On April 5, 1873 , Hafëz Ali Korça, activist of the National Movement, teacher, poet and publicist, was born in Korça. He completed high school in his hometown. He completed his higher studies in Theology and Philosophy in Istanbul. He returned as a mufti to Korça and took care of the opening of a high school, where he also taught. He performed the duties of the chief mufti of the Supreme Sharia Council in Shkodër (1918) and the chairman of the Supreme Sharia Council in Tirana (1918–1924). He is one of the founders of the Tirana Madrasah and one of its first teachers. The communist regime condemned him as a reactionary cleric and member of the National Front. In the last years of his life, he was interned in Kavajë. He published the “Alfabeti arabisht” (“The Arabic alphabet”) (1914) for teaching the Arabic language; “Gramatika, Syntaksa shqip-arabisht” (“Albanian – Arabic Grammar, Syntax”) and “Fjalime” (“Speeches”) for secondary schools (1916); “Shtatë ëndrat e Shqipërisë” (“The seven dreams of Albania”) (1924), “Kur’ani i Madhënueshim e thelbi i tij” (“The Glorius Quran and its essence”) (1926) etc. (In the photo: Hafëz Ali Korça)
Text: Albanian encyclopedic dictionary – Vol. 2 , Academy of Sciences of Albania, “Kristalina-KH”, Tirana, 2008, page 1283.
Photo: © Xhoxhi L., personal archive
Graphic processing: AHCF
