by Elirija Hadžiahmetović

Abstract

Sulejman ef. Pačariz was one of the most controversial figures in the wartime history of Sandžak. To many Bosniaks, he was a protector who organized Muslim militias to defend an unprotected civilian population from Chetnik terror during World War II; to others, particularly partisans and communists, he was labeled a collaborator or war criminal. Contemporary memoirs and later historiography suggest that Pačariz acted primarily within a framework of survival politics, cooperating pragmatically with whichever force could best ensure the physical survival of Muslims in Sandžak. His militia functioned as ad hoc self-defense units rather than an ideologically coherent movement. Pačariz originated from a family whose deeper roots trace back to Rožaje, an Albanian-influenced region with strong cultural and religious ties to Sandžak. The lack of centralized Muslim political organization and the scarcity of Muslim-produced documents have left his legacy fragmented, contested, and shaped largely by opposing narratives.

Sulejman ef Pačariz at the head of the Muslim militia in Sandžak – protector and Bosniak hero or war criminal?

Academician Muhamed Filipović writes in his memoirs that “Pačariz played a great role in saving the Muslim population from the Chetnik reign of terror because he formed a militia for the purpose of protecting the completely unprotected Muslim population, which was not protected by any government then in existence, nor by insurgents of various caliber”.

Bosniaks/Muslims considered him their hero, partisans/communists a criminal, Chetniks an enemy whose people should be destroyed, and if anything remains of him – expelled and Sandžak made ethnically pure, Ustasha NDH a Croat of Muslim faith who would help it with its units to annex Sandžak to NDH, Germans a man to be used for their own purposes, and history one of the tragic figures in Sandžak.

Harun Crnovršanin and Nuro Sadiković in their book “Sandžak a Slave Land” state that “Pačariz’s fighters were brave, disciplined and honest. They adhered to his order to strictly punish any attempt to steal or mistreat members of another religion”.

They were more than respected by the Bosniak people, so verses were sung to them:

When a roar over a rugged mountain, like a whirlwind lapping the sea, the earth rumbles, the fat goats rustle, here Sandžak is followed by Pačariz, an angry leader, tense soldiers, furious horses, even more furious boys.”

And what does historiography say about Sulejman ef. Pačariz?

There is not much historiographical information about him and the Muslim militia that he founded for the protection and primarily physical survival of Bosniaks in Sandžak, and then for the preservation of its ethnic, cultural and every other distinctiveness – especially when it comes to his region.

Academician Muhamed Filipović writes in his memoirs that “Pačariz played a major role in saving the Muslim population from the Chetnik reign of terror because he formed a militia for the purpose of protecting the completely unprotected Muslim population, which was not protected by any of the then existing authorities, nor by insurgents of various caliber (…)”.

And what was the Muslim militia like, that is, the Muslim militias in Sandžak, which were established in that area as village guards to protect Muslims from Chetniks, partisans and partisans disguised as Chetniks?

Historian Šerbo Rastoder states in this sense: “There was no organized military and political organization on the Muslim side that could produce as such what every administration does in these situations – it produces documents” (…) “it is about ad hoc armed formations to protect the lives of one population, which does not have a single command, organization or programmatic orientation (…). Therefore, everything we know about that side was created ‘on the other side’ and the idea of ​​that side was shaped by the view and understanding of the opposing side”.

Historian Željko Karaula, on the other hand, in his study of Sulejman ef Pačariz and the Muslim militia, writes: “Really looking at things, the Muslims in Sandžak, that is, their leadership, looked at their own interests, which they tried to achieve by agreeing with any force that they thought could best protect their lives, property and ensure their survival as a group.”

Karaula also states this: “It is necessary to mention that the Muslim elites in Sandžak were certainly alien to communism as an ideology, and after the collapse of the former Yugoslavia, they considered it only a cover for the further dominance of the Serbs in that country and their re-marginalized position”.

He adds that, in general, the Muslims in Sandžak were anti-partisan at the beginning or did not want a conflict with the partisans and had a very self-defensive action in their villages and regions. Only in the later stages of the NOR did individual groups of Muslims begin to join the NOP, and many Orthodox Serbs in Sandžak were in Chetnik units, while a smaller number joined the partisans.

The Muslim militias operated in quite variable and rapidly changing military and political circumstances. However, the Muslims failed to form a central political body that would shape the political goals and aspirations of the Muslim population in Sandžak. And the most important conclusion of Karaula in this regard is: “Because of the above, it is clear that this paradox largely prevents a true insight into this issue by historiography”.

Different sources state different numbers of Pačariz’s Muslim militia.

They range from a few dozen to 1,500 fighters. In addition to Sandžakli, it also included Bosniak-muhajirs from Bosnia and Herzegovina, and it controlled the entire Lim Valley and the upper part of Pešteri.

The origin of the Pačariz brotherhood

According to Dr. Šemsudin Hadrović, the first surname of the Pačariz brotherhood was Havadža (Ar. hodža, learned, teacher), and from them the present-day Hodžići of Bihor in Berane, Bijelo Polje and Rožaj are descended.

