THE NEWEST NATIONS - MUSLIMS ; MONTENEGRINS AND MACEDONIANS .sx The Muslims .sx The term 'Muslim' in Yugoslavia is used to describe descendants of Slavs who converted to Islam under the period of Ottoman rule .sx Since 1971 , they have been officially recognized as a distinct 'Yugoslav Nation' who make up about 9% of the population , mostly in Bosnia-Hercegovina where they are the largest single group constituting 39% of the population .sx They also constitute some 13.4% of Montenegro's small population .sx Although the overwhelming majority of Muslims speak Serbo-Croat there are some 40,000 or so Macedonian-speaking Muslims , often called Pomaks .sx These are descendants of Macedonians , as opposed to Serbs or Croats , who converted during the Ottoman period .sx Their inclusion in the term is something of an anomaly and they have been treated separately ( see section on Muslim Macedonians) .sx It should be stressed that the term 'Muslim' does not refer to the Albanian , largely Muslim , or Turkish , wholly Muslim , minorities .sx After the collapse of the Ottoman Empire , the Muslim Slavs , faced by pressure from both Serbs and Croats , organized themselves into a political force , the National Muslim Organization , which sought to protect both the religious and cultural life of the community as well as the interests of the Bosnian elite which had been islamicized in the 15th and 16th Centuries sic !sx and which were the driving force behind the organization .sx It was not persecuted by the Habsburg authorities who controlled Bosnia-Hercegovina but fell after 1878 .sx After the creation of the new state in 1918 , it tended to side with those who would help defend its rights , and avoided outright opposition to the authorities .sx Increasingly , it looked to the Croats .sx After World War II and the communist victory , there was considerable emigration of Muslim Slavs from Bosnia and especially from the Sandzak region of southern Serbia which lasted until 1966 .sx This was in no small part due to the initially hostile attitude of the new authorities .sx The Islamic community in Yugoslavia is divided into four administrative regions :sx the Sarajevo region , which ministers to the Muslims of Bosnia-Hercegovina and the small numbers of Muslims in Croatia and Slovenia ; the Pristina Region ; the Skopje Region ; and the Titograd Region .sx The head of the Islamic community in Yugoslavia , the Reis-ul - ulema , is based in Sarajevo .sx Immediately after Tito's death , there were in the Sarajevo region over 1000 mosques , over 550 mesdzids ( smaller places of worship ) , some 400 places of religious instruction , and two madressahs ( religious schools) .sx The numbers sic !sx of mosques has since grown considerably due to the large scale building programme undertaken by the Islamic community .sx There are a number of Islamic publications of which the most important is Preporod , a fortnightly newspaper published in Sarajevo in Serbo-Croat .sx However , unlike its Orthodox and Roman Catholic counterparts , Pravoslavlje and Glas Koncila , Preporod has avoided controversial social or political comment .sx The Muslims are overwhelmingly Sunni , although the Dervish order was introduced in Yugoslavia in 1974 and by 1986 numbered 50,000 followers .sx This order has so far proved to be more attractive to Muslim Albanians than Muslim Slavs with , in 1986 , 53 of the 70 'monasteries' being in Kosovo , 10 in Macedonia and only seven in Bosnia .sx The area of Bosnia-Hercegovina was the scene of many of the worst atrocities committed during the civil war in World War II , and the ethnic mix of Orthodox Serbs , Catholic Croats and Muslim Slavs has historically been an explosive one with both Serbia and Croatia claiming the territory for their own .sx In addition , immediately after the war , an organization called 'Young Muslims' was set up , ostensibly to protect Muslims in Bosnia from alleged ill-treatment by the communist partisans .sx The Yugoslav authorities outlawed this group which they described as a terrorist one .sx The republic of Bosnia-Hercegovina , which was created specifically to find some form of modus vivendi for the three main groups , well portrays the ethnic tangle in Yugoslavia as it is here that the three main religions meet head on .sx In the Balkans , religion has historically been one of the main differentiators between different