Religion Islam School Hanafi Period in office November 2012 | Denomination Sunni Nationality Bosniak Predecessor Mustafa Cerić | |
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Alma mater Al-Azhar University
University of Sarajevo Born 3 July 1964 (age 52)
Jelovče Selo, Gradačac, PR Bosnia and Herzegovina, FPR Yugoslavia ( 1964-07-03 ) Title Islamic Community of Bosnia and Herzegovina | ||
Po teno govore i husein kavazovi www sandzaklive rs
Husein Kavazović (born July 3, 1964 in Jelovče Selo near Gradačac) is a Bosnian Islamic cleric and since September 2012 the new Grand Mufti (Reis ul-Ulema) of Bosnia and Herzegovina, after having been Mufti of Tuzla.
Son of Hasan and Saima Kavazović, Husein attended primary schools in Gradačac and then enrolled at the Gazi Husrev-Bey Madrasa in Sarajevo, where he graduated in 1983. He left Yugoslavia to study Islamic law in 1985-1990 at the Al-Azhar University in Cairo, then came back to defend his master thesis at the Faculty of Islamic Studies at the University of Sarajevo, in the field of Sharia law.
He then worked as imam, hatib and muallim (lecturer) at the Islamic congregations of Srebrenik and Gradačac, before serving as mufti of Tuzla from 1993 to 2012. In the early 1990s he was also elected member of the Council of the Islamic Community of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
In 2012 the Islamic Community elected him to succeed to Mustafa Cerić as 14th Bosnian Grand Mufti since 1882; at the vote in the Gazi Husrev-Beg Mosque, the main mosque of Sarajevo, he received 240 of 382 preferences. In his election program, Kavazović had pushed inter alia for the co-operation with other religious communities and a wider "incorporation of women into the work of the Islamic religious community".
In his speech in Switzerland made in May 2016, Kavazović said that it shouldn't be allowed for "Vlachs to govern Srebrenica", using the derogatory term for Serbs. He also said that Bosniaks only have two options: either to vote and confirm their sovereignty over Bosnia and Herzegovina, or to "loose blood every 20 or 30 years", adding that it is good to "defend ourselves [Bosniaks] against them [Serbs] with graves".
He speaks Bosnian, Arabic and English.