page_title: Islam in Croatia
section_title: Since the nineteenth century
hierarchical_section_title: Islam in Croatia / History / Since the nineteenth century
caption_attribution_description: Hrvatski: Zagrebačka džamija English: Mosque in Zagreb
context_page_description: Islam is the second-largest faith in Croatia after Christianity. The religion is followed by 1.47% of the country's population according to the 2011 census, compared to 91.06% Christians and 4.57% not religious, atheists, agnostics and sceptics.
  Islam was first introduced to Croatia by the Ottoman Empire during the Croatian–Ottoman Wars that lasted from 15th to 16th century. During this period some parts of the Croatian Kingdom were occupied which resulted in numerous Croats converting to Islam, some after being taken prisoners of war, some through the devşirme system. Nonetheless, Croats strongly fought against the Turks during these few centuries which resulted in the fact that the westernmost border of the Ottoman Empire in Europe became entrenched on the Croatian soil. In 1519, Croatia was called the Antemurale Christianitatis by Pope Leo X.
  The Islamic Community of Croatia is the main organization of Muslims in Croatia that is officially recognized by the state. The President of the Islamic Community is Aziz Effendi Hasanović.
  As of 2011, 62,977 Muslims live in Croatia.
context_section_description: Within the territory of the present Republic of Croatia, Muslim believers were registered for the first time during the 1931 census: 1,239 of them were in Zagreb and their overall number in Croatia being only about 4000.
  During the Second World War the mufti of Zagreb was Ismet Muftić. After the war he was tried and eventually publicly hanged by the Partisans in 1945 because of his collaboration with the fascist regime of the Croatian WWII dictator Ante Pavelić.
  In the following censuses in the People's Republic of Croatia, registered Muslim believers numbered as follows:
  1,077 persons in 1948
  16,185 persons in 1953
  3,113 persons in 1961
  18,487 persons in 1971
  23,740 persons in 1981
  43,486 persons in 1991
  In the 1960s, the Bosnians Muslims community advocated for the recognition of the Bosniaks as a nationality in SFR Yugoslavia. The 1974 Yugoslav Constitution allowed for the official recognition of the Muslims as a nationality, therefore allowing more individuals to declare their alignment with a compromise categorization of Muslims by nationality (Muslimani), in this case separated from a religious basis (muslimani without capital letter). For example, Džemal Bijedić, a communist federal prime-minister was a declared "Muslim" and an atheist. The spike in the number of self-declared "Muslims" during socialist Yugoslavia times should thus be understood as persons having a family Muslim cultural background (similar to the concept of cultural Christians), rather than practicing believers in Islam.
  Based on the figures recorded during the 1931 to 1961 census, it may also be concluded that a certain number of Muslim believers declared themselves as Croats or Yugoslavs.
  After the dissolution of Yugoslavia, an additional increase can be attributed to the influx of Bosnian Muslims that took place during and after the 1992-1996 Bosnian conflict.
  The 2001 Croatian census identified a total of 56,777 adherents of Islam, or 1.3% of the total population of Croatia. The following ethnic groups were presumed to be significantly Muslim:
  20,755 Bosniaks (who are Slavic Muslims)
  19,677 continued to use the Yugoslav term Muslims as a nationality (who are also Slavic Muslims)
  Turks: 300 (0.01%)
  A remainder of 16,345 individuals who declared themselves some other nationality, possibly Croats, Albanians (15,082 or 0.34%) and Roma (9,463 or 0.21%).
caption: Zagreb Mosque was completed in 1987.
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