Mufti Mustafa Ceric on: ‘Do we need the Common Word?’

12th October 2008

This presentation is brought to you by The Radical Middle Way and Cambridge University

Islāmic Society

[Introduction by Abdul-Rehman]

This morning we’re going to be moving geographically, moving from East to West instead of West to

East. I’d like to introduce someone who’s a monumental personality, who I think everyone in this

room knows’ he’s beloved to the Muslim Community, not just here in the United Kingdom but all

over the West and Europe in particular.

Dr. Mustafa Ceric combines in him some very unique qualities; he is of course a Mufti, a Shaykh, a

Scholar, and an ‘ālim. But he is also an activist, a community leader, and when we say community

leader in the highest sense of what that world means – having led his community through the

genocide and ethnic cleansing a decade and a half ago in Bosnia Herzegovina. He is the ri’īs Al-

‘Ulamā’ – the Grand Mufti of Bosnia Herzegovina. And in terms of the global scene Dr. Mustafa Ceric

is one of those personalities that crosses the East-West divide with great ease.

He has been noted through numerous awards and citations for his incredible work but I think it is he

in himself who represents the heart of this document and this call from the Muslim Community to its

Christian brothers and sisters for dialogue. Having lived through ethnic cleansing and genocide

Mustafa Ceric has become an agent of bridge building in his own country and around the world. I

would like to ask him to address us for a few short moments on his reflections on the Common

Word.

[Dr. Mustafa Ceric]

Bismillah Al-Rahman Al-Rahīm.

Mr. Abdul-Rehman I know why you are called the Radical Middle Way because you speak very

radically. I hope I will live up to your expectations. But in a humble way I want to say thanks to

Almighty God, that we have Abd Al-Hakīm and all of you here at Cambridge so that we can reflect on

our past, present and future in Europe but also all around the world.

I think the world is waiting to hear from the Muslims on what they have to say about the future of

humanity in many ways. If Muslims are not aware of that role, it is because of their lack of self

esteem they should raise up to the expectations of the Islāmic Message and example of the Prophet,

peace be upon him.

Now, since they told me that the best speech is short and if you have something to say, I would like

just to put this Common Word into the context of the importance of the beginning of the 21st

Century. You are all aware that at the beginning of this century Muslims were embarrassed by 11th

of September. Now, we don’t believe in collective guilt; the guilt of crime is individual. But somehow

when you come to Muslims, any individual guilt or sin of the Muslim becomes a collective guilt of all

the Ummah. 11th of September no matter how much we explain, individually or collectively that

we’re not responsible for 11th of September, but somehow there is an assumption in Western circles

– especially amongst policy makers- that somehow each and every Muslim is in suspicion, whether

he is right or wrong.

Now, we can complain about it and say they don’t like us but I know one man who had so many

complaints – Martin Luther King- but he didn’t say ‘I have a complaint’ he said, ‘I have a dream.’ So I

think to put it in this context, the Common Word is our dream, not our complaint. We want to

change not only how other people think about us, but we want to change our own self esteem about

ourselves. We should stop complaining about the world, we should stop complaining about

everybody there. And I, coming from Sarajevo, I hope you will understand that I have a right to say

this – that I have some credibility in saying this.

By the way, next Wednesday, from here I’m leaving for Brussels, to meet with Vice President and

President of the European Parliament to introduce the resolution, asking the European Parliament to

proclaim the 11th of July 1995, the Commemorative Day of Genocide of the whole of Europe. And

therefore, I want you to think from the Muslim perspective – the reason why I think that this

Common Word is a proclamation of ‘I have a dream’ or I have something to offer, not to complain.

After 11th of September the West, especially the United States of America, put every Muslim under

suspicion of enmity, against the West. You heard about a great many prominent politicians in the

West who said the Muslims want to change the way of our life, they want to change the way of our

culture, of our civilisation. We were accused of all sorts of accusations. Some of us were patient;

some of us even said ‘yes, they are right.’ And some of us responded to these accusations in a very

radical way - not the middle radical way- but the extreme radical away.

