European Journal of Economic and Political Studies
Is Wahhabism a Security Challenge for Kosova, or Not?
Erdoan A. Shipoli*
Abstract:
There have been different debates on the role of the wahhabi movement in
Kosovo. Some argue that the independence of Kosova and its recognition, by the
international community, will be a fertile land for the wahhabis, and their threat will
effect whole of Europe. When we look at the history of religion in Kosova, and among
the ethnic and religious groups living there, we can see that this claim is just another
securitizing act by some interest groups who oppose the independence of Kosova.
This paper explains the religious traditions of the Kosovars, and how they differ from
wahhabist traditions. By doing this, the paper argues that wahhabism is not so
influential in Kosova, where it is declining day by day, and this presents no threat to the
communities living in Kosova, or Europe.
Keywords:
Wahabism, Kosova, security, securitization
Introduction
Lately, there has been a rise on the debate of legitimacy of Kosova’s
independence, after the unilateral declaration of independence by Kosova’s political
elite. There have been negotiations on the status for more then three years prior to the
declaration of independence in February 17, 2008. These negotiations have resulted
with little or no success because the parties, the ethnic Kosovar Albanians and Serbian
government, were dedicated to their arguments and had clear objectives. For the
Albanians it was the independence, and for the Serbs it was the solution of making
Kosova a part of Serbia proper. The Serbian governmental elites, lately, claim that
there is a rise of wahhabism in Kosova, arguing that the rise of wahhabism in Kosova
*
Fatih University, Istanbul/Turkey. [email protected]
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Erdoan A. Shipoli
will be dangerous for national security of Kosova as a whole, and particularly for the
Serbian orthodox population.
The literature on this issue is scarce. Whether such a threat exists or not, or if
there is such a rise of wahhabism in Kosova, is still open to debate. I hope that this
humble work of mine will be a drive to a fruitful discussion on this topic. This paper will
observe the role of religious groups in Kosova and also their activities, to analyze if
there is a rise of wahhabism in Kosova, and if there is then does it pose any threat to
the population and to the national security of Kosova.
Kosova has always been and still is a land of religious tolerance and any of
fundamental movements are not welcomed. This is a result of hundreds of years of
religious tolerance showed to and by religious groups. Although some radical groups
might seem successful at the beginning, their influence is seen to decline in a very
short time. This is because the religious understanding in Kosova, populated by over
90% of Muslims, is liberal. Islam in Kosova came from the Sunni School of Islamic
teaching, inherited from the Ottoman Empire, which is considered to be the most
universal and liberal school of Islamic teachings. While writing this paper, I observed
that the wahhabist influence in Kosova came from her neighbors, and they aim to use
Kosova as a transitional country to access Europe. But, even though at the beginning
there was such a rise, this fundamental movement is not welcomed and its activities
were unsuccessful in Kosova, which brings us to conclude that there is no such a threat
to any sphere in Kosova and especially the national security of Kosova, today.
For this paper there was lack of academic writings, so most of the arguments will
be made according to articles in the daily newspapers, and I will also base my
observation as I lived in Kosova until 2004 and still I can observe the situation as I
travel very often to Kosova. During my research I made some unofficial interviews,
which can be provided if needed, that helped me understand the situation of
wahhabism in Kosova and the region, and also helped me write this paper.
Security
To argue if one issue is a threat to a country, a nation, or a group, we must know
the concepts and what we understand by threat, security, construction, and the actors.
There are several definitions of security, but I agree with the definition of Ken
Booth (1990: 319), the most: “… security is the absence of threats while insecurity is
living in fear with dangers arising from threats”. So, security has a negative relation
with threat, and to be able to call something a security issue, there must be insecurity
among the people, there must be a presence of a threat.
