finally, the Hungarian Prime Minister speaks of the futility of „imposing Western democracy“ on the Muslim world, arguing this with the „bitter lesson“ of the „flowers of freedom“ that were „buried in the Arab Spring,“ and then rejects the opinion of the European Commission that migration can solve demographic problems in the European Union, advocating for enhancing support for the family. In doing so, he openly denies the principle of democracy and at the same time betrays the spirit of Christianity.

Europeans who value the principles of democracy and freedom have condemned and continue to condemn the act of cutting down and burying the flowers of freedom that had blossomed in the Arab Spring, just as Christians who adhere to their faith demand respect for the sanctity of human lives, even if those lives belong to immigrants from the East seeking peace and security in Europe. We are not aware that Mr. Orban and the Hungarian government have done anything similar.

Expressing my strong opposition to the arbitrary and harmful claims of Mr. Viktor Orban, we regret that they were made and hope that similar claims about Islam, Europe, and democracy will not be found in the addresses of high European political officials in the future, states the response of Reis Kavazović.