Now, the Muslims were shocked and confused, scared and unorganised. They were fighting back or

responding individually. All the mosques around the globe were somehow defensive saying ‘we are

not this which you say we are; we are not different.’ But no one trusted us, no one believed us. And

the dispute between the West and Islām continued for a long time, or for a time in which no one

knew what to do. In addition to that we have been having from here and there the cartoons against

the Prophet Muhammad. But it wasn’t against the Prophet Muhammad, it was against us Muslims.

They cannot harm Prophet Muhammad – he finished his mission and he is ma’sūm. They cannot

belittle the Prophet Muhammad in our hearts. The more they say badly about the Prophet

Muhammad, the more we love him.

And then they saw that it doesn’t work to attack the Prophet Muhammad, and unfortunately some

people even died in the demonstrations in the Muslim World, in Libya in Syria, do you remember?

After that they started attacking our Qur’ān; we were hearing that we should change verses of the

Qur’ān. I was at conferences where some people approached me and said ‘you have to remove this

verse from the Qur’ān because it’s a terrorist ayah or it’s a terrorist verse?’ Now, we would say ‘no,

no, no, this is God’s word, we cannot change that,’ but they were insisting. And we were confused, I

must tell you. We didn’t have any global centre that would be credible enough to say on behalf of all

of us, how we feel. So everyone was somehow left to himself to respond in his own way.

This state of affairs lasted for a long time. Amongst the Muslims there were even those who were

somehow conceding, and saying we are wrong. Because when you are assimilated then you are

somehow think that what others say to you is right, and you develop some kind of self-hatred or low

self-esteem. So we now have Muslims who have this psychological state of self-hatred because of

these events, because the media is so hard and so powerful in producing all these accusations

against Muslims that some Muslims cannot overcome this and they just surrender to the

accusations, becoming assimilated or they develop self hatred.

This is not unusual. You have among the Jewish people also who had difficulty in Europe, who

developed this idea of self hatred. Even those Muslims who never thought themselves to be in a

position to defend Islām (the modernists or Westernised, should we say) they started defending

Islām because the Media and others just went too far.

In these circumstances, in which everyone was somehow shocked in the West, they didn’t know

what to do with Muslims, the Muslims didn’t know what to do with themselves and with the West –

we got a lecture form the Pope telling us something that we did not expect from the Pope. We were

somehow handling that the media wanted to embarrass us. But when we heard that the Prophet

Muhammad was inhumane, that Islām is an irrational religion, that doesn’t recognise reason. I think

that was the end of all the ends. And because of these circumstances I think there was no other way;

no complaints and no radical responses would help anybody. So the idea of the Common Word

came. First with 38 signatories of Muslims and then it developed to 138 signatories and I consider

the event of the Common Word initiative on the part of the Muslims, not only as a response to a

particular lecture of the Pope. With all due respect that we have. But the Common Word for us, at

the moment, is a new way of relationship, not only Christians, but also with Jews. You know that we

have signed open letters addressed top the Jewish Community.

So, dear brothers and sisters, who belong to the Islāmic Community and those who are our friends,

who are here today, the Common Word has just began to have its way so don’t ask us what we did,

us signatories, for the past two years. I will ask you, students, what you did to promote the Common

Word in the next ten to fifteen years, for your children and your grandchildren. Because the

Common Word is a blue print, a master plan for our relationship, not only in the West but in the

Muslim World. Because Muslims need kalimatun sawā’ beynahum, more than a common word with

Christians and Jews and so on.

So this ‘yā ahl Al-Kitāb ta’alū ila kalimatin sawā’in beynunā alla na’bada ila Allah wa lā ytakhidtha

ba’duna ba’adan arbābā,’ is not only to Jews and Christians; this is to Muslims. We are ahl Al-Kitāb

because we have Al-Kitāb, so this should be extended, not only to Jews and Christians, but also the

Muslims because Muslims are now divided among themselves more, in some instances, than the

division between the Christians and the Jews and so on.

