Turkish-educated university professor, Skender Brucaj, 37, elected to lead the country’s largest religious organization.
TIRANA, March 8 – The Albanian Muslim Community has elected Skender Brucaj to lead the country’s largest official religious organization, the AMC said.
Brucaj, 37, was serving as a psychology professor at a university affiliated with the AMC in Tirana before being elected.
Selim Muca, the former AMC leader, did not seek to renew his leadership after two five-year mandates due to health reasons. Brucaj, who is unusually young for AMC leaders that have tended to be in the 60s and 70s in the past, was elected in a vote Saturday by the AMC governing council. Before returning to Albania to work in the private sector and then for Beder University, Brucaj had lived for a long time in Turkey, where he attended a religious high school before studying English and
psychology at the Bosphorus University, Turkey’s prestigious American-style university.
“Albania’s Muslim community will continue to support and contribute to the development and progress of society. We are very aware that the future of Albania is to be part of the European family, and the example of Muslim believers will be positive toward that integration,” Brucaj said following his elections.
He added that one of his main will be providing quality education of younger generations.
“Every good Muslim should be a good citizen. The Albanian Muslim Community must assist all Muslims to get a quality education for a better future,” he added.
Albania’s Muslims make up about two-thirds of the 2.8 million population, followed by Christian Orthodox and Catholics, all living in an amicable relationship.
Albania’s former communist regime banned religion from 1967 to 1990, destroying many religious buildings and imprisoning many priests and imams.