Wahhabism is an Islamic sect, founded by Muhammad ibn Abd-al Wahhabi, a
Hanbali scholar. It is founded in Arabia and the foundation year is unknown. Having
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European Journal of Economic and Political Studies
roots in Sufi Islam, wahhabists try to reform Islam, which according to them has gone
out of road, and bring back the Islamic traditions. The movement rejects medieval
interpretations of Islam and is usually known for violent acts against idolatry. The
alliance with the Muhammad ibn Saud in 1747, founded the present day kingdom of
Saudi Arabia (Esposito 2003). Since the twentieth century, the term wahhabi has been
associated with the movements that took arms against existing governments in Middle
East. But, nevertheless, this movement has been initially supported by the British, as an
Islamic revivalist movement (Esposito 2002b). Today it is identified with the biggest
terrorist organizations, such as al-Qaeda, and also other Islamic opposition movements
against governments all over the world (Esposito 2002b). They want to impose their
own way of interpretation of Islam, as the only pure, pristine, and unadulterated Islamic
tradition (Esposito 2002a).1
The “Islamic fundamentalism” term is today replaced by the “wahhabi Islam”
term. This happened post 9/11 when the wahhabi influenced al-Qaeda terrorist
organization took charge of the crashes in the World Trade Center and the other
terrorist bomb-attacks. This was used by the western elite to construct Islam as a threat
and securitize western values. It is here that we encounter religious securitization.
Securitization is the process of bringing an issue to the security level (Buzan et al
1998). To be able to make a securitization one needs to speak security. By a speech
act, a securitizing actor identifies a referent object, a threat, an audience, and asks for
extraordinary means to protect that referent object. It is important that the actor
constructs the issue in a way that it portrays the issue as existential to the audience. By
usually using words such as “security”, “threat”, and alike, the securitizing actor does
not just talk on an issue, but he/she does an activity, that Jane Austin named as “doing
things with words” (Austin 1962).
To sum up, security is something constructed, and it depends from a number of
actors if an issue is to be considered a security issue or not. But it is important to note
that security is very important, and people use any means they have to feel secured.
This is the issue in the case of Kosova. Some authors, who oppose the independence of
Kosova, construct threats that would come with the recognition of the Republic of
Kosova by other countries. There are some who even portray the Balkans as the new
caliphate, threatening Europe and the west (Deliso 2007).
Religion in Kosova
Kosova has a population of around 2 million people, where over 93 percent are
Albanians, 3 percent are Serbs, 2 percent are Turks and 2 percent are the other
1
For further information on the establishment of the wahhabi movement, and what the wahhabism is, see: Esposito, John L.
(2002). What everyone needs to know about Islam. New York: Oxford University Press. pp.49-52.
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Erdoan A. Shipoli
minorities.2 Nearly 90 percent of the population is Muslim (ethnically Albanian, Turkish,
Bosnian, etc.), but a large number of them are non-practicing. Other religious groups
are: orthodox (ethnically Serbian, Montenegrin), or Catholic (Albanian). The Muslims
in Kosova are mainly Hanafi and Bektashi. These two schools have existed by centuries
in Kosova, from the beginning of the Ottoman Empire’s influence in Balkan region, 15th
century, until today. The Albanian Muslims took their religion from the Ottoman Empire
and they nationalized this identity at that time (Hugh 1997: 13-15). For the nonpracticing of Islam among the most of Muslims in Kosova exist several reasons, starting
from Communism era under Tito; economic-social problems after Tito’s death; and
lately the Kosovars are more concerned with state-building process after the war
finished. Usually the more devoted Muslims can be found in rural places. The reason
for the tolerance of Albanians is the prioritization of national identity, and also the fact
that there are Albanians from both, Muslim and Christian religious communities. From
the time that the children are small they are taught by their parents that Christian and
Muslim Albanians are brothers, and that the national identity is more important than the
religious one. There is also a much known national poem that says: “hey Albanian,
don’t look at churches and mosques as the religion of the Albanians is Albanianism”.3
Kosovo has been the land of many Christian and Muslim monuments, and different
nations consider Kosova as the land of their ancestors (Ibrahimi 2004). The Serbs
consider it as the cradle of their orthodox tradition; they call Kosova the “Serbian
Jerusalem” (Kadare 2007). The Albanians consider it as the land of their Illyrian
ancestors, and the cradle of their national identity and traditions. The best indicator of
religious tolerance, not just by Muslims towards the other religious minorities but also
vice-versa, are these century old monuments in different parts of Kosovo, which have
not been demolished. There are old and beautiful mosques in regions where most of
the population is non-Muslim, but there are other monuments, the most important
churches for the orthodox Serbs, in the places populated with majority Albanian, and
they have not been under attack for centuries.
