Muslim leaders in call to defend Bosnia

TO SHOUTS of 'Allahu Akbar', God is most great, a stream of international Islamic leaders and scholars took a podium in central London at the weekend. Their angry message to the faithful: the annihilation of Muslims in Bosnia-Herzegovina is part of a Western conspiracy to destroy Islam and the time has come for Muslims to fight back for the Bosnians or be prepared to face similar fates elsewhere in Europe.

'Bosnia is a mirror. It is our future. The destroyed homes and the deaths are us, if not today, then soon, as long as we allow the West to have the upper hand,' Safinez Kazem, an Egyptian writer told a two-day Islamic World Conference on Bosnia.

Mohamed al-Asi, the elected Imam of the Washington Islamic Centre in the US capital, told the gathering that after 18-months of war, 200,000 dead and 50,000 rapes in Bosnia, the time for trusting the West was over. He called on Muslims to give blood or money to support their co-religionists in Bosnia. 'If we are not going to consider jihad now in these types of circumstances, when will we ever consider it?'

This powerful mix of anger, fear and distrust was a heady cocktail for the 1,000 delgates at the conference, organised by the self-styled Muslim Parliament of Great Britain. But the mood of militancy reflected a deep-felt frustration among Muslims over Bosnia.

Although the conference stopped short of issuing a direct call for raising money to buy arms for Bosnia, it started a 'jihad fund'. 'Jihad cannot be stopped by United Nations resolutions,' Kalim Siddiqi, the leader of the Muslim Parliament said.

The British government has been the most vociferous opponent of any move to arm the Bosnians, and is unlikely to look favourably on a British Muslim drive to raise money for a 'Bosnian jihad'.

But perhaps more worrying for British and other Western leaders was not what the conference did but what it represented: a reminder of the forces that threaten to fill the void left by the absence of any real Western initiative to end the bloodshed in Bosnia.

The importance of the Bosnian cause to radical Muslims was underscored by the scheduled appearance at the conference of Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, one of Iran's most powerful clerics. He had planned to sit alongside Ejup Ganic, the Bosnian Vice-President. In the end, Ayatollah Jannati and Mr Ganic were, respectively, denied a British visa and a UN flight out of Sarajevo. But the fact that both men were keen to share a platform is a symbol of the West's failure in Bosnia at a dangerous time.

Muslim nationalism is now an emerging force binding Bosnians together in what remains of their truncated state. However, it is important to distinguish between the Muslim nationalism in Bosnia and the Islam preached at the weekend conference.

Muslim nationalism in the Balkans does not necessarily signal the emergence of a theocratic state in Europe. Rather, being a Muslim is a badge of ethnic and historical identity. But Bosnian intellectuals warn that if an Islamic republic does emerge from the ashes of Bosnia, it will only be because the West chose to bow before 'ethno-fascism' rather than risk military involvement in former Yugolsavia.

(Photograph omitted)