Mustafa Hilmi Hadžiomerović (1816 – 10 February 1895) was a Bosnian Muslim Islamic cleric who served as the first Grand Mufti of Bosnia and Herzegovina from 1882 to 1893.
Mustafa Hilmi Hadžiomerović | |
|---|---|
| Title | Former Grand Mufti of Bosnia and Herzegovina |
| Personal life | |
| Born | 1816 |
| Died | 10 February 1895 (aged 78–79) |
| Religious life | |
| Religion | Sunni Islam |
| Senior posting | |
| Period in office | 15 December 1882 – 20 November 1893 |
| Successor | Mehmed Tevfik Azabagić |
Biography
editBorn in Kulen Vakuf in 1816, Hadžiomerović received his basic religious and general education in his birth town. He later studied at a high school in Prijedor, before attending the Gazi Husrev Bey's Madrasa in Sarajevo.
In 1837, Hadžiomerović went to the Ottoman capital Istanbul to study at a Madrasa there for 15 years. He then returned to Bosnia to work in Bosanski Novi and was then posted to the Kuršumli Madrasa in Sarajevo as a schoolteacher. A year later, he was appointed imam at the Arebi-Atik mosque.
In 1856, Hadžiomerović was appointed Mufti of Sarajevo, but he continued his teaching duties, giving lectures until 1888. Following the Austro-Hungarian occupation of Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1878, he made public appeals for peace and calm. On 17 October 1882, the Austro-Hungarian authorities appointed him Reis-l-ulema in order to gradually separate Bosnia from Ottoman authority. Hadžiomerović officially took over the position on 15 December 1882. He issued a number of Fatwa, encouraging the Bosnian Muslim population to stay (over 100,000 emigrated to Turkey during the 1880s[1]) and collaborate, and also to serve in the Bosnian-Herzegovinian Infantry.[2]
Exhausted from many years of work, Hadžiomerović resigned as Reis-l-ulema in 1893 and died two years later on 10 February 1895.
References
editLiterature
edit- Noel Malcolm, Bosnia: A Short History, 1994
- Fikret Karčić, The Bosniaks and the Challenges of Modernity: Late Ottoman and Hapsburg Times (1995)