The rise of wahhabism in Kosova
The Balkans met with wahhabi movement in late 1992. From the beginning of their
foundation, the wahhabists preached that Jihad meant war against the infidels, the holy
war, so their main activities were conducted in war. This is why the year 1992 is an
important year for them as the war started in Bosnia, and Bosnians being in
disadvantage on warriors, had to accept the offer made by wahhabis to come and fight
2
There is no accurate statistic of the diversity of population, as there have been no population counting’s after the war
finished in Kosovo. The numbers are assumptions used by most of the academicians, on the diversity of the population in
ethnic and religious grounds.
3
This is a saying, claimed to be written by Pashko Vasa, in his “Lahuta a malesise” book. This book is considered as one of
the first published books in Albanian.
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for them. The warriors came from Afghanistan and during four and a half-year of war in
Bosnia they were present (Schwartz 2003: 184-190). The war in Bosnia was the most
bizarre terror and genocide since the World War II, and this infected all Muslims
around the world to be concerned on what is happening to the Muslim brothers in
Balkans. The wahhabis used this idea and entered in Bosnia to fight against Serbs.
Osama bin Laden himself used this propaganda together with Abdullah Azzam, to
recruit “Afghan Muslims” to go and fight in Bosnia (Schwartz 2003: 191-192). Later on,
in 1995, the Bosnian army was known as the “Muslim army”, although there were
people from other religions present, but because of the high presence of wahhabis the
public recognized it as such (Schwartz 2003: 186-187). The mujahidin, as the wahhabis
in Balkans refer to themselves, were Saudis that liked war adventures, usually with war
experiences before they came to Bosnia; and the Bosnian Muslims were European
Muslims, that were born and lived in Europe, more liberal but oppressed by the
Milosevic regime (Izetbegovic 1990: 3-10). Here lies the difference between the
wahhabis and the Muslims in Balkans.
Another field of the wahhabis influence in Balkans was Albania. Having a civilstruggle in 1997 brought chaos in Albania, which is the perfect scenario for the
wahhabis to start their activity. Having a lot of poor families after the struggle, the
economic situation of people in Albania was very bad. So, the wahhabis opened
humanitarian organizations to help them recover. This help was not for free and the
members of the family were asked to be recruited to go to mosques and do the rituals
as the wahhabis. But, not too much time passed when these organizations started to be
closed, and one of the leaders of the biggest wahhabi organization “Albanian
Returnees”, imprisoned (Schwartz 2003: 189-190).
As we can see, the fist contact of the people of Balkans with fundamental wahhabis
were in Bosnia and Albania, both of them neighbors to Kosova. And then it was after
the war in Kosova, in 1999, that the wahhabis entered in Kosova by opening NGO-s
and humanitarian organizations (Zogiani 2001). As we can observe, the wahhabis use
the conflicts or bad economic conditions of the people to influence the population and
recruit people. During the war in Kosova there weren’t many mujahidin that fought
together with the KLA guerilla fighters in Kosova. One of the members of wahhabi
network from Macedonia, in an unpublished interview, told me that “we weren’t
welcome to Kosovo as in Bosnia, the freedom fighters there didn’t respect us as
experienced fighters, and this is why we didn’t stay to fight there”.4 So, they entered in
Kosova after the war has finished, by humanitarian organizations. The houses were
destroyed, the economic and social conditions were very bad, and by offering help,
the wahhabis broadened their sphere of influence. Their next step was to start giving
money to the boys and girls who went to prey in their mosques (Zogiani 2001). The
4
Celadin Ahmet, an ex-wahhabi member, contacted in October 2007 by myself. Unpublished interview.