As Hadrović states, due to an inadmissible misdeed of one of the prominent Havadž – a special fatwa issued by the Ottoman Empire, and through Tahir Pasha (son-in-law of Havadž) from Shkodër – The author was excommunicated from the Havadža tribe, with an order that in the future he and his close relatives must renounce their previous surname Havadže (Hodžići) and take the surname Pačariz (Turkish: pacariz, pacarizlik – a synonym for atrocity, crime, disorder, breakup, interruption). After that, they were forced to move from Paljuh near Petnjica and settled first in Bioča.

According to data from the State Archives of Montenegro, Sulejman-ef. Pačariz was born on December 3, 1895 in the village of Bioča on the river of the same name, a right tributary of the Lim, between Bijelo Polje and Berane. His father was Ibrahim Pačariz Biočak (born most likely in 1852), an imam and writer of alhamijado literature (his work Kasida) who is said to have been the bearer of the cultural revival of Bosniaks in Sandžak at that time.

Ibrahim Biočak received his primary education in a mekteb in his native village, and continued his education in a madrasa in Đakovica, where he graduated before returning to Bioča. In the madrasa, he mastered Turkish and Albanian literacy and conversation. He was an imam and muallim in the local mosque in Bioča.

Ibrahim Biočak Pačariz was a wealthy man for the time. In addition to his house, he also had a stone tower with three floors, which was most often used by musafir – guests. During attacks from Montenegro, the entire village took refuge in it, after Mula Ibrahim would warn of danger with a rifle shot. Below the village, on the road to Berane, they had an inn where travelers and horses could be accommodated, and in the extension there was a coffee house and a small shop.

Ibrahim-ef. married twice. His first wife was the sister of the writer Ćamil Sijarić, who was also a native of Bihor. It is not known whether he had children with her. Sulejman was born in his second marriage, and his mother was Elmaza Ćorović from Lozna. Ibrahim’s third wife was Zejna Hadžibulić from Brodarevo.

Sulejman was Ibrahim’s eldest son. He was married to Zada ​​Arslanović from Gostun and with her until 1933 – as stated in the file of the Vakuf-Mearif Commission in Macedonia – he had five children, sons Hakija (1925), Ibrahim (1927), Ramiz (1931) and Ćazim (1933) and daughter Zemka, married Mrzić (1933).

He married his second wife Malića Malagić on October 15, 1932 and with her, as written by Dr. Šemsudin Hadrović, he had five children, Zemka, Džemal, Zaim, Nafija and Minka. They all lived in Sarajevo.

Sulejman-ef. Pačariz completed ibtidaija (lower madrasa in Lozna near Bijelo Polje), as well as four grades of ruždija (lower civil high school), four grades of the Madrasa in Bijelo Polje, a six-month course for daru-l-muallimin (for religious teachers) in Sjenica, and passed the imam-matriculation exam in Prijepolje on June 25, 1933. He spoke Turkish and Arabic. He was recruited into the army of the Kingdom of SHS on December 15, 1919, and finally served his military service on December 15, 1920, as a private in an infantry unit.

Turning point: the brutal murder of his father Ibrahim ef. Pačariz

The life path of Sulejman ef. Pačariz reached a turning point (according to Ž. Karaula) on August 21, 1921, when gendarmes from Kosta Pećanc’s Chetnik formation brutally killed his father Ibrahim. Namely, accusing him of being a supporter of Jusuf Mehonić and other komits (outlaws, irregulars, guerrilla fighters and members of armed detachments who fought in the Balkans against the occupiers, imposed authorities or for national liberation, and the term is particularly associated with Montenegro from 1916-1929), Kosta Pećanac’s villains arrested him after Friday prayer in the Čauš-Malkočeva mosque in Brodarevo near Prijepolje, together with four other Bosniak leaders.

According to the writings of Harun Crnovršanin and Nur Sadiković in the book “Sandžak – a slave land”, they were Ramo Mujezinović, imam hajji Abaz Balićevac and Sulejman and Bećir Kriještorac. They were led through the bazaar and killed in Podjasen, not far from the center of Brodarevo.

Kosta Pećanac’s Chetniks treated Sulejman’s father Ibrahim Biočak in particular cruelly. As Dr. Šemsudin Hadrović, Ibrahim-ef. “…seeing that there was no way out, he took the rosary that was in his hand and began to recite the shahadah, raising his hands to the sky” (…) and at that moment “one of the Chetniks pierced his mouth with a hornbeam stake and pinned him to the ground.

For five whole days, Mula Ibrahim remained in that position, and no one was allowed to approach him”. When this happened Sulejman ef. was a military imam in Skopje After the news of the horrific murder of his father reached him, he headed to Brodarevo. On the way from Prijepolje to Brodarevo, Kosta Pećanac’s Chetniks stopped the bus in which he was traveling.

Knowing that they were looking for him, Sulejman jumped out of the bus window and, followed by a hail of bullets, managed to get hold of Lim and arrived in Prijepolje. He returned at night that same day and, with some other men, buried his father at the edge of a meadow, in the same place where he had been killed. This event was witnessed by a man named Jejina, who was in a group with Ibrahim-ef. Biočak and three other people, but managed to escape the Chetniks and hide a few hundred meters away, behind a rock that is still called Stap today.

Albanian origin

Pačariz originated from a family whose deeper roots trace back to Rožaje, an Albanian region with strong cultural and religious ties to Sandžak.