ZAGREB MOSQUE - Islamska zajednica u Hrvatskoj

12 12 13 tion accorded to other faiths,
and also the possibility of establishing
religious communities
with a close connection
with those in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
This Croatian law of
1916 represents, together with
the Austrian act of 1912, the
oldest recorded recognition
of Islam in Europe outside
an area controlled for centuries
by the Ottoman Empire.
At the beginning of the First
World War, a great many Muslim
soldiers from Bosnia and
Herzegovina were conscripted
in various Austro-Hungarian
military units. Pre-dating legal
recognition of Islam, The Impe-
rial and Royal Islam Military
Spiritual Tutorship in Zagreb
was founded in 1915 for the
spiritual needs of Muslim soldiers
and citizens. This was the
first local Islamic institution at
the head of which presided a
military imam among whose
duties was to register the death
of Muslim soldiers and citizens
until the end of the First
World War, and who taught the
Islamic faith to Muslim youth
in Zagreb schools.
After the establishment of
the new state of the Serbs, Croats
and Slovenes, which was
later called Yugoslavia, a new
wave of Muslim immigrants
A century of the legal recognition of Islam in Croatia The first mesdžid (small mosque) in Zagreb was opened in 1935