Bosnian Grand Mufti Mustafa Ceric has been engaged in something of a verbal war with the Salafist community after he told an Austrian news weekly that Bosnian extremists were operating in Austria who were fomenting hatred and posed a security threat to the country. According to reports published by the OSC Dr. Ceric, associated with the Muslim Brotherhood network though his membership in the European Council for Fatwa and Research, said:
I have to tell the responsible people in Austria very clearly: This is happening in your country, radical groups congregate in mosques in your country, and you are tolerating this state of affairs.
Dr. Ceric was reported to have gone on to label such groups “Wahhabis” a term generally referring to the austere form of Islam that insists on a literal interpretation of the Koran, and disclosed that cleric Muhamed Porca is the leader of the Vienna based Wahhabi group. The Salafists in turn have responded by disparaging Dr. Ceric by calling him “the Devil” who “prefers Jews, Americans, and Christians to your own brothers who uphold the Koran and the Sunah.”
Previous posts have discussed Dr. Ceric’s role in the formation of an investment bank using Saudi funds donated for war victims as well as his proposal to create A European institution modeled after the Bosnian Islamic Community that would take control of Islam in Europe.
(source: Vienna-Based Bosnian Radicals Criticize Grand Mufti Ceric Over News Interview Bosnia-Herzegovina — OSC Report Monday, July 30, 2007 T06:57:30Z)