Dr Sejad Mekic (Visiting Fellow, University of Exeter) presents "Husein Dozo: A Bosnian Mufti"

The first of our Visiting Speakers for 2018-2019 is Dr Sejad Mekic who is currently a Visiting Fellow at the University of Exeter. This talk will examine the Islamic modernist thought of Husein Đozo (1912-182), a prominent Balkan scholar who lived and worked in Titoist Yugoslavia. Through the medium of his fatāwā (legal rulings), Qur’anic interpretation and other writings, Đozo responded to the challenges he and his people were faced with, above all the so-called ‘Yogoslav Communism’ and modernity. As a Muslim scholar who lived in a European, secular, multi-religious and multi-cultural society, Đozo and his work present us with a particularly exciting and dynamic case through which to examine the innovative interpretations of Islam. Moreover, in Đozo’s scholarly work we are presented with a propitious moment for the academic, researcher and lay reader alike to analyse a ‘European-Islamic’ voice whose importance has yet to me articulated. This is particularly the case in the fields of ethics and faith, interfaith dialogue and the study of religious identity within Muslim minority communities. Dr Mekic will argue that Husein Đozo was the most important proponent of Islamic modernism in the countries of former Yugoslavia in the second half of the twentieth century. It wil also be argues that through the prism of Đozo’s spirit and thought, the ideas of modernist and reformist interpretations of Islam gained a local ‘Yugoslav’ dimension. And finally, Đozo’s work in general and his fatāwā in particular represent a rich and unexplored resource that should be considered in assessing the development of Islamic law in the Balkan region.