5 - Bosniaks between Homeland and Holy Land

Summary

Munir Gavrankapetanović was thinking about God on a spring night in 1951, lying in his cell in the Central Prison in Sarajevo and bone-tired from a full day of forced labor on the construction site of the school for the State Security Administration (UDBA). The name of the security administration itself had a frightening ring to it and was often uttered half-jokingly as ‘udba sudba’ – UDBA is your fate, referring to the seeming omnipresence of the intelligence service that monitored all the enemies of the state, like the KGB or Stasi. Yet, Munir knew that there was a more permanent and lasting presence that overshadows this earthly apparatus: God. He could not hear His words, but he knew God was there, and that He listened. His other cellmates were fast asleep, but Munir kept thinking about his friends and comrades who had perished over the past several years. Just like Safija and Hidajeta from the beginning of this book, Munir also was a member of the Young Muslim Movement, the religious organisation that had sought a more active political role in society but was crushed at the end of World War II: some of its members were executed, others jailed. In the years to come, the members of the movement and their extensive network were on the margins of social life in Yugoslavia; yet they were not completely silent. They maintained their family and social connections. More importantly, they cultivated the sentiment of being persecuted for their adherence and commitment to Islam. The feeling of marginalisation of religion – predominantly Islam – in Yugoslav society created a growing subculture of non-comformists, and perhaps the most visible among these were the Young Muslims.

Gavrankapetanović was locked up in 1949, just one year after the Young Muslims branch in Zagreb to which he belonged published its last issue of the journal Mudžahid (Warrior). Back then, Munir had been a civil engineering student. His arrest had cut short his studies; instead, he was sent to do forced labor in several notorious prisons and construction camps across Yugoslavia.