Bosnian Islamic Community's priority is to preserve the Muslim and national identity of all its members and a sense of belonging to Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bosnia's Grand Mufti Husein Kavazovic told Fena news agency Saturday, adding that they are aware of attempts to divide Muslims in the region and to weaken their deeply rooted community.

“Our biggest priority is the preservation of the Muslim and national identity of the members of the Islamic Community and their sense of belonging to Bosnia and Herzegovina as their living space, and to preserve the unity of Bosniaks in their home countries and abroad. That is the condition of our biological survival and the overall moral and spiritual strength,” Kavazovic said.

He argues that In Bosnia, this means strengthening of the State and healing of the society as a whole.

“It is up to us to be the promotors of good. To be the role model to others through our example and the overall social engagement – to represent hope for a better world. It is our constant obligation to preserve our traditional, open-to-modern, model of institutional living of Islam in the European context,” said the Reis-ul-ulema.

Kavazovic noted that the Islamic Community of Bosnia and Herzegovina will look for partners in Europe and the Muslim world with whom to make a joint programme for building a safe environment and developing trust among peoples.

“The Islamic Community in Bosnia is an open community. I hope the promises we received from European countries will be fulfilled and that we won't have the same fate as that of the European integration process and failed promises,” he added.

Speaking about the preservation of the unity of Muslims in the region, Kavazovic noted that “the Islamic Community has many theological and historic arguments for the preservation of unity in areas where South-Slavic and some other peoples live.”

“Take the Serb Orthodox Church, for example, which resists any attempt of other churches in the region to establish the autocephaly, and they're not even considering the possibility of division of Serbs in terms of today's state borders. Not to mention the Catholic church. We're aware of political attempts to divide Muslims in the region and to weaken their deeply rooted community and to leave them without a religious representative and someone who would lead them,” the Grand Mufti noted and added:

“This should, above all, be clear to the Muslims living in this region. True unity is the only achiever through institutional unity. Stories of Muslim unity after we divide ourselves by political, ideological and whatever grounds are empty slogans.”