ZAGREB MOSQUE
Zoran Filipović
Gallery PM
April 20 – May 8

The celebration of the one-hundredth anniversary of the legal
recognition of Islam in Croatia in 2016

Exhibition opening: Wednesday, April 20, 2016 at 7pm

The City of Zagreb, as the administrative and political centre of the Republic of Croatia, with its geographical and geopolitical position, represents the traffic junction between Central and South-Eastern Europe and the Adriatic Sea. This position, as well as historical development, have made the city a sort of junction between Catholic Central Europe and the South-Eastern part of the European continent, where autochtonous Islam is part of the civilisation, as traditional religious and cultural heritage. The Zagreb Mosque is one of the recognisable landmarks of Zagreb, a trace of Muslim religious and cultural identity in the Republic of Croatia, and a symbol of permanent presence of one of the oldest Muslim communities in Central Europe. (…)

(…) Historical sources note the first contact between Croats and Arabs as bearers of Islam as early as 7th century, when, after Arab conquest of the Byzantium province of Syria, Muslim Arab army included several thousand Byzantium soldiers, either prisoners or turncoat, including a number of those from Croatian lands. A separate chapter in Croatian-Arab contact started with Arab raids in the Mediterranean in the 9^th century (Crete, Sicily, Southern Italy), when Muslim Arabs can even be found in Eastern Adriatic seas, where maritime battles take place. Among the prisoners and defectors to the Muslim side, again, there was a sizeable number of Croats from Adriatic coast and hinterlands, as witnessed by both Christian and Muslim sources. A part of Croats converted to Islam, while some entered the military or administrative service of Arab Muslim dynasties as Christians, spreading from Southern Italy, through North Africa, to Spain (…)

Apart from the Mediterranean contact of Croats with Arab Islamic world, in the Middle Ages, first traces of Islam also appear in northern Croatian lands (Slavonia and Srijem) where a Muslim community dwelt between the 11th and the 14th century. This community was known as The Ismailits in Christian sources; this was a general name for Muslims of different ethnic origin (…)

The key historical reversal, which allowed Islam to take permanent religious and cultural root in Central and South-Eastern Europe started with the appearance of the Ottoman Empire which had, by the 15th century, grown from a small, regional force in Asia Minor into a world power, conquering parts of three continents, including the largest part of Croatian lands. The main consequence of the appearance of the Ottoman Empire, one that survived even the end of the centuries of Ottoman rule, was the process of adopting Islam among local, native, autochtonous population (Albanians, Bosnians, Croats, Bulgarians, Macedonians and different Turkophone groups), through which Islam became a constituent part of the European mosaic of religions and cultures… Regardless of the numbers and roots it had taken in the two centuries of Ottoman rule, Islam and Muslims in Croatian lands could hardly survive the retreat and military defeat of the Ottoman Empire in the wars with the Hapsburg Monarchy and Venice in late 17^th and 18^th century. Because of this, such population sought refuge in Bosnia, which remained under Ottoman rule until the end of the 19^th century. The renewal of Muslim presence in the region of today’s Republic of Croatia took place after the constitution of Austro-Hungarian rule in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1878, which ended the centuries of Ottoman rule. The inclusion of Bosnia and Herzegovina in the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy in late 19th century represented the end of centuries of administrative, legal, cultural, and military confrontations between Christians and Islam in these parts, and marked the beginning of the gradual formation of a new Muslim community in Croatia, as well as its institutions. Continuous growth of the number of Muslims prompted Croatian Parliament to adopt the Act on the Recognition of Islamic Denomination on the 27^th of April 1916, thus including Islam in Croatia in the group of traditional religions under State protection. On the basis of this Act, which is one of the three oldest legal recognition acts for Islam in Europe, outside the areas centuries part of the Ottoman Empire, Croatia gained the foundation of Islamic religious life and the institution of Islamic community, headed since 1919 by the Zagreb Mufti (…)

The celebration of the one-hundredth anniversary of the legal recognition of Islam in Croatia in 2016 should recall the importance and historical role of the small and traditional Muslim community in the Republic of Croatia, the youngest member of the European Union, a country in which Muslim population, through its coexistence and mutual respect with Christians and Jews, can bear witness to the universal importance of Islam as a message of peace for all people, nations, lands and civilizations.

Zlatko Hasanbegović

Artist biography:

Professional photographer and writer, born in 1959 in Brčko (Bosnia and Herzegovina), Zoran Filipović has lived in Zagreb since 1978 where, in the last few years, he’s been turning more and more towards graphic and product design. As photographer, he has worked and seen his work published in a number of distinguished world magazines, such as Paris Match, Life, Photo, Le Figaro Magazine, Die Zeit, Frankfurter Allgemeine Magazin, Vogue/GQ and others. The wider photographic world knows him under the pseudonym ZORO, which he used during his cooperation with the reputed agency Magnum Photos. Many of his photographs created during the war in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina (1991-1995) became world famous, becoming true icons of photographic war coverage. His photographic, literary and design work has earned him several awards, mostly abroad. He has exhibited in the world’s most notable galleries and museums, in metropolis such as New York, Frankfurt, Prague, Stockholm, Copenhagen, Vienna, Bratislava, Valencia, Abu Dhabi, Cairo, Teheran, Mexico City, but also Sarajevo and Zagreb.  As author, he has published sixteen books so far, both at home and abroad, successfully combining his photographic and literary skills. He also co-authored a number of group books. In addition to Croatia, his books have been published in Austria, Germany, France, Slovenia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. He and his work have also been the subject of several documentaries, all made abroad.

 

WORKING HOURS
Wednesday to Friday 11am – 7pm
Saturday and Sunday 10am – 6pm
Mondays and holidays – closed
* April 29 – 30 closed, April 25 – 26 open

Dom hrvatskih likovnih umjetnika
Trg žrtava fašizma 16
10000 Zagreb