What effect are faith-based NGOs having on religion and society in Kosovo? What are the possible consequences of leaving the provision of services in rural Kosovo to Saudi-funded religious organisations? This paper from the Kosovar Institute for Policy Research and Development (KIPRED) examines the activities of Saudi-funded faith-based organisations in Kosovo. It argues that the international community, by neglecting rural areas of Kosovo, is enabling these organisations to promote an intolerant and divisive brand of Islam.
When offered alternative provision of services, Kosovar Albanians will reject efforts by faith-based organisations to promote intolerant and divisive religious doctrines. Western policies, however, have left Kosovo’s rural communities at the mercy of faith-based organisations which exploit poverty and social fragmentation to promote religious fundamentalism. As a result, Kosovo’s Muslims are susceptible to worldviews that are hostile to Europe and the West and reinforced by Western neglect and hostility. Unless the international community pays immediate attention to providing alternatives for Kosovo’s rural communities, it risks enabling the ‘Talibanisation’ of Kosovar Albanians.
Islam as traditionally practiced amongst Albanians is a fusion of spiritual traditions, which has promoted tolerance and harmony between different religious groups within communities. Traditional practices remained largely intact in rural Kosovo despite the Yugoslav state’s attempts to suppress them from 1945 to 1999. Kosovo’s indigenous Islamic tradition is now being challenged by faith-based organisations promoting an intolerant religious doctrine which could foster sectarianism and undermine regional stability:
- The Wahhabi form of Islam promoted by Saudi-funded NGOs is intolerant of both non-Muslims and of Muslims adhering to forms of Islam other than Wahhabism. Advocates of Wahhabism claim that Kosovo never learned ‘true’ Islam.
- The Saudi Joint Committee for the Relief of Kosovo and Chechnya (SJCRKC) umbrella organisation has monopolised the provision of food, healthcare and education to rural Kosovo. This provides a captive audience for Saudi proselytising.
- The Islamic Endowment Foundation (IEF), operating under the umbrella of the SJCRKC, supports over 30 Koranic schools in rural Kosovo. Locals complain that these schools teach pupils little more than memorisation of the Koran.
- The SJCRKC has built 98 primary and secondary schools throughout rural Kosovo. These schools are helping to create a generation of Albanian Muslims who are deeply intolerant of those whose opinions contradict their religious training.
- Several incidents have occurred in which Wahhabi-trained Albanians have disrupted community meetings, intimidating those who do not subscribe to their doctrine.
The international community could counter the spread of the intolerant and divisive brand of Islam promoted by Saudi-funded faith-based organisations by:
- encouraging efforts to study and celebrate the ethnic and cultural diversity of Kosovo’s past;
- imposing an immediate regulatory regime to control all faith-based ‘charity’ organisations and establishing a rigorous screening process for individuals entering Kosovo;
- providing immediate investment in rural education, in order to build more schools, retrain teachers and grant scholarships to students to commute to larger schools;
- strengthening local religious organisations in order to resurrect indigenous traditions and the religious diversity and tolerance of Kosovo’s past;
- promoting the republication of religious texts written by Albanians, helping to refute Wahhabi claims about Islam in Albania; and,
- attempting to resurrect Catholic traditions in Kosovo.
