RELATIONSHIP OF THE ISLAMIC COMMUNITY IN THE SOCIALIST YUGOSLAVIA TOWARDS THE PUBLISHING ACTIVITY AS A MODERN METHOD OF INFORMATION
Authors: Novaković Dragan 
Published: November 2021

The analysis concerned indicates that the publication activity deployed by he Islamic Comunity has obtained the remarquable results. They had begun rather modestly and cautiously, under permanent consultations with various state and ideological commissions, to print basic religious literature, caracterised by the oldfashioned subjects and poor graphic presentation. Making use of all the liberal phases of social development of the period conerned, the management of the Islamic Community kept gradually getting out of the control in the publication fi eld of activity. The institutional shaping up of the Nonaligned Nations Movement had controbuted thereto, as well as the changed foreign policy orientation of the country and good relations Yugoslavia had established with the majority of Islamic countries. The personnel educated at the best Islamic Universities, had begun promoting new standards in that fi eld upon their return to the country, characterised by setting deeper Islamic foundations to all the subjects under study, by eff orts to study the actual problems in an inter-disciplinary way, as well as by the modern marketing access thereto, all of the same having for a goal the books to reach the end user – the ordinary believers. Following up this new strategy, the Islamic Comminity within the FRY, becomes marked by the end of this period. by publication of a larger number of the good quality books, which developed, thanks to the renowned authors, the way of presentation of their material, their actuality and modern graphic design, into the irreplaceable material for all the interested to get acquainted with the up-to-date achievements of the Islamic theology and with the attitude of the Islamic scientists concerning various actual problems or the history of this great religion. After having successfully overcome the opposition from the offi cial state authorities and solved certain organisational and proff essional problems, the holy Islamic book of Koran, was translated into the Srbo-Croatian language. Upon publication of the fi rst edition thereof, all state interefrence had ceased, due to the then adopted attitude than the Islamic believers were entitled to their own copy thereof and the Islamic Community, in its capacity of their representative, was entitled to organise both the printing and distribution of the Koran. Translation of the Koran into the Albanian language meant the achievement of a strategic goal in addition to the religious and cultural one, because in such a way the second largest group of the Islamic believers in Europe, had got the possibility to get acquainted with the basic and binding principles of their faith in their mother tongue. A large number of various newspapers and magasines have been started thanks to the great eff orts deployed by all the Islamic Community structures. In time, the editorial offi ces and journalists they employed, had acquaired the necessary experience, and thanks to the decisions and subsidiaries from the Republican offi cials and to the activities of the members of the Ulema (Islamic religious institution) at the fi eld, all these newspapers and magasines achieved a high number of copies according to the criteria of that period. By their devoted work within the Djemat (Religious Committee), the immams had succeeded to attain the goals, previously by the supreme bodies within the Islamic Community in Yugoslavia, i.e. that every Muslem house should prosess a copy of an Islamic newspaper. By way of making them reading only this sort of the press, edited by the persons under direct control and infl uence of the top people from the religious institutions, the conditions had been created to estrange the Islamic believers in a very large measure, from the multinational and multi-religious environment in which they lived.