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Erdoan A. Shipoli
wahhabis in Kosova used this technique for around two years, from 1999 to 2001, and
recruited many young people. They also started destroying old Ottoman mosques and
built new ones with wahhabi motives and architecture, with the pretext and promise of
building bigger and “more Islamic” mosques. This was until 2002 when an official
banned this by saying that “in Kosova we need schools and education, not mosques to
brainwash our children’s minds” (Maloku 2002).
This is how the rise of wahhabism started in Kosova. In economic and social
crises, people are about to do anything to survive and this is what the wahhabis used
as a weapon. I saw the rise of wahhabism, where a lot of young people, who I knew,
started being influenced by wahhabism. This was worrying me at that time but after
two years it could be clearly observed that people started being rid of them, which
pushed for the decline of the wahhabi influence just after few years of their activity. The
main reason is that the Islam in Kosova was and still is very liberal, and fundamental
movements didn’t suit the minds of the people. After showing their real faces, the
wahhabis were not welcomed by the people anymore. Several times the head of the
Kosova’s Muslim community, Mr. Naim Ternava, declared that there is no relation
between the Muslim community of Kosova and the wahhabi movement in Kosova. The
last time he said this was December 2007, in a Eid praying, where he declared that
“the Islam in Kosova is as old as 500 years, and we don’t need others to come and tell
us what we shall do and how we shall change our way of believing” 5
Securitizing Kosova by wahhabi threat
The presence of these organizations concerns the population and give arguments to
the ones that say there is security danger if Kosova will be independent. They claim that
this threat is towards the people living in Kosova, as well as towards Europe and the west.
The most concerning organization is the Revival of Islamic Heritage Society. This
is an organization that is functioning in Kosova from the year 2000, but from January
2002 it has been in the list of the Terrorist organizations in the USA and the UN. This
organization has Kuwait roots and has branches in tens of different countries. The
government of Albania has closed this organization by court decision. Its branches in
Afghanistan and Pakistan are considered to help the Al-Qaeda members on money
laundry. As far as Kosova is concerned, this organization is registered as an NGO, with
the general director, Otham A.O Alihadidar, possessing a Bosnian passport, but
wanted from the Bosnian authorities since 1994, accused of money laundry and
corruption in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The US State Department considers this
organization to have direct ties with bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda organization. An anonymous
5
Quoted in Express. A daily newspaper in Kosova, on 21 December 2007.
http://www.gazetaexpress.com/web/images/pdf/pdf011408.pdf. Last accessed 07 November 2009.
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member of this organization, in Kosova, said that this organization is not functioning
since may 2004, and when contacted (by the newspaper journalist), this anonymous
Arab said that “the funds were not enough and the leader, Otham A.O Alihadidar, went
to Kuwait for donations and he never came back, we have been waiting for him since.”
After months of waiting the sources, he said that they closed the organization because
of lack of funds (Musliu 2007).
Another such organization is the Saudi Joint Relief Committee for Kosovo. In
August 1999, just months after the war has finished, they moved their headquarters
from Albania to Kosova. Few days prior to this exchange they sent 50 imams to Saudi
Arabia in trainings on Arabic Language and Shariah (Schwartz 2003: 206). According
to their budget release they spent around 4 million riyals, equivalent to over 1 million
dollars, in just first two months in Kosova (Schwartz 2003: 206). This is the organization
that promised “better and more Islamic” mosques, also.
Looking from the constructivist perspective, these threats are important and they
must be taken very seriously as they try to change the identity of the population, which
would lead to the change of their interests and thus lead to the activities that would be
required by the new identity. But, from 2005 until 2008, such identity (wahhabization of
Kosovars) has been in decline. Kosova has recovered from the remedies of war and it
has other concerns now.
