Alija Izetbegovic
The first president of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina after the end of the war of extermination waged by the Serb Crusaders against the Bosnian Muslims with the aim of exterminating them, in the early 1990s.
He was born in the Bosnian city of Bosana Krupa (Bosnia is one of the republics of the former Yugoslav Federation, which disintegrated into Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia and Montenegro) to a family with a long history of Islam, and his family name goes back to the Turkish presence in Bosnia.
He studied in Sarajevo schools and graduated from the University of Sarajevo, Faculty of Law.
He worked as a legal advisor for 25 years, then retired and devoted himself to research and writing.
Because of his activism in serving Muslims in his country, he was persecuted during the communist era and imprisoned several times.
He led the Bosnian people in defending their independence. He led a violent and courageous resistance against the Serbian invasion of Bosnia, during which Muslims were subjected to massacres and slaughters that had never happened in history, including the Srebrenica massacre.
At the political level, he led arduous and difficult negotiations with the West in order to preserve Bosnia's rights as a free state... until this was achieved (with the Dayton Agreement).
Izetbegovic served as President of Bosnia and Herzegovina from 1990 to 1996, and as a member of the Bosnian Presidency from 1996 to 2000.
He died on October 19, 2003, at the age of 78, and was buried in Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina.