ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the madrasah's survival in the past alongside concerns of its status, structure and curriculum as it adapts to its new milieu and challenges posed by the changes. The repressive state policies during the first decade of communist Yugoslavia abolished shari'ah courts, maktab and the Higher School of Islamic Shari'ah and Theology, and closed all madrasahs by force except the Gazi Husrev-bay Madrasah. Bosnia and Herzegovina, as one of the six federal republics of the former Republic of Yugoslavia, underwent social, economic and political changes imposed by the Communist government. The starting point of Islamic education in Bosnia and Herzegovina goes back as early as the 15th century when Bosnia came under Ottoman rule. The change of governments and the enactment of new social and political institutions between the two World Wars – the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes; the Kingdom of Yugoslavia; the Independent State of Croatia – meant major new changes for Bosnian Muslims.