peoples .sx In the light of this , and the tendency for both Serbs and Croats to claim the Muslim Slavs of Bosnia as their own , the separate 'Muslim' category was introduced .sx The ethnic tangle and competing rivalries resulted , until recently , in Bosnia being somewhat notorious in the matter of human rights , with individuals from all three ethnic groups persecuted for any manifestation of nationalism not sanctioned by the ruling Communist Party .sx Despite religious freedom guaranteed under the constitution , religious practice , with its close correlation with a particular national standpoint , has often been viewed with official distrust ( especially Roman Catholicism due to its centre of authority being outside the country) .sx This has especially been so in Bosnia-Hercegovina and in Croatia .sx Also , any form of Islamic fundamentalism has , until the great changes in 1989-90 , been severely treated as being a party to a conspiracy to make Bosnia-Hercegovina an 'ethnically pure Islamic Republic' .sx The trial of 'the Sarajevo Muslims' .sx The most important example of this attitude by the communist authorities was the trial in mid-1983 of 13 Muslims accused of " hostile and counterrevolutionary acts derived from Muslim nationalism " .sx The main defendant was Dr. Alija Izetbegovic , a lawyer and retired director of a building company , then aged 59 .sx He was found guilty by the Sarajevo district court and sentenced to 14 years' imprisonment , reduced on appeal to 11 years .sx Four of the 13 on trial , Dr. Izetbegovic , Omer and Salih Behmen , and Ismet Kasumagic , had been convicted in the late 1940s for membership of the 'Young Muslims' .sx In the indictment Dr. Izetbegovic was accused of claiming that Muslims had suffered considerably at the hands of communists when the partisans entered their villages at the end of World War II and that the Young Muslims and other similar organizations were set up to counter this .sx The main charge centred on a 50-page treatise written by Dr. Izetbegovic in 1970 entitled 'The Islamic Declaration .sx ' Parts of this treatise had been legally published in Yugoslavia some 10 years previously .sx The prosecution maintained that it indicated a desire to create an ethnically pure Muslim state out of Bosnia-Hercegovina , Kosovo and other Muslim areas , and was " the modernized platform of the former terrorist organization , the Young Muslims " .sx Dr. Izetbegovic and Omer Behmen , however , stressed that the Islamic Declaration was concerned with the general emancipation of Muslims , not with Yugoslavia and Bosnia in particular , and that it was meant to apply to countries where the overwhelming majority of the population was Muslim .sx He also maintained that he had never uttered the phrase " Islamic republic , ethnically pure Bosnia-Hercegovina " and pointed out that it did not feature in the declaration .sx He stated that he had given the declaration to Omer Behmen and some Arab students in order to get their opinion of it and that he had it translated because he felt that " the Muslim world was turning into a third world power .sx .. the declaration offers the vision of a democratic and humanistic social order " .sx He denied that there was any link between the declaration and the programme of the Young Muslims .sx Dr. Izetbegovic and Omer Behmen were accused also of having written articles which , according to the prosecution , contained falsehoods about the position of Muslims in Yugoslavia including the following :sx " In the circumstances of the Second World War the partisans emerged .sx They were in effect armed detachments of the Yugoslav Communist Party which was imposing communist order in Yugoslavia step by step .sx While the physical survival of the Muslims was no longer in question , spiritual survival was now threatened .sx The Islamic Religious Community was placed under the control of the authorities .sx Supporters of the Communist Party and often even members of the Communist Party were appointed leaders of the community .sx The most severe losses were inflicted at the time by the Communists on the Muslims when military units entered villages .sx All potential opponents , mainly people of higher social standing and intellectuals known to be [Muslim] believers , were simply put to death without any judicial proceedings or investigation .sx " .sx Members of the group were also accused