Muamer Zukorlić


Muamer Zukorlić is a Serbian politician, activist, and former President and Chief Mufti of the Islamic Community in Serbia of Bosniak ethnicity. At the 2012 Serbian presidential election, he was nominated as an independent candidate for the office of President of Serbia. He is a member and one of the founders of the Bosniak Academy of Sciences and Arts.

Early life

Zukorlić attended primary school in the village Ribariće in the municipality of Tutin and the Gazi Husrev-bey madrasa in Sarajevo. He studied Islamic Sciences at the Emir Abdelkader University in Constantine, Algeria, graduating in 1993. He was the first president of the Islamic Community of Sandžak being elected in October 1993 after its establishment and he was re-elected in 1998 and 2003. He completed his postgraduate studies in Lebanon. At the unified Parliament of the Islamic Community in Serbia on 27 March 2007, he was elected President of the Islamic Community in Serbia Chief Mufti, and in July 2008 at the elections he was re-elected as its head. In his fifteen years as head of the Islamic Community, Zukorlić was behind the construction of a number of its institutions. He was the founder of the first Islamic newspaper in Sandžak – the Voice of Islam, and was the first editor-in-chief. He initiated the establishment of publishing house "El Kelimeh" in Serbia, as well as Mekteb for preschool and school age. He founded the madrasa "Gazi Isa-Bey" and is one of the main reasons for its rapid development. The first is the Dean of the Faculty of Islamic Studies, the President of the International University in Novi Pazar and its founder and first rector. He was selected as the first candidate of the Bosniak cultural community in the elections for the Bosniak National Council where he had won and where he became a member of the Assembly of the BNF's. He is a member of the Islamic community in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
In the first direct elections to the National Council of Bosniaks, held on June 6, 2010, the single largest number of votes won the Bosniak Cultural Community headed by Mufti Muamer Zukorlić. State authorities have made a decision not to recognize the rights of the Bosniak cultural community to independently form a National Council because she did not win an overall majority of votes. Despite this decision, Bosniak Cultural Community celebrated the victory and completed the constitution of the Bosniak National's council that at the meeting held on 25 July 2010, adopted a declaration Bosniak people proclaims constituent people in Serbia.
After winning the elections for national councils, Muamer Zukorlić said that "the territory of Sandžak will be free and will never be enslaved!"

Personal

He is married and has seven children. His mother belongs to the Radončić family.