Mustafa Ef. Ceric

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Dr. Mustafa Ef. Cerić is the Grand Mufti of Bosnia-Herzegovina. He is serving his second 7-year term until 2013. He is known as the most liberal Grand Mufti in the world.

He is the co-recipient of the 2003 UNESCO Felix Houphouet-Boigny Peace Prize for Contribution to World Peace (source) and recipient of the International Council of Christians and Jews Annual Sir Sternberg Award for exceptional contribution to interfaith understanding (source). One of the latest international recognitions he received is 2007 Theodor-Heuss-Stiftung award for his contribution to spreading and strengthening democracy (source).

Cerić graduated from the Madressa in Sarajevo and received a scholarship to Al-Azhar University in Cairo, Egypt. After his schooling there, he returned to his native Bosnia-Herzegovina, where he became an Imam. In 1981, he accepted the position of Imam at the Islamic Cultural Center and settled in the United States for several years. He learned English and earned a Ph.D. at the University of Chicago in Islamic Theology. When he finished his studies, he returned to his homeland, left the ICC and became a practicing Imam in a learning center in Zagreb in 1987. He became the Grand Mufti of Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1999.

Dr. Ceric is a member of several local and international scientific organizations and societies, including the Interreligious Council of Bosnia-Herzegovina, the Foundation of Srebrenica-Potočari Memorial and Cemetery, the Council of 100 Leadres of the World Economic Forum, the European Council for Fatwas and Research, World Conference of Religion & Peace, the Executive Committee of the European Council of Religious Leaders, the Board of Trustees of International Islamic University Islamabad, the Sharia'h Board of Bosnia Bank International, the Fiqh Academy in Mecca, Aal Albayt Foundation for Islamic Thought in Jordan, the World Council of Religions for Peace, International Commission for Peace Research chaired by Dr. Henry Kissinger, UNESCO and Executive Council of World Forum of Ulama. He has delivered numerous lectures and led several workshops on interreligious and interfaith issues at local and international conferences. His publications include: Roots of Synthetic Theology in Islam; A Choice Between War and Peace, and European Muslim Declaration. (source)

He regularly addresses believers through the media and on Friday Prayers.

Cerić has caused controversy by being supportive of the role of foreign mujahedeen involvement in the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina [1], making him an especially polarising figure amongst the country's non-Muslim Croats and Serbs.