Hafëz Esat Muftia, a senior cleric and head of the Albanian Muslim Community, was born in Shkodër in 1967. He received his first lessons from his uncle and completed his secondary education at the Shkodra madrasa from 1925 to 1929. Upon graduation, he was appointed imam of the Mosque of Tabaki, where he served for two years before moving to the mosque of Ajasma. From 1938 to 1943, he worked as a teacher of faith at the primary school in Dudas (Shkodër). In 1944, he was elected director of the Shkodra madrasa, a position he held until 1947, when the madrasa was closed. He was arrested in December 1945 but was released shortly thereafter. Between 1952 and 1954, he served as the director of the General Madrasah of Tirana. Six years later, in 1952, he graduated as a Hafiz. In 1967, he was elected chairman of the Muslim Community of Albania. Following the ban on religion, Hafëz Esat worked as a specialized clerk in the Orientalist fund of the State Library in Shkodër, which was created from books seized from the Library of the Mufti and various families in Shkodër. He passed away in 1975. (In the photo: Esat Muftia)
Text: Encyclopedic dictionary of victims of communist terror – Vol. V, “West Print”, Institute for the Study of Crimes and Consequences of Communism, Tirana, 2016, page 445-446.
Photo: © Institute for the Study of Crimes and Consequences of Communism, Tirana
Graphic processing: AHCF
