Fissures in Balkan Islam

"We, and our foreign colleagues also, don't consider Macedonia a terrorist target," says one Macedonian intelligence officer, speaking on the condition of anonymity. "We are more worried about being used as a logistics or recruitment base for attacks in the West. We are monitoring some of these Wahhabis closely."

Adding that Al Qaeda has financial links with local crime gangs, Mr. Moniquet in 2004 accused the most powerful Muslim in Skopje, Zenun Berisha, of supporting "very radical Islam." As chief mufti of Macedonia's capital, Mr. Berisha staffed mosques and the Macedonia Islamic Community (IVZ) administration with fundamentalists.

And because his followers still partially control IVZ funds, imams such as Abdurahim Yashari, who "refused to worship Zenun Berisha," haven't been paid in years. A former interior minister, Pavle Trajanov, who worked with Berisha in the late 1990s, insists, however, that Moniquet's allegations against Berisha were "propaganda" by ethnic Albanian political rivals.

Last summer, an armed attack on moderate clerics - which the clerics blamed on those close to Berisha - shook the IVZ leadership. However, political pressure from the major ethnic Albanian parties helped restore order, and last week Acting Mufti Taxhedin Bislimi won a commanding victory in a preliminary election round. Mr. Berisha withdrew just before the voting.

Mr. Bislimi, who was among the clerics attacked last summer, says he believes the fundamentalists are now unmoored. Saying they have "turned on Berisha, probably because he couldn't pay them," he dismisses them as "uneducated and impressionable - some have drug problems or criminal records."

Bislimi and the IVZ are also troubled by sensationalized local media reports that have hurt Muslims' image. "Because of a few hotheads, we've all been given a bad reputation," he laments.

Indeed, many Muslims feel they are being unfairly tarnished by biased media. Remzi Isaku, a young, soft-spoken imam from the northern village of Saraj, says such "propaganda" ignores the fact that most young Muslims - even foreign-trained, bearded ones such as himself - are progressive and committed to revitalizing Ottoman traditions.

"I know my people and our legacy very well," says Isaku, after leading prayers. "An Arab professor once told me, 'I couldn't be imam in your place - your people have a different mind-set.' It's true. And I couldn't serve in his place, either."

If foreign money originally fueled fundamentalism in Macedonia, squabbling among Muslim elders has kept it alive, says Professor Muhic. If the IVZ can purge troublemakers and resolve its disputes, he says, fundamentalism will eventually "either disappear or continue only in isolated small communities."

According to Isaku, stability depends on younger imams who are well educated - and thus have credibility in the eyes of youths. "Correct Islamic teaching is the key," he says. "It resolves social problems, and it prevents radicalism."

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