First meeting of Council of Muftis for year 2017 was held

The first for year 2017 meeting of the Council of Muftis in Bulgaria was held on the first day of February in the town of Bankya. It was attended by the regional muftis from all 20 regional mufti’s offices as well as the five deputy muftis in regions. The agenda of the meeting included 10 main points.

The meeting began with analysis of the work of the Muslim Denomination for the past year 2016. The employees of Grand Mufti’s Office discussed also the topic related to the planning and the organization of training workshops for the secretaries in the Denomination, the first of this kind from which was held yesterday. The need of such kind of training is related to the introduction of specialized software to optimize the work with documentation, to optimize the time for processing the documentation and as a whole to improve the quality of the work in this field.

The participants in the meeting of the Council of Muftis commented also the topic related to the planning and carrying out of training workshops for imams where the aim, as before, will be to increase the expertise and the educational level of the religious leaders in the country.

Of course, one of the topics on the agenda of the meeting was dedicated to the year-round and the summer Qur’an courses for children that take place at the regional mufti’s office in the country. As an objective was set the review of the thematic plan of the Qur’an courses for children going in the direction to make them one even more attractive and inviting for the young Muslims place, where the program to be even more adequate and consistent with the modern reality in which the children live.

Special attention during the held yesterday meeting of the Council of Muftis was given to the different campaigns that Grand Mufti’s Office holds during the year. Among them were the campaigns for recruitment of students for the secondary religious schools as well as the fundraising campaigns to support the religious education in the country.

The Grand Mufti on the country Dr. Mustafa Hadzhi set the campaigns for supporting the activities in the field of education as a priority as this is set in the basis of the activity of the Denomination as a whole. The good religious education is essential for the religious dimension in the life of the Muslim in Bulgaria, and in the framework of the held working meeting became clear that during the present year 2017 the Muslim Denomination is going to work hard in this direction.

During the meeting yesterday the employees of Grand Mufti’s Office paid also attention to the ongoing campaign to support the victims from Hitrino, in which the Muslims from the different regions in the country took and continue to take active participation.

The maintenance of the material and technical base of the year-round training course for imams in the village of Ustina, Plovdiv region, also was included in the discussions. The lack and the need of qualified imams in the country is screaming, and to overcome the shortage is directly related to the provision and maintenance of satisfactory conditions in the base in Ustina, shared the muftis.

At the end of the first for this year meeting of the Council of Muftis the Grand Mufti of the Muslim in the Republic of Bulgaria Dr. Mustafa Hadzhi wished all muftis and employees of the Denomination successful work during year 2017, to keep it in the spirit of discipline and to do their best in order to be useful for the representatives of the Muslim community in the country not only in the mosques but also in their social life.

Text edited by L. Chausheva