|
 |
|
Shilhavy (L) is seen
by the Muslim
minority in today's
Czech Republic as a
glorious page in the
country's history.
|
BRNO —
Another glorious page of
Islam's history in the Czech
Republic has been turned
with the 90th birthday of
one of the bedrocks of the
Muslim faith in the central
European country, Mohammed
Ali Shilhavy.
"For Czech
Muslims, Shilhavy is like a
bridge linking between two
different eras," Munib Al-Rawi,
the head of the Islamic Waqf
Authority, told
IslamOnline.net on Saturday,
November 24.
"He has taken
the responsibility of
documenting the Muslim
presence in (former)
Czechoslovakia since the
World War II."
Shilhavy was
born on November 17, 1917,
in a village in the Czech
city of Trebic.
He first came
in touch with Islam at
secondary school.
"I saw a
translation of the meanings
of the Noble Qur'an into
Czech at a library nearby,"
Shilhavy recalled in an
interview with IOL.
The
enthusiastic young man did
not think twice and bought
the book.
"The vendor
thought that I chose the
book by mistake as most
people at the time knew
nothing about Islam and
Muslim," he said, laughing.
In 1934,
Shilhavy felt a great
penchant towards the new
religion.
The
establishment of the Al-Gamaa
al-Islamiya of
Czechoslovakia at the time
was a watermark in his life.
Shilhavy came
in close touch with the
group until he reverted to
Islam in 1937 at the young
age of 20 and changed his
first name to Mohammed Ali.
The following
year, he travelled to Egypt
to study at Al-Azhar
University, the highest seat
of learning in the Sunni
Muslim world, becoming the
first Czech Muslim to study
at an Islamic university.
But soon, he
returned to former
Czechoslovakia after the
Nazi occupied the country in
1938, fearing for his
family.
He was not
allowed by German occupation
troops to leave for Egypt to
pursue his studies.
Afterwards, he enrolled at a
university at his hometown
of Brno and studied
chemistry.
Living at the
heart of communism, Shilhavy
had nevertheless developed
an impressive Islamic
identity and raised his two
daughters like model
Muslims.
His home was
like a small mosque with a
mihrab (a niche in the wall
of a mosque that indicates
the Qiblah) carved at the
living room, traditional
prayer mates and Islamic
masterpieces folios of
Qur'an.
Making
History
Shilhavy is
seen by the Muslim minority
in today's Czech Republic as
a glorious page in the
country's history.
It was primarily thanks to
his enormous contributions
to Islam and Muslims in the
non-religious central
European country.
In 1990, Shilhavy wrote to
the Czech government and the
Foreign Ministry demanding a
state recognition of Islam.
A year later,
he revived the Al-Gamaa al-Islamiya
of Czechoslovakia.
In 1992,
Shilhavy was elected the
head of the Islamic Union in
the capital Prague.
He had
championed efforts to reform
the Islamic Union following
the collapse of the
communist rule in the
country and the peaceful
split of the republic into
the Czech Republic and
Slovakia in January 1993.
Shilhavy has
also played a prominent role
in getting a state
permission to build the
first mosque in Brno, the
Czech Republic's second
largest city.
The mosque at
last opened in 1998 after
several years of campaigning
by Shilhavy, who stood up to
considerable opposition from
right-wingers, communists
and even local Islamophobes.
Shilhavy had
translated many books about
Islam into Czech, including
Islam Between the East and
the West and What is Islam?
The Czech
Republic is home to around
50,000 Muslims.
There are
only two mosques in Prague
and Brno in addition to
several small prayers rooms.
In 2004, Czech Muslims won
official recognition of
Islam. |
