Awqaf in Europe
EMU Media Services
Guests Online
We have 4 guests onlineMost Read
Search in our Archives
Newsletter Service
Subscribe to our free e-mail-newsletter service to receive notifications about events and new articles.
Awqaf in Europe
Belgrade: Muslims want the Return of Trusts and Endowments - Serbia returns Nationalised Possessions to Churches
Sunday, 04 June 2006 00:00
60 years after the expropriation and nationalisation of the possessions of all church communities in Serbia the state now wants to either give back the former property or compensate the churches in an equitable manner.
The Serbian parliament has passed a law to this effect on Thursday. The Serbian Orthodox Church alone lays claim to real estate worth 2,5 billion euro and 250,000 hectares of agricultural land, the greater part in Kosovo. The roman catholic church owned 30 000 hectares of land in the north of Serbia - the Islamic and jewish community, as well as other church organisations, also have a right to compensation. According to incomplete data from the state archive in Belgrade a total of several hundred thousand hectares of farm land, numerous forests and other estates, countless plots of land, residential houses, business premises and other properties, as well as objects of art and church furniture are at stake.
An unfamiliar Aspect of Islam in Europe
Sunday, 25 December 2005 00:00
A call for the return of Muslim properties in Eastern Europe - Vienna Conference ends with a final declaration.
All to often the civil and social aspects of Islam embodied in the network of Islamic trusts and endowments (awqaf) have unfortunately remained a background phenomenon in comparison to the media exposure generated by social unrest and by a purely political view of organised Islam in Europe. One of the few exceptions to this rule may be found in the recently concluded conference in Vienna. The conference on "Islamic Pious Trusts (Auqaf) in Eastern Europe" - organised by the Islamischen Glaubensgemeinschaft (IGGi - Islamic Religious Community in Austria) together with the European Islamic conference (EIC) - concluded on 4th December with a joint final declaration.