Kosovar Muslims fight for their "brand" of Islam

Despite several recent reports suggesting that radical Islam in Kosovo no longer represents a significant security threat, the beating of a prominent Albanian imam by Drenica-area Wahhabi Muslims indicates that the challenge within the Muslim community – the real target of the foreign-funded extremists – persists. The disproportional yet unexplained influence of these extremists in the fledgling state’s judicial and law enforcement institutions, cited by Islamic Community officials themselves, represents a challenge for the EU’s nascent law-and-order mission, EULEX.

On 12 January, Radio-Television Kosova (RTK) reported that Mullah Osman Musliu, chairman of the Islamic Community in Drenas in central Kosovo had been attacked and beaten by nine Wahhabi extremists. These men were arrested, though four were soon released. The other five remain in police custody.

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According to a transcript, the incident occurred when Musliu visited a mosque in the village of Zabel in order to elect a new local imam. Across the Balkans, religious-based violence has often centered on issue of candidates for such positions, with the Wahhabis often disagreeing, violently so, with the candidate supported by the mainstream Islamic community. Along with ideology, control over Islamic Community funds and properties is often the main reason for dispute.

The attack on Musliu represented the second time in recent months in which Islamic Community members were attacked by extremists, who take their inspiration, and funding, from the austere Wahhabi sect of Islam, official state religion of Saudi Arabia. This and other Muslim states were leading donors to post-war Kosovo, building hundreds of mosques in the process, though their contributions are said to have dried up considerably due to much of the population’s disinterest in Islamic activities. Following Kosovo’s independence declaration in February of 2008, the reticence of many Muslim states to recognize this status led to widespread speculation that an element of revenge was justly playing out.

Full Article via Balkan Analysis