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the last world war, and saw the institutions and cultural and charitable associations they had established, as well as the religious and literary newspapers and magazines they published. Their attachment to the Islamic bond encouraged them to strengthen their ties with the Islamic world. They therefore sent delegates to global and regional Islamic conferences, such as those held in Jerusalem, Cairo and Geneva. Their delegation to the Islamic World Conference held in Jerusalem in 1931 consisted of Dr. Muhammad Sabaho, a former minister in the Yugoslav government; Salim Effendi, inspector for the mufti of Sarajevo; Muhammad Effendi Mugayesh, judge of the Supreme Sharia Court in Sarajevo; and Hajj Mustafa Marhesh.

The Bosnian Muslims relied in their religious and cultural activity on the resources of their rich endowments, in addition to assistance that the government provided to the Muslim community during the Austro-Hungarian occupation and under the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, on the same basis as other religious communities in the country. The income from Islamic endowments in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia amounted to approximately fifty thousand pounds sterling, and government assistance to the Muslim community was close to half that amount.

But these circumstances changed greatly after the last world war. The authorities closed all Islamic schools and institutes, dissolved Islamic associations, suspended Islamic newspapers and magazines, abolished Sharia courts and prohibited the application of Islamic law to Muslims’ personal-status matters. They confiscated most endowments of land and buildings, seized some mosques and used them as warehouses, and demolished others. Through the nationalization law issued in 1958, they expropriated about 1,500 endowment buildings and more than 3,500 dunams of land.

The Gazi Husrev-beg School was among the Islamic schools that were closed and whose buildings were seized. The authorities later allowed it alone to reopen, but not in its original building.

Muslims continue to work vigorously with the authorities to recover that building, and it would be fitting for the authorities to meet their request.

One of the Serbian national holidays in Yugoslavia is 28 June, when they commemorate the Battle of Kosovo in 1389, in which they clashed with the Ottoman Turks and one of them assassinated Sultan Murad I. The Turks captured their prince Lazar and executed him.