Kosovo is one of the "former Yugoslav republics" that is struggling to become a nation. It's population is 93% Muslim. They've basically told the Saudi's to keep their money if all they want to do is build mosques and Koranic schools.

Being a Muslim nation, Saudi Arabia and a number of Islamic governmental and non-governmental organizations quickly jumped in after the war to help out. Those included some groups believed to have links to fundamentalist Islamist organizations, as was the case in neighboring Bosnia. Kosovars, however, many people in Pristina say, have resisted being enticed into following a stricter Islam, despite financial incentives to do so.



Unlike Bosnia, another Muslim and former Yugoslav republic, Kosovars have refused offers from Saudis to build mosques and madrassas -- Islamic Koranic schools, demanding instead that the money be allocated toward building hospitals, secular education facilities and "more useful institutions."

Kosovars have also strongly resisted offers from Islamic groups to "behave in more Islamic ways," such as the demand that women adopt the traditional Islamic veil, or that men grow beards, as some Wahhabi groups have tried to impose on Kosovars, according to OSCE officials.

"We are European Muslims," said Fatmire Terdevci, a Kosovar journalist working for Koha Ditore, a daily Albanian language newspaper.

"I am a Muslim, but in my own way," says Terdevci. "We belong in Europe, we are not Arabs. But still, I consider myself a Muslim," she adds. Terdevci, and other Muslims here stress they want Islam, but on their own terms.