ZAGREB, May 7, 2018 – The ceremony of opening a mosque in the village of Bogovlja in Karlovac County, near the border with Bosnia and Herzegovina, was held on Sunday, and this is the fourth mosque in Croatia after such places of worship for Muslim believers in Zagreb, Gunja and Rijeka.
The grand mufti of the Islamic Community in Croatia, Aziz efendi Hasanović, said that this house of worship in Bogovlja should also show to young people what Islam looks like, and it is “the Islam full of open mindedness, full of good deeds, and the Islam free of any deviations.”
The dignitary described Muslim places of worship and Islamic centres in Croatia as “places for meetings of different religions and different cultures”.
Hasanović said that he would travel to Abu Dhabi on Monday to promote the Croatian model of cooperation and culture of dialogue. This religious dignitary is due to attend an international conference in Abu Dhabi on challenges and opportunities of around 500 million Muslims working and living outside the Islamic world. The capital city of the United Arab Emirates is the venue of “The International Conference on Muslim Minorities: Opportunities and Challenges” to be held on May 8-9.
Hasanović said at the ceremony in Bogovlja that he would speak about possibilities for arranging the status of the Muslims in the Christian Europe and the status of the Christians in the Islamic world.
In this context, he underscored the status of the Muslim believers in Croatia who are given the right to study their religion at school and who are able to practice their religious rites at prison or at hospital. They are also given rights to build their places of worship and Islamic centres in villages and towns where they live. Therefore Hasanović underlined Croatia as an example to be followed.
In Croatia, there are 26 places of worship for the Muslims, including the four mosques. Also there are 2,500 believers per an Islamic place of worship in the country. For instance, in Greece this distribution is 650 while in Sweden it is up to 8,000 Islamic believers per their religious place of worship.
The next new mosque to be opened in Croatia is in Sisak. In addition, 3,100 Islamic believers in Osijek and about 5,000 Islamic faithful in the wider region are looking forward to a mosque in that biggest eastern Croatian city.
The local imam in Karlovac, Admir efendi Muhić, said that two million kuna had been invested in the construction of the mosque in Bogovlja which has the area of 350 square metres.
Hasanović said that the new mosque in Bogovlja would be opened to local 400 Muslims and would open its doors to 2,000 residents of the municipality of Cetingrad, regardless of their ethnicity or religion.
In attendance at the ceremony were Croatian officials and representatives of diplomatic missions of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Turkey, Iran and Indonesia in Croatia, as well as representatives of the authorities of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s cantons bordering with Karlovac County.
