Džemaludin Čaušević

Mehmed Džemaludin Čaušević (1870 to 1938) was a Bosnian Muslim cleric, educator, reformer, journalist and translator who served as Grand Mufti of Bosnia and Herzegovina from 1914 to 1930. Born in the village of Arapuša near Bosanska Krupa, he studied at the madrasa in Bihać and then in Constantinople, where he also graduated from the imperial law school, and he attended lectures of Muhammad Abduh in Cairo. Returning to Sarajevo in 1901 he taught Arabic at the Great Gymnasium, joined the managing council of the Islamic Community, where he was responsible for inspecting the country's maktabs and madrasas, and from 1909 was a professor at the Sharia school for higher Islamic learning. His reform programme rested on the printing press, calls for educational reform and the claim that knowledge always triumphs over ignorance, and he translated the Quran into Croatian with Hafiz Muhamed Pandža. He resigned as Grand Mufti in 1930 after disagreements with the Yugoslav government over waqf administration and religious appointments.