TREATY OF PEACE OF SAINT-GERMAIN

The Balkan Wars, followed by the First World War led to the collapse of the Ottoman Empire as a centuries-long state framework where Muslim communities in the Balkans had lived and enjoyed their religious, social, cultural and other rights and privileges. The end of the First World War confirmed the concept of national self-determination and the national state as the most suitable model of building the country and of the development of international relations in Europe, which in turn led to many problems for minority peoples and communities, whose status and position, as well as their rights and prospects in the newly formed countries became unclear and doubtful.

Upon signing of the Treaty of Peace of Saint-Germain – Minority Treaty on 10 September 1919, Muslims in the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes were treated as a religious minority, although the valid interior political decisions and commitments considered Islam as one of the three equal religions in the Yugoslav Kingdom.

Pursuant to Article 10 of the Treaty between the Principal Allied and Associated Powers and the Serb-Croat-Slovene State, the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (SHS) undertook to grant the Muslim population following: the validity of Muslim religious law in the family and personal status, to take measures to assure the nomination of Raisu-l-ulama, to ensure the protection to the mosques, cemeteries and other Muslim religious establishments, to assure full recognition and facilities to Muslim pious foundations (waqfs) or charitable establishments then existing, and to not refuse any of the necessary facilities for the creation of new religious and charitable establishments.

Paragraph 1 of Article 10 of the Treaty has a particular importance for the issue of the use of Sharia law, i.e. Sharia courts: “The Serb-Croat-Slovene State agrees to grant to the Muslims in the matter of family law and personal status provisions suitable for regulating provisions suitable for regulating these matters in accordance with Muslim usage.” It meant that the continuation of the work of Sharia courts was guaranteed, and these courts were state courts for regulating Muslim personal and family matters.

Pursuant to this treaty, Muslims in Yugoslavia: Bosniaks, Albanians, Turks, Roma and others were treated as a common religious group. By advocating religious rather than ethnic identity, Muslim national and religious leaders estimated that in these circumstances, this direction of activity would have a greater and stronger effect.

In this way, Muslims and the Islamic community gained a basis for international-law protection of their key institutions, particularly the institution of Raisu-l-ulama. It was also a legal basis for Muslims' further struggle for their rights.   

However, reality in the field was far different and more complicated. The treatment and conditions of waqfs in Bosnia and Herzegovina differed from those in other parts of the Kingdom, particularly among Muslims in the south of the country: Sandžak, Kosovo, Montenegro and Macedonia. The reason can be found in the fact that in Bosnia and Herzegovina the Statute for autonomous administration of Islamic religious and waqf-maarif affairs was still valid from the Austro-Hungarian period, which in turn allowed better protection of Muslim rights.

The Treaty of Peace of Saint-Germain is one of the most important international law documents for Muslims and the Islamic community in the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes since it ensured their formal rights, however difficult it was to acquire them, in the turbulent inter-war period of the Kingdom.