In comments made to the Eurasian Islamic Council, Bosnian Grand Mufti Mustafa Ceric compared the Iranian Revolution to the French Revolution and appeared to suggested that Islam was destined to spread across the world. According to a report carried on a Turkish news portal:
On the last day of the Eurasian Islamic Council, Bosnian cleric Mustafa Ceric said the new Islamic awakening has begun, Turkish media reported…Calling the world from the Eurasian Islamic Council, Bosnia and Herzegovina Ulema Mustafa Efendi Ceric said , “Islam are associated with terrorism in the 21st century. We want dialogue… Interfaith, intercultural dialogue, we want”…..”All Muslims are being held guilty of terrorism,” said Ceric, “In my view, we now in a new era of major Islamic renaissance. Because, communism and atheism had been destroyed. We are required to provide a return to Islam. Iran Islamic Revolution has been affected the whole world, just as the French Revolution. I think we now entered to an era of returning to Islam.” Ceric asserted that Muslims in the world lose the effectiveness because they lost effectiveness in science and production. “57 Islamic countries have nearly 500 universities. Only in America, there are around 5 thousand 700 universities. 90 percent of Christians in the world are literate. In the Islamic world, the rate is only 40 percent. Muslims comprise 70 percent of refugees in the world,” he said.
Considered by some to be a leading “liberal” Islamic leader, Mustafa Ceric is tied to the global Muslim Brotherhood through his membership in the European Council for Fatwa and Research (ECFR), headed by Brotherhood leader Youssef Qaradawi and by his participation in the U.K.-based “Radical Middle Way” consisting of a wide range of associated scholars representing the global Muslim Brotherhood. Several earlier posts have discussed Dr. Ceric’s increasing visibility and importance within the global Muslim Brotherhood, noting that Ceric sees himself as a possible future leader of a “European Islam.” The possibility also exists that Dr. Ceric could be being groomed as a successor to Youssef Qaradawi, in ill health of late. Another previous post discussed Dr. Ceric’s role in diverting Saudi funds donated for war victims to the creation of an investment bank controlled by the Bosnian Islamic Community which he heads. A recent report carried on a Bosnian public television statement features an accusation by Sarajevo Islamic Studies students that Dr. Ceric was intending to occupy a 10 million mark ($6.6 million) residence built by the donations of wealthy Bosnians.