The influence of wahhabism has not been abolished but it has been declined,
though. The history of religion in Kosova, and the religious identity of Kosovars, I think,
made this decline happen. A place where religions lived with no problems cannot be a
place for religious conflicts. As Mr. Ternava said, “We have had our religion for more
then 500 years, we don’t need other to come and tell us how to believe. We have no
ties with the so called Muslim brotherhoods like wahhabism and we deny any of their
declarations as Muslims, on how to live and believe. Those claims are not in the raw
with our priorities and motives (Ternava 2007).”
As far as the political force is concerned, the wahhabis formed a party, “the
Islamic Party of Kosova”, where they had no representatives elected in the elections of
2005 (OSCE report on elections in Kosovo, 2005) and then in the elections of 2007,
they didn’t even run for the elections. This is another fact, which shows the decline of
their influence in Kosova. The leaders of the institutions don’t like them, the religious
institutions diverge themselves from them, so, their only hope was to establish their
own political force, which was unsuccessful from the beginning of its function. We can
conclude that they were unsuccessful in all the fields of their activities in Kosova.
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Wahhabism and the security of Kosova
There are some writers, who claim that the independence of Kosova will help the
global terrorist cells. They claim that the rise of wahhabism is the threat to the security
of the Serbian, and other non-Muslim, minorities in Kosova. “The independence of
Kosova”, argues Adar Primor, from Israel’s Haaretz newspaper, “will reward the
ethnic and religious violence against the minorities, as the leaders of Kosova still have
link with mafia and global Jihad. Recognition of Kosova’s independence will rise the
Islamic influence and will strengthen the anti-Semite and anti-Israel views in Europe”
(Primor 2007). But I think there is no such a threat, as it has been shown that the
Kosovar Albanians have been ready to forgive what had happened in Kosova. The best
fact on this is that after the war, in 1999, there has been no Serb killed with religious
motives, or there was no violence towards other religious or ethnic minorities. There
are Serb enclaves all over in Kosova and never did Kosovar Albanians attack them.
The Belgrade government triggered all the conflicts after the war. They provided
weapons and financial instruments to Serbs living in the Serbian enclaves, to provoke
the situation and push the Albanians to attack back. Such is the conflict of 2003, the
biggest conflict after the war, which was triggered by the Serbian “bridge watchers”,
who drowned three Albanian kids in the Iber River. These “bridge watchers” are
supported and motivated from the Belgrade government, to stop any activity of the
institutions of Kosova or the international organizations, from entering in the western
part of Mitrovica. This way the institutions of Kosova do not have the legitimacy in the
whole territory of Kosova.
Taking in consideration that the wahhabis have had no weapons in Kosova, they
cannot be considered as a threatening force and thus they cannot pose a threat to the
national security in Kosova, as people like Primor claim. “The wahhabi movement has
no weaponry to attack”, says one of wahhabi movement recruits, “but some
individuals have only guns so they can defend themselves, because the people here in
Kosova started not to like our movement, and some of them turn violent against us” 6.
The rise of heavy weaponry by a group in the country is a threat to that country’s
peace and security, to the country’s national security, but as there are no official
indications of the rise of armed movement, we cannot say that there is a threat to
Kosova’s national security. As far as the political leadership in Kosova is concerned,
they also are against totalitarian influence of foreign movements. In his niographical
book, Ramush Haradinaj, former commander of the Kosova Liberation Army, and at the
same time former prime minister of Kosova, wrote that during the war there were
about 20 non-Albanian fighters and some of them became martyrs, but although there
were offers from the Saudi’s to help the KLA at war, they didn’t accept them (Haradinaj
and Hamzaj 2000). This shows how the leaders in Kosova are not linked with the
6
Wahabi movement member from 2003, identity classified. Contacted in 2008 by myself. Unpublished interview.
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wahhabis. The political elite also declared several times that there is no need of new
mosques in Kosova, but the people in Kosova are in need of employment and schools.
