Mulla Idriz Gjilani

Mulla Idriz Gjilani was an Albanian leader and Muslim preacher. He was born in the village of Velekinca in Gjilan, Ottoman Empire, (now Gjilan, Kosovo). The Gjilani family who have inhabited the region of his birth for centuries give their name to the town of Gjilan in Kosovo.

He took the first lessons in mejtep of Cernica, and graduated in 1911 to continue the high school in madrasah of “Atik” in Gjilan. After a long break, he graduated in 1926. At age 25, he became imam with the title of Mullah and served in Karadak and Hogosht. In 1941, he took the post of bashvaiz, Ulama in Vakuf of Shkupi.

On January 20, 2015, he was posthumously awarded the "Honor of the Nation" decoration by the President of the Republic of Albania Bujar Nishani on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the massacre of Gjilan.

Biography He was born in 1901 in the village of Velekinca in Gjilan, at the time part of the Ottoman Empire. He graduated from the Mullah Halim Cernica's mejtep, and completed his studies in Gjilan for administrative work in 1911. He attended his education at the Atar Medrese in Gjilan. After military service in 1924-25, he graduated in 1926 with Ixhezetnamé, becoming an imam and receiving the title of mullah. He was in contact with the "National Defense of Kosovo" Committee and supported the Democratic Party of Ferhat Bey Drago, where he worked against the expulsion of the Albanian population in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. He was the head of the imam at the Padić mosque in Karadak in 1927-32 and later in Hogosht of the Lower Moravian until 1938 when he went to the post of member of Mexhlis Ulema in Skopje, who administered the religious life of Albanian lands under the state administration of Yugoslavia. until the night of 25-26 November 1949, when Mulla Idriz was burned alive by the Partisans. Months before his death, he professed that Islam and Albanianism do harmonize.