Doctor Nura Bazdulj-Hubijarwho has published a number of novels, poems and plays, in an interview with Radio Free Europe criticizes public iftars in Bosnia and Herzegovina that gather thousands of people, claiming that it is hypocritical.
It is, as he states, the tendency of political elites to occupy people with religion and nationalism. She also criticizes religious leaders, who, like the former president, wear Armani suits, even though the true believers are contrite, and the majority of citizens are waiting for macaroni in the queues of public kitchens.
In the last one columns you criticized all those who have been breaking the fast in public places for a month, claiming that this was not the case before, and that these are the masses who are not the most humble believers, because they cannot afford the most modest meal.
I stand behind every word I wrote, because fasting is much more complex than simply giving up food and water. In this time when faith has infiltrated every pore of our lives, everything has become distorted and somehow everything seems hypocritical to me. I imagine a believer and a fasting person as someone contrite, modest, unobtrusive, and we are witnessing that everything is the other way around.
I’ve been on Facebook for years and I’m irritated by the pictures of collective iftars where the tables are overflowing with food and drink, and we witness how many people are in the queues of the public kitchen and can’t get a piece of macaroni. Isn’t that hypocritical? And the question is how many are fasting and how many are not.
There are no measures in anything with us and everything looks like cheap politicking to me. Our ruling structures have a tendency to occupy people with religion and nationalism, in order not to divert the attention of this unfortunate nation from elementary problems that concern us all.
In your opinion, to what extent, in addition to politicians, did representatives of religious communities contribute to this, in this case the Islamic religious community, which, to the greatest extent, is behind mass iftars, such as the last one in Tuzla, where there were several thousand people.
They are largely to blame, in fact, we are some “sheep” that the shepherd is chasing. Those religious leaders should be repentant, and then I remember the former reis (Mustafa Cerić, op.a.) who wore Armani suits and who is now reis emeritus, which I have never heard that a reis can be, and when he speaks, he shouts like a dictator. Where is godliness and modesty, and by their example they should show us what a true believer looks like. And they look like everyone, except a true believer.
I learned from your column that you used to fast, but because of the hypocrisy you are talking about, you say that you don’t fast now.
I don’t know if it’s a sin not to fast, or if it’s a sin to say it publicly? It just means that I am not a hypocrite, I am who I am. At work, my colleagues used to come to the doctor’s office to light a cigarette and tell me how they were hiding, because they told everyone to fast. I cannot and have never been a hypocrite. For years, the mufti of Travnica sent me invitations for Eid lunch, which I never went to.
When he once met me on the street and asked why I didn’t come, I told him that I wasn’t coming because I wasn’t fasting. While I prayed and fasted, my generation had red party cards and declared themselves atheists. These same people are now imposing themselves as great believers, saying hello from one side of the street to the other and swearing by Allah.
When you mention the Eid lunch, it has been a practice for years that after the month of Ramadan, Eid is marked with gunfire, that is, those who have fasted go to restaurants and bars to make up for that month. How do you comment on that?
And that is hypocrisy, because it is illogical to say in the month of Ramadan that one should do good, forgive, and it is normal for this to be a pattern of life in every month, not the month of Ramadan. If I were to ask myself something, I would distribute the huge amount of money that is given for public iftars to people who are hungry and thirsty and who fast even without Ramadan. I also think that with God it would be more discreet than fasting itself. Here is an example of doctors, some of whom I believe are fasting. That same doctor will take money from a patient that he may have borrowed. So why the post?
Does this mean that everyone interprets the faith as it suits them?
Exactly. On one occasion, I watched a hafiz on television who said a hadith that I had never heard of, even though I come from a real Muslim family. I will paraphrase it – there will come a time when it will be forbidden to fast and the mosques will be empty and there will be many believers, and there will come a time when everyone will fast and the mosques will be crowded and there will be no believers. It scares me to say that that time is getting closer.
You said that politicians manipulate citizens and turn them into “sheep”, but a few days ago Miljenko Jergović published a column in which he compares former iftars with today’s and is exposed to various negative comments on social networks. Are you also afraid of such comments?
I’m not afraid of anything. Actually, I expect them, but I’m also sure that there are a lot of people who think the same way as I do, and I think that, as time goes by, there will be more and more of them. No one can think anything of me, neither as a doctor who has worked for 40 years, nor as a patriot, that they are more patriots and believers than me. Everything I do, I do for myself, and I want to remain consistent with one thing, and that is to live and die as a man.
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