Posted on 01/24/2007 2:40:22 AM PST by kronos77
SARAJEVO (Reuters) - Last week, Sarajevo's Jesus Heart cathedral was packed for Christmas mass. This week its King Fahd mosque is filled ahead of the Eid al-Adha, the Muslim festival of sacrifice.
The Bosnian capital is still a mix of Catholicism, Orthodox Christianity and Islam.
Since the Bosnia war ended in 1995 the Muslim faith dominates, but not all adherents are happy with the increasing numbers of people following the puritanical Sunni Muslim Wahhabi sect.
"Wahhabism has seriously divided children and parents, spiritual leaders and priests, professors and students, neighborhoods," says lecturer Adnan Silajdzic, who teaches comparative religions at Sarajevo University's Faculty of Islamic Studies.
Jasmin Merdan, a Wahhabi dissident and co-author of a book on Wahhabi ideology and history, said the issue was not that they prayed or dressed differently, but that they were intolerant and aggressive toward other Muslims.
"These are mostly young, uneducated people," he said.
Merdan, who converted in the late 1990s but later left the sect disillusioned, said many Muslim militants who carry out attacks against Western targets were "a product of Wahhabi indoctrination."
Many of the young converts gather at Bosnia's largest mosque, the King Fahd, founded in 2000 by the royal family of Saudi Arabia, which is the birthplace of Islam and the country where Wahhabism originated.
The senior imam of the mosque, a concrete behemoth the size of a shopping mall, denies believers are radical Muslims.
"In this mosque there are ... no extremists," said Nezim Halilovic, who avoided the term Wahhabi.
Most men with beards and short trousers who came for a noon prayer to the mosque did not identify themselves with Wahhabism.
(Excerpt) Read more at ca.today.reuters.com ...
No one knows how many local converts there are. The issue is kept in the spotlight by frequent media reports of young women running away from home to join Wahhabi communities and by sensational coverage of religion-related crimes.
In 2002, a 26-year-old man described by local media as a Wahhabi supporter killed three members of a Croat family on Christmas Eve, saying he was following instructions from God. This year, a young Wahhabi killed his mother because she refused to join him for morning prayers.
Bosnia is a Clintons success story.
No, it realy is, I mean, where else and who else could succeed in leting Christians get slaughtered on Christmas eve?
I mean realy?
Serbs want out of Bosnia, and if Croates want to stay... they will stay alone.
Another fine example of unintended consequences. Clinton certainly made the world a safe place for the Wahhabis.
And Clinton bombed Christians to protect muslim terrorists. (The Christians were just trying to protect themselves from islamic terrorism....)
Wow, a man made of concrete. And the size of a mall. Whew.
Clinton's legacy.
Bosnia should have been split up between Yugoslavia and Croatia. Voting could have been by cantons and municipalities to create contiguous areas.
It could still be done today with Croatia, Serbia and possibly Montenegro.
Yes. This would have been a great idea if the inhabitants of the Balkans could all be induced to become mountain-climbing tourist guides, watchmakers, ski instructors, make wonderful chocolate, learn to yodel, and name all their daughters "Heidi."
LOLOLOLOL!
i.e., Whatever their other egregious faults, Balkan Folk have a sense of humor, the one very thing lacking in Heidi-Yodel-Land.
bookmark
Bosnian Croatians don't want to be a part of BiH either. 99% of us voted for our own entity in 2001, but then the Brits and their Muslim allies put the tanks on the streets.
Well someone should tell Hillary this because she touts "Bosnia" as "a Clinton Success Story"!
Not just that they used tanks and brute force to dissmantle Croate institutions in favour of Muslims.
Yeah...I was there to witness it in Mostar.
Serb and Croate politicians at least, ones in Bosnia should join effords to leave that Islamised state and go their separate ways, only way untill is too late.
Just tell them that if they ever attempt another land grab that you guys will blow that bridge up again.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.