of having links with Iran , and one defendant , Melika Salihbegovic , was accused of having written a letter to Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran which included the following statement :sx " For 37 years I have been living in a Christian milieu and in atheist Europe , where a handful of scared Muslims live in an atmosphere of falsehood and hypocrisy .sx It is no wonder therefore that my youth and that of thousands of my young compatriots was spent straying along paths of ignorance ; it is no wonder that we are returning to Allah .sx If we are submissive , it is our despair .sx .. " .sx Although the percentage of religious believers in Bosnia-Hercegovina was not particularly high - at 17% it was lower than Kosovo's 44% , Croatia's 33% , Slovenia's 26% and Macedonia's 19% - in an opinion poll in 1985 , the attitudes expressed by the 'Sarajevo Muslims' for which they were so heavily penalized , appears to have elicited strong support from the Muslim population in Bosnia-Hercegovina .sx Alija Izetbegovic was released early in November 1988 and when the relaxation came to Bosnia-Hercegovina , as it came to other republics , he founded in May 1990 the Party of Democratic Action ( SDA) .sx Despite a split in the leadership of the SDA between Izetbegovic and Adil Zulfikarpasic ( a former leading figure of the emigre Muslim community who returned to Yugoslavia but who fell out with Izetbegovic over what he saw as the latter's " too rigid Islamic approach " and instead founded a rival party , the Muslim Bosniak Organization on 21 September 1990 ) , the SDA triumphed in the elections held December 1990 and became the largest party with 86 of the 240 seats in both chambers of the assembly .sx The voting was along national lines with 72 seats for the Serbian Democratic Party and 44 for the Croatian Democratic Community .sx In all there were 99 Muslims , 85 Serbs , 49 Croats and seven declaring themselves as 'Yugoslavs' in the new assembly .sx Alija Izetbegovic , similarly to Franjo Tudjman in Croatia , had progressed from being a political prisoner under the old regime to being president of the republic .sx This republic , however , is still a long way from becoming 'an Islamic Republic' , even if that is what Izetbegovic wants ( which is debatable) .sx Despite much paranoia among some politicians and members of other religious groups in Yugoslavia about the growth of Islam in the country , a leading sociologist specializing in the sociology of religion claims that statistical data disproves this common fear , and that in fact , in relation to the country's population , the percentage of Muslim believers in Yugoslavia is the same as it was in 1921 .sx The difference is in the growing politicization of Muslims , not only in Bosnia-Hercegovina but also in the Sandzak where they are in a majority and where there are growing demands for autonomy .sx Sulejman Ugljanin , President of the SDA for the Sandzak , in February 1991 accused the Serb and Montenegrin authorities of denying rights to Muslims and tension appears to be growing .sx The potential break-up of Yugoslavia poses great problems for Bosnia-Hercegovina , and the old question of 'who are the Bosnian Muslims ?sx ' appears to be as alive as ever .sx In 1989 , a small Zagreb publishing house brought out a 'Bibliography of Croatian Writers of Bosnia-Hercegovina between the Two Wars' which included a number of Muslims as 'Croatian writers' .sx The Muslims were outraged and Preporod denounced the apparent Croatization of 38 Muslim writers .sx In addition there is the age-old habit of Islam at times transcending national divisions .sx Slav Muslims in Montenegro joined in an electoral party with Albanians in the 1990 elections there and the SDA appears sympathetic to the aspirations of fellow Muslim Albanians in Kosovo .sx Similarly , in February 1990 , Muslim nationalist leaflets supporting Kosovo's secession and attacking the Serb leader Slobodan Milosevic appeared in Novi Pazar in the Sandzak .sx Further hostility between Slav Muslims and Serbs was evident at a rally held by Vuk Draskovic's Serbian Renewal Movement ( SPO ) in September 1990 in Novi Pazar , in the Sandjak sic !sx , Serbia , when Muslims and SPO supporters had to be separated by militia with armoured cars , tear gas and shots after Draskovic accused Muslims of being closer to Tehran than to their Serb neighbours .sx