Nedzad Grabus. Photo: MINA.
After being elected the 14th Reis-ul-ulema, or Grand Mufti, of the Islamic Community in Bosnia and Herzegovina on Saturday, Nedzad Grabus said that the community must keep developing and answer the challenges of the time.
“Dear citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and all our fellow citizens, rest assured that the Islamic Community will always stand up for what is good and oppose anything that is harmful to us and to society as a whole,” the newly elected Reis-ul-ulema said.
Grabus has been serving as the Mufti of Bosnia’s capital Sarajevo since 2021, and as argued for an autonomous, institutionally strong and effective Islamic Community. His campaign also featured proposals for a formal agreement between the Community and the state, modernised religious classes, steadier funding for returnee congregations and a bigger role for women.
The secret ballot for the role of Grand Mufti took place at the Gazi Husrev-bey Library in Sarajevo. Grabus received 230 votes. The 398-member electoral body needed an absolute majority of 200 votes, with a run-off for the top two if no one reached it. The electors are Assembly members, chief imams, heads of local councils and directors of institutions, and the term lasts seven years until 2033.
The Grand Mufti heads the highest religious authority of the Islamic Community, which covers Muslims in Bosnia, Croatia, Slovenia and Serbia, as well as Bosniaks in the diaspora. Grabus succeeds Husein Kavazovic, in office since 2012, and takes up his duties on November 15.
Grabus thanked Kavazovic for his dignified and courageous leadership. Kavazovic congratulated his successor and said “new times will demand new steps” within the community.
The Bosniak member of Bosnia’s tripartite presidency, Denis Becirovic, said he believed Grabus would contribute to “interreligious dialogue, mutual trust, social justice and a culture of peace”.
Born in 1968 near Travnik, Grabus holds a doctorate from Sarajevo’s Faculty of Islamic Sciences. He was Mufti of Ljubljana and head of Slovenia’s Islamic Community from 2006 to 2021, where he oversaw the Muslim Cultural Centre in Ljubljana, before becoming Mufti of Sarajevo.