Kosovo's top Islamic leader asks local Muslims for support

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April 27, 2007
BY NIRAJ WARIKOO
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER

The top Islamic leader of Kosovo spoke to Muslims in metro Detroit today, asking them to support the independence of his province.

Mufti Naim Ternava, president of the Islamic Community of Kosovo, is in Michigan as part of a visit to the U.S. to garner support for making Kosovo an independent country. The Muslim-majority province is currently a part of Serbia.

"Pray for the independence of Kosovo," Ternava said through a translator during the Friday sermon to about two hundred Muslims at the Muslim Center of Detroit on Davison Ave. "Thousands of miles away from here, there are Muslim brothers in Kosovo who suffered for many, many years and who are close religious brothers with you."

Critics of Kosovo's independence worry that Kosovo would be a hotbed of extremism if it became a separate country, but Ternava and his assistant said that Kosovo's Muslim community is tolerant and modern.

Ternava also spoke with Muslims at the Southfield office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations and at the Albanian Islamic Center in Harper Woods. (MORE)