In the year 2000 the wahhabis, after recruiting enough local people, started to
show their ugly but real faces. “Their first purpose”, says an ex-wahabi that I
interviewed “is to wipe the Ottoman heritage in the Balkans”. And this is why in 2000
they started destroying mosques that were hundreds years old, and also the
graveyards, that according to the wahhabist ideology is a sin to have gravestone in
Muslim graves. They also destroyed libraries in Gjakova and Prizren. They claimed
that NATO and the UN don’t stop them and they gave them permission to do this, so
the locals cannot do anything. This became like a paradox; whether the peacekeeping
forces were motivating them so there will be inner conflicts in Kosova; or fighting the
inner conflicts. This article is not enough to discuss this paradox, and a wide research
on this issue would be of high interest. This continued until August 5, 2000, when a
group of intellectuals, leaded by Gazmend Naka, an expert with the Institution of
Protection of Kosova Monuments, made pressure on NATO and UN troops to guard the
monuments of Islamic heritage, as they were guarding the monuments with orthodox
motives, by putting 24 hour watch near those monuments. In the beginning this was
rejected, but when they saw the concern of the population they accepted this and
started guarding these monuments (Schwartz 2003: 200).
Some authors argue that the March 2003 riots in Kosova, where a lot of Serbian
Orthodox churches were burnt, was a remark of the Islamic fundamentalism in
Kosova7. I totally disagree with this, as the riots started with the provocation of Serbian
paramilitary groups’ and the “bridge watchers”, who drowned 3 small children in the
Iber River in Mitrovica, a city divided in two, with a Serbian enclave. Afterwards in
another enclave near to the capital of Kosova, Prishtina, the Serbs started firing with
arms and injuring the local Albanians. The Albanians not allowed to fire back, by the
peacekeeping forces, went into streets and started rioting. It was true that they burnt
some Serbian orthodox churches, but they did this because those were the only
Serbian symbols they can take their anger off, but that had to do nothing with the
Islamic vandalism.
The skeptics also say that the wahhabis have weapon capabilities in Kosova. A
group of 15 wahhabi members was arrested in Serbia in March 2007, and on January
14, 2008, was their hearing8. The interesting thing is that only one of them is an
Albanian, unknown if he is from Kosova or Albania, and all 14 others are from Bosnia.
The Serbian police, that arrested them in the Serbian province of Novi Pazar, said they
7
Beta Press. http://www.beta-press.com/eng12.html, last accessed at 07 November 2009.
8
Express. Daily newspaper in Kosova. http://www.gazetaexpress.com/web/images/pdf/pdf011408.pdf. Last accessed 07
November 2009.
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Erdoan A. Shipoli
found heavy weaponry, like bombs and grenades9. But, they showed no evidence on
what they found, and this makes it just another propaganda of Serbia. An ex-wahhabi
member, on my question about the possibility of weaponry in the wahhabi movement,
said, “there are no such weapons among the wahhabis. They say that they have ties
with some al-Qaeda members but those are just to scare people and make chaos,
what I saw for two years during my stay with them in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosova,
and Macedonia, had nothing to do with high capability of weaponry”
Conclusion
The rise of the wahhabism in Kosova happened because of the bad economic and
social conditions of the people after the war, and the wahhabis have utilized this
window of opportunity so that they have worked on it for several years. In Kosova the
wahhabis were not welcomed to take part in the war. They have no political power,
and the leaders of the political and religious institutions of Kosova are against them, so
they have nowhere they can rely on.
Right now there is no threat from them, either as an ideology or as a force. Taking
in consideration that the wahhabis have no weaponry force, they never posed a direct
security threat to Kosova. As an ideology, it could in time, but not now. For a threat
there are some elements needed: military force, political force, or ideological force.
The first two are the ones that wahhabis in Kosova never had, whereas the third one is
something that brought the rise of wahhabism, but with the decline of that force, the
movement’s influence also declined.
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