Montenegrin cleric: Turkey is engine of Muslim world

BELGRADE, Serbia

Turkey is the pioneer of Muslims, and Turkey showed its greatness last week by facing down a bloody coup attempt, said Rifat Fejzic, head of the Islamic Union of Montenegro, Thursday.

"Turkey is not only important for Turkish citizens," said Fejzic. “I believe that Turkey is an important country for the Muslim Ummah [community]. I believe that prayers aid in this process. I believe that it has Allah's great blessings. Muslims will pray even more for Turkey's state and people. Turkish people showed how great they are on the night of July 15,” when the coup was launched and quickly defeated.

Fejzic also said the night of the coup attempt they held prayers at all mosques in Montenegro for Allah's help and then the day after, they held prayers to thank Allah for the coup’s failure.

"Turks are a great nation with great traditions and they showed that during the failed military coup attempt. Being against the elected government and the president is the same as being against the people of that country," said Fejzic.

The Islamic Union of Montenegro on Friday will hold memorial services at all mosques in the country for the people martyred last week in the coup.

Independent from Serbia for just over 10 years, Montenegro’s second-largest religion is Islam, with 19 percent of the country’s nearly 700,000 population, behind Orthodox Christianity.

Also speaking with Anadolu Agency, Islamic Community in Serbia head Sead Nasufovic said that Turkey is a great country which has the power to deal with such problems as the coup, and that he had no doubts from the first moment.

"[President] Recep Tayyip Erdogan is a great statesman, a wise man, just a leader, a man who was democratically elected, so this must be respected,” he said. “There is no way, other than democratically through voting, if someone has a stance against what he represents, what he does, then there are elections.

"We believe that Turkey after the coup attempt will be stronger, and wiser, than it was before this," said Nasufovic.

Muslims are Serbia’s third-largest religious group, with 3 percent of its about 7 million population.