Ismet Muftić
Croatian Muslim mufti / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Ismet Muftić (born 1876, Žepče – died 1945, Zagreb) was a Bosnian imam and the first Islamic Mufti of Croatia.
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He became mufti of the Croatian capital Zagreb in 1917 after the Islamic community was reformed there. His main task was to attempt to build a permanent mosque in the city. Due to lack of funds, the community was not able to achieve this on its own. Plans to build a mosque at Zelengaj in the 1930s did not succeed, however.[1] In March 1939 Muftić was one of the founders and vice president of Društvo bosansko-hercegovačkih Hrvata u Zagrebu (Society of the Bosnian-Herzegovinian Croats in Zagreb).[2]
However, after the Independent State of Croatia was formed, the ruling Ustaša party sought to better accommodate the Croatian Muslims. Muftić and the Muslim community put forth a proposition to turn the Orthodox church on Preradović Square into a mosque. In the end, it was decided that the Meštrović Pavilion would take that role. To that effect, three minarets were added to the building.[3]
In 1945, at the end of the Second World War, Muftić was hanged by the Yugoslav Partisans. In 1949 the Pavilion's minarets were taken down, and the building returned to its old usage.[3]