So, my dear, Prince Ghazi, he is my hero. I think without his initiative of the Common Word I would

not feel safe in Europe, and I would not feel safe on this Earth. So your highness, you will hear that I

commit myself to this project, I commit myself to the Common Word. I see no other way that we

can precede as Muslims especially in Europe without this foundation of the Common Word. And I

give my soul and my mind to this project, and I invite all of you to join us in this holy project of

kalima sawā’.

Come to a common word between all of us, so that we don’t worship anything but God and so we

don’t take each as deities for any reason. We are equal human beings, man and woman, and we are

equal as human creatures and beings before God. So may God help us. We want those who do not

understand us to know that we are Muslims and we are committed to this Common Word.

With these thoughts Abdul-Rehman, I hope that you will continue with your Radical Middle Way in

the shadow or in a way of the Common Word.

So thank you very much dear brothers and sisters.

Mufti Mustafa Ceric

Dr. Mustafa Ceric is serving his second term as Grand Mufti of Bosnia and Herzegovina and is

considered as one of the most powerful scholarly voices in contemporary Islam. He is the co-

recipient of the 2003 UNESCO Felix Houphouet-Boigny Peace Prize for Contribution to World Peace

and recipient of the International Council of Christians and Jews award for exceptional contribution

to interfaith understanding.

Ceric graduated from the famed Gazi Husrev Beg Madrassa in Sarajevo and received a scholarship to

Al-Azhar University in Cairo, Egypt. After his schooling there, he returned to his native Bosnia-

Herzegovina, where he became an Imam. In 1981, he accepted the position of Imam at the Islamic

Cultural Center (ICC) of Greater Chicago in Northbrook, Illinois and settled in the United States for

several years. He learned English and earned a Ph.D. at the University of Chicago in Islamic Studies.

When he finished his studies, he returned to his homeland, leaving the ICC and becoming a

practicing Imam in a learning center in Zagreb in 1987. He officially became the Grand Mufti of

Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1999, although he has led the Islamic community in Bosnia since 1993, a fact

that has sparked controversy in his re-election.

Dr. Ceric is a member of several local and international scientific organizations and societies,

including the Interreligious Council of Bosnia-Herzegovina, the Foundation of Srebrenica-Potočari

Memorial and Cemetery, the C-100 Council of 100 Leaders of the World Economic Forum, the

European Council for Fatwas and Research, World Conference of Religion & Peace, the Executive

Committee of the European Council of Religious Leaders, the Board of Trustees of International

Islamic University Islamabad, the Sharia'h Board of Bosnia Bank International, the Fiqh Academy in

Mecca, Aal Albayt Foundation for Islamic Thought in Jordan, the World Council of Religions for

Peace, International Commission for Peace Research, UNESCO and Executive Council of World Forum

of Ulama. He has delivered numerous lectures and led several workshops on inter-religious and

inter-faith issues at local and international conferences. His publications include: Roots of Synthetic

Theology in Islam; A Choice Between War and Peace, and the much discussed European Muslim

Declaration.

He is one of the signatories of A Common Word Between Us and You, an open letter by Islamic

scholars to Christian leaders, calling for peace and understanding. He regularly addresses believers

through the media and on Friday Prayers. Mufti Ceric is truly unique world leader and his

perspectives on Islam in Europe and the Modern World are not only influential, but timely and much

needed.

For more information on Mufti Mustafa Ceric, go to: www.radicalmiddleway.co.uk

More topics by Mufti Mustafa Ceric:

- Do we need A Common Word?

- Why Europe Needs Islam

- The Qualities, Responsibilities & Future of Imams in Europe. (Roundtable)

- Common Word Initiative

- After Genocide

- ISLAM - A Religion to Live for

- Our Shared Values

- Islam Under Siege

- Are we ready to die for Islam but not live for it?

All materials are available on the Radical Middle Way website in various formats (audio, video and

iKhutbah).Visit www.radicalmiddleway.co.uk .