How can we start to talk about him, I’m not sure about that. Because he has lots of magnificent features. He is a real successful leader and thinker, writer at the same time. I can not tell all of them in this short text but I want to introduce you to some features of him.
First of all, Alija is known as the “Wise King” who brought independence to his home country. He was a politician but his intellectual identity prevails his political identity for me.
While he was going to high school, he found the Muslim Youth Group, as known “Mladi Muslimani” in Bosnian. Even when he was young, he was known as one of the important representatives of Muslim youth.
Izetbegovic’s important charismatic traits were his leadership and intellectual profundity.
He was following the Islamic ways and he had supported Muslim people and he fought against to Communist regime and government politics.
His writings got him in trouble with the Yugoslav authorities. Along with 12 other Bosnian scholars, he was jailed for 14 years after being accused of “separatism and establishing an Islamic state” in 1983 but was released in 1988.
He entered politics the same year and founded the Party of Democratic Action, or SDA, in 1990 aiming to empower Bosnians in their land.
Bosnians vote overwhelmingly for independence from Yugoslavia. Bosnia-Herzegovina was recognized as an independent state by the EU on April 6 and by the U.S on April 7.
Izetbegovic became the first president of independent Bosnia.
Also, The Srebrenica massacre as many people know it, is known as the Srebrenica genocide, was the July 1995 genocide of more than 8,372 Bosnian Muslims, mainly men, and boys, in and around the town of Srebrenica during the Bosnian War.
Muslims will never forget this massacre. We will never make you forget.
Besides these, when I was in Bosnia in 2019 and I came across Izetbegovic’s memorial day by chance. Many people were there and it shows that the public still grateful for his works and him.
Islam Between East and West, The Islamic Declaration, Inescapable Questions: Autobiographical Notes, Notes from Prison are the most important works of him.
I recommend you watching a documentary about his life and Bosnia.
Wise King…
