Humour helps deliver message

IT IS almost impossible to believe that the man seated on the stool wearing a cheeky smile holds the highest position of Islamic leadership in three European states and is one of the most senior religious leaders in Europe.

Last week, he was seated comfortably on a small stall, his head covered with a red fez wrapped in a neatly folded white turban. His eyes darted across the room.

His voice projected across to the back of a crowd of 400 people in the small Gazi Husrev Beg Mosque in southwestern Sydney. His audience was in a state of near rapture.

Yet Dr Mustafa Ceric (pronounced "tseritch") seemed more at home with his expatriate countrymen and women cracking jokes about Bosnian villagers' fixation with beards than hobnobbing with the rich and powerful at the Clinton Global Initiative.

"When the Arab mujahideen came to this village, they told the men to all grow beards. Some of the elders at the jami (mosque) said: 'Why should we grow beards?'

"Then there was an argument and they called me to resolve it. I could not believe it. We had the Serbs firing rockets at us and these men are arguing about beards? I said to them: 'Forget about the hair on your chins. I would be happy if you just kept your head on your shoulders!"'

The evening of jokes described above took place at his first public appearance in Australia.

You would think a man who had just travelled on a long flight would need to take rest. Certainly not Ceric. Like a modern-day Mullah Nasruddin, he insisted on leaving Sydney airport straight for his talk at the mosque.

Ceric, 50, is the Reis-ul-Ulama President of the Council of Ulama in Bosnia-Herzegovina. He graduated from an Islamic school in Sarajevo and received a scholarship to Al-Azhar University in Cairo. After his schooling there, he returned to his native Bosnia, where he became an imam.

In 1981, he accepted the position of imam at the Islamic Cultural Centre and settled in the US for several years.

He learned English and earned a PhD at the University of Chicago in Islamic Theology. When he finished his studies, he returned to his homeland, left the ICC and became imam in a learning centre in Zagreb in 1987.

During the war with the Serbs and Croats, he represented the defiance, dignity and God-consciousness of the Bosnian ulama who led their people in the face of international apathy and acquiescence.

Ceric's first Sydney audience included Bosnian men and women of all ages. Many were older and more established migrants who had migrated to Australia in the 1940's.

Others were young professionals, many of them more recent arrivals who had sought refuge during the 1990's war and genocide that followed Bosnia's declaration of independence.

Among these refugees was 37-year-old Amir, a business proprietor whose family home near Banja Luka in Bosnia remains occupied by Serbs.

"It is something really special to see him. He told us about what was happening in Bosnia. I've had to rely on reading news on the internet, so it's good to hear about things first-hand."

Also in the audience was 20-year-old Abid, who was born in Sydney and who occasionally delivers the azan (prayer call) in the mosque.

"This hoca really knows his stuff and can say it all in a funny way."

Hoca is pronounced "hoja", and is commonly used as a title for imams in Bosnia, Albania and other former Uthmaniyyah territories.

Ceric loves Bosnians. He also loves Sarajevo, the city where he grew up and studied at the Gazi Husrev Beg Madresse, the oldest higher institute for Islamic learning in Uthmaniyyah Europe.

"I keep telling my daughters that we should leave Sarajevo and go live in the US again as we were before. But they don't want to leave Sarajevo. And I must say that I agree with them."

Before being appointed Mufti of Bosnia Herzegovina in 1993, Ceric was representing Bosnia's late President Alija Izetbegovic in Malaysia.

Ceric has good memories of his time in Southeast Asia, and was pleased to find himself eating Indonesian food during his visit to the Canberra Islamic Centre. "My daughter still cooks satay at home for us in Sarajevo."

Ceric had to leave the comfort of Malaysia to live in his home city besieged and surrounded on all sides. He tells of living in Sarajevo at the height of the war.

"I remember if we wanted to leave Sarajevo, we would have to go through this narrow tunnel. We could not walk upright. We had to crawl and crouch.

"Often we were exposed to the sniper fire, and the Serbs at the top of the mountain could see us through their binoculars."

Although he held no official position in the government, Ceric was very close to former President Izetbegovic.

"He was happy when they elected me as Mufti. He said I was appropriate for the job and told everyone: 'See, I told you it is not impossible to find a good mufti!"'

Ceric uses humour to deliver some very serious messages. During his many public appearances, he reminded his audience of the need for European Muslims to move beyond tribalism and to embrace the universality of Islam.

"It is not easy these days to be a Muslim in the West. We are caught between extremist Muslims who treat us as traitors. Then we have some far-Right extremists who say we are not loyal to Europe and don't adopt Western values."

Ceric is confident that Islam will survive in the West, notwithstanding Muslims.

"God promises He will protect Islam. And I believe him. If stupid words and actions of Muslims themselves cannot destroy Islam, what hope do non-Muslims have?"

Ceric is a great believer in the saying attributed to the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him): "Wisdom is the lost property of the believer."

He believes secularisation and modernism of Islam has failed. "The only way for Muslims to move forward is to be 're-Islamised'," he was quoted by a local newspaper as saying.

During his final address to an ethnically and religiously mixed crowd in Sydney last Sunday, Ceric managed to cite Brazilian novelist Paolo Coelho and Andalusian Jewish theologian Musa Maymun (Maimonides).

"Mainonides once said something Muslims must learn from today. He said that if God wanted to make us backward-looking people, He would have given us eyes on the back of our heads.

"Instead of dwelling on our past glories, we Muslims must ask what are we doing for the present and the future."

Ceric's good humour and wisdom were a refreshing change for Australians who had until now associated the title of mufti with controversial comments.

As Diana Rahman, his master of ceremonies at the Canberra Islamic Centre, remarked at the end of his talk: "Now we have gotten a taste of what a real mufti sounds like!"

Irfan Yusuf is a lawyer and freelance writer based in Sydney. The Brunei Times