Reis Kavazović: Martyrs' sites permanently have their sanctity, with special norms of conduct for Muslims

The Grand Mufti of the Islamic Community in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Husein ef. Kavazović, yesterday organized a Bayram reception at the Faculty of Islamic Studies in Sarajevo. We convey the Grand Mufti's address from the Bayram reception in its entirety:

- I express my sincere gratitude to you for responding to our invitation to be with us on the first day of Ramadan Bayram and for giving us the precious opportunity to share our joy, the joy of Ramadan Bayram, with you in a friendly and brotherly manner.

In faith lies the depth of our gratitude to God for Guidance, for Mercy, and for all the other countless blessings with which dear God bestows upon us. We are sincerely grateful for the attention you show us by being here with us tonight in the joy that we, as fasters, feel on Ramadan Bayram. 

And the magnitude of our joy that we feel, today and in these Bayram moments, allow me to remind you, is connected to what we as Muslims did during the month of Ramadan: by fulfilling one of the five fundamental Islamic duties, we, through the demanding fast consisting of abstaining from food and water and all other physical pleasures from dawn to sunset, confirmed our complete devotion to God.

Every evening we broke the fast with a meal that in Islamic tradition is called iftar, and by its very name points to the secret of God's creation that the fasting believer touches through the encounter with a glass of water at iftar.

In Ramadan, through fasting, we experienced the beauty of food, its spiritual meaning.

In Ramadan, we read the Qur'an every day and listened to hafizes. Ramadan is the month of the Revelation of the Qur'an.  The twenty-seventh night we marked as the night when, from cosmic depths, the first words of the Qur'an were sent down upon the noble heart of Muhammad, peace be upon him:

„Read in the name of your Lord Who creates! Read, your Lord is Most Generous“  From those dewdrops flowed the river of Islamic civilization as a civilization of faith, knowledge, endowments, and community. On the banks of that river of Islamic civilization, which sprang forth in the month of Ramadan in the words Iqra=Read, this Faculty of Islamic Studies, in whose atrium we are located, emerged as the most significant higher education institution of the Islamic Community in BiH and as a full member of the University of Sarajevo.

This Ramadan, we marked the twentieth anniversary of the genocide in Srebrenica. That event, as a warning, enters our experience and our experience of Ramadan this year. In this Ramadan, the Council of Muftis issued a fatwa concerning the suffering of Bosniak Muslims in Srebrenica. Allow me to also remind you of its content on this occasion:

Starting from the prohibition of desecrating the life, faith, dignity, freedom, and property of every individual, as a fundamental prohibition established by the noble Sharia, which is contained in Allah's book, the Holy Qur'an, in the words:

„Because of that, We decreed upon the Children of Israel that whoever kills a soul unless for a soul or for corruption [done] in the land – it is as if he had slain mankind entirely...“ (Al-Ma'idah, 32),

and relying on the hadith of Allah's Messenger, peace be upon him, uttered at the Farewell Pilgrimage: "O people, your blood, your property, and your dignity are sacred to you (haram), just as this day, this month, and this place are sacred to you..."

The Council of Muftis of the Islamic Community in Bosnia and Herzegovina, as the supreme religious body of Muslims in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Sandžak, Croatia, Slovenia, Serbia, and the Bosniak diaspora, has obligated every Muslim man and woman to do everything in their power to eliminate the consequences of the Genocide (al-ḍarar yuzālu).

This religious obligation has the force of an individual and collective obligation for all Muslim men and women.

Likewise, bearing in mind that the committed Genocide encompassed the wider area of Central Podrinje, the Council of Muftis declares the localities of Srebrenica and Žepa

as Martyrs' sites of the Genocide against Bosniak Muslims.

These martyrs' sites permanently have their sanctity, with special norms of conduct for Muslim men and women.

The Council of Muftis considers that the trial of those responsible for the crime of Genocide against Bosniak Muslims, which has been transferred to international and domestic courts, is important and accepts the decisions of the courts. Consequently, any revenge undertaken by an individual or group is prohibited and represents a violation of the principle of legality in an orderly human society.

The Council of Muftis recommends to all Muslim men and women to do good and to behave in the spirit of Islam and to make great efforts to protect the life, faith, dignity, freedom, and property of people, regardless of their religious and national affiliation.