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It was decided when the Bosnian Khanjar Division was formed that every large unit should have a religious imam responsible for religious instruction and spiritual mobilization of its members, in addition to leading them in religious rites. After consultation with the religious leadership of the Muslim community, the late Sheikh Muhammad Banjah, a member of the Council of Senior Scholars in Bosnia and Herzegovina, selected seventeen young men who had graduated from the Gazi Husrev-beg School, the School of Sharia Judges in Sarajevo and al-Azhar in Egypt. When these imams had been recruited, they came to Berlin and lived in one of its suburbs, where a study circle was held for them. They attended lectures that I helped deliver with the late Sheikh Hasan Abu al-Suʿud, Dr. Mustafa al-Wakil and some German scholars.

They were then given military training and distributed among the division’s brigades. The commanders soon recognized the great value of the imams’ work and its effect on the soldiers’ morale. They wished every small unit in the division to have its own imam. The supreme command of the SS forces became convinced that this was sound and consulted me on how to implement it. I suggested establishing an institute to graduate imams for the small units and selecting its students from among the division’s soldiers and noncommissioned officers who had previously studied religious sciences in Islamic schools in their homeland. Once this was agreed, we selected four Bosnian scholars to serve as teachers: two were division imams, Hasan Sulayman Jūzu and Harith Quzqut, and the other two were civilians, Salih Haji Alish and Mustafa Buzaljic. The institute was established in the city of Göppingen and graduated fifty imams in two courses, each lasting four months. I visited the institute several times to inspect its affairs and meet its teachers and students, and I delivered several lectures there.

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I mentioned earlier what I had witnessed of the German military spirit and the German people’s austerity during the Second World War. I now add how we felt the wartime condition prevailing throughout the German Reich, which could be felt in the streets and markets, in private homes and public places, and everywhere in the cities and villages. No one could buy a commodity, food or clothing except with the official ration cards they carried, which were distributed to all members of the population without distinction. No one could buy more than two outfits a year, one for winter and one for summer, however much they tried and spent