MUFTIJA KURT – A RENOWNED ALIM AND HUMANIST

Muhamed Šefket-ef. Kurt was born in Travnik in 1879. He attended Hadži Ali-beg’s madrasa in his home town, before his father Fadil-ef. After his father’s death, as early as at the age of fourteen, he left Travnik and went to Mostar, to his grandfather hadži Ahmet, where he completed ruždija (middle school) and attended lectures of the famous Mostar alim Ali Fehmi-ef. Džabić. He attended the Kuršumlija madrasa in Sarajevo for a year and then continued his schooling in Istanbul and Damascus.

Upon his return to the homeland in 1908, he was appointed mudarris (teacher) in Hadži Ali-beg’s madrasa in Travnik, and the mufti of Banja Luka in 1914. In 1925, he was transferred from Banja Luka to Tuzla, where he worked as a mufti until the election of Ulama-majlis in Sarajevo in 1933. After the retirement, in 1936, he returned from Sarajevo to Tuzla, where he died on 21 June 1963. According to his own wish, he was buried at the Tuzla cemetery of Kalabić.

What imprinted a special stamp on the life of this prominent alim and humanist from Bosnia and Herzegovina are events during the Second World War, when Bosnia and Herzegovina was occupied by the Independent State of Croatia (NDH). In October 1941, 108 of the most renowned Sarajevo Bosniaks of religious and secular provenance signed a resolution which described the difficult conditions for Bosniaks under the NDH rule and deliberate triggering of animosity between ethnic groups, and required “ensuring the security of life and property of all citizens, prevention of an outbreak of conflicts between ethnic groups, trials for people responsible for crimes and help to victims of previous conflicts.” It was followed by similar resolutions in Banja Luka, Prijedor, Bijeljina, Mostar and Tuzla.

The resolution of Tuzla, where mufti Kurt played an important role, was signed on 11. 12. 1941, after chetniks slaughtered about 300 Bosniaks in the village of Koraj near Čelić on 28. 11. 1941.  Authorities of the NDH of the time attempted to make use of the massacre over Bosniaks to further deepen animosity between Bosniaks and Serbs, and provoke revenge. That religion, honor and human dignity were the basic guidelines of the signatories of the resolution, who clearly and unambiguously condemned atrocities over innocent civilians of all nationalities, was evidently shown by the events in Tuzla.

As a matter of fact, in early January 1942 news spread that ustashas (Croatian fascists) were preparing slaughter of Tuzla Serbs as a retaliation for the liquidation of a group of ustashas captured near Doboj, whom chetniks had shot on the mountain of Ozren. A secret ustasha board for the extermination of Serbs invited an infamous ustasha expedition from Brčko, which had already “gained fame” for monstrous executions, to come to Tuzla to carry out the planned revenge on Serbs. Ustashas allegedly planned to invite all Serbs to the Episcopal Church and then destroy it with an explosive device and banish the remaining Serbs to concentration camps.

When Tuzla Bosniaks heard about this plan of ustashas, their council decided that a three-member delegation headed by mufti Kurt should immediately go to the German commander of Tuzla and require prevention of this criminal act at any price. When German command in Tuzla saw the intentions and determination of mufti Kurt, a well-known and recognized Bosniak leader, it immediately issued a written order on the prohibition of taking any actions against Serbian population, and put posters at public places with the warning that nobody can abuse anybody, seize or destroy someone else’s property and hurt people who celebrate.

Besides, mufti Kurt led the official delegation of renowned Tuzla people who went to Zagreb to express their dissatisfaction with the ustasha regime, i.e. with the actions they took in the field. Upon arriving in Zagreb, the delegation was not received by Poglavnik (leader) Ante Pavelić, as expected, but by his minister Andrija Artuković, who was required not to let ustashas bother peaceful Serbian population.

This and many other activities of mufti Kurt in the Second World War clearly show that, for an honorable man, his own life was not worth if lives, honor and dignity of other people, regardless of their origin and religion, were in danger. However, neither Muslim resolutions nor mufti’s antifascist actions found the place they deserve in Yugoslav history after the Second World War. Although he was awarded the Order of Brotherhood and Unity of the first rank for his merits in the Second World War, except for a street named after mufti Kurt there is not even a memorial plaque in the honor of this antifascist hero. It is obvious that his courage did not match the official narrative about communists as the only participants in antifascism. Still, even today the memory of his human conduct during the Second World War and after it is alive in Tuzla.

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In the shadow of mufti’s civil courage expressed during the Second World War, his social activism in both religious and socio-political life is often ignored. He was active in social life, well-known and recognized, and was typically elected in various management bodies and organs. After his death he was often mentioned in conversations where his opinion was cited with respect, he was praised for his wisdom, kindness and agreeable nature. Many famous people wrote about their memories of this great man and religious dignitary. Let us quote some of them: “In Tuzla, resistance against terror over Serbs, after the first wave that took dozens of lives, is associated with the name and the luminous figure of Tuzla mufti, Muhamed Kurt, who pledged his reputation for stopping the bloody circuit...” (Vera Mujbegović)

“Several respectable Muslims headed by Tuzla mufti Muhamed eff. Kurt visited German city commander Hohbajer and lieutenant colonel Wist and expressed Tuzla Muslims’ disapproval of the ustashas’ plan. On this occasion, mufti Kurt pointed out the historical truth that citizens of Tuzla: Serbs, Croats and Muslims had lived together for centuries and that a similar crime had never happened before.” (Vladimir Marković)

“It is with high admiration that I think about Tuzla mufti Muhamed ef. Kurt, a dynamic, noble and fearless man. The mufti pledged his truly great reputation to save people from ustashas’ prison. (...) When he died, about ten thousand people came to his funeral, and most of them were Serbs – villagers from Tuzla surroundings. A touching eulogy was given by Orthodox priest Đorđe Jovanović, “the red priest”, who had spent the whole war in the concentration camp Dahau and miraculously stayed alive.” (Meša Selimović)

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It should be kept in mind that mufti Kurt draws his origin from a respectable Bosniak family whose members were raised, spiritually and intellectually, on the purest foundations of Islamic faith. Pursuit of these sources led him from Travnik, Mostar and Sarajevo to Istanbul and Damascus. His human cosmopolitism and civil courage expressed in hard days of the Second World War, when he pledged his own life for saving Serbs, Jews and Romani, are in no way accidental or isolated. Indeed, they are only a spiritual reflection of the environment he originated from, a tradition based on Islamic faith and moral nourished for centuries, which he never ignored or let down.

References:

• Dautović, Ferid, “Muhamed Šefket Kurt (1879-1963) – muftija, borac za ljudska i vjerska prava“, Društveno-politički i kulturni identitet Bosanskog Podrinja: 500 godina tekije Hamza-dede orlovića 1519-2019, Tuzla-Bratunac, 2020, 347-359.

• Hadžimehanović, Refik M., “Tuzlanske muftije”, Takvim za 1983, Sarajevo, 161-171.

• Jahić, Muhamed, “Muftija Kurt”, Hikmet, no. 3-4/IX, (99-100), Tuzla, 1996, 146-149.

• Kurt, Ahmed, “Muhamed Šefket ef. Kurt (1879-1963), muftija u Banja Luci i Tuzli”, Porodica Kurt iz Mostara, historija i rodoslov, Mostar, 2017, 77-78.

• Mehmedović, Ahmed (2018), Leksikon bošnjačke uleme, Sarajevo, 320-321.

• Sadiković, Alij A., “Merhum Muhammed Šefket ef. Kurt“, Glasnik VIS, no. 9-10, XXVI/1963, Sarajevo, 458-460.