Jusuf Barčić

In the following years, the Islamic community was mostly dormant in relation to Salafists' intrusion into mosques, schools, and cultural centers, and began to directly confront them in 2007. In February 2007, Barčić and his followers tried to enter the Gazi Husrev-beg Mosque, seen by many Bosnian Muslims as the central institution of their religious life. However, they were again barred from entry by other believers, and the police of the Sarajevo Canton intervened. After the incident, the mosque was locked up to prevent further disruption, and the local imam Sadrudin Iserić forbade the Salafists further entry into the mosque.

Barčić and his followers attempted to enter the mosque for the second time on 22 February 2007 and were barred from entry again. Instead, he held a lecture in front of the mosque, criticizing the Islamic Community of Bosnia and Herzegovina because of their departure from the "true teaching of Islam" and demanding the implementation of Sharia law in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and implicitly threatened with establishing a parallel Islamic community with Salafist ideology.

Known as a reckless driver who disregarded all civil authority, Barčić sustained serious injuries after losing control of his vehicle and hitting a lamp post near Tuzla around 2:00 a.m. on 30 March 2007. He died at 8:40 p.m. that evening at a hospital in Tuzla. Some media reported he died in an attempted suicide, which hasn't been confirmed.

In 2004, Barčić was accused of death threatening his former wife and her family after she left him because he molested her. He was eventually sentenced to seven-month imprisonment for molesting his former wife and served his sentence in Zenica. At the same time, he also received a conditional sentence of one year and three months because of the intrusion into his former wife's family home.

When the Salafist community was established in Gornja Maoča in 2000, it had informal leadership. Its initial leader was Barčić. Barčić's efforts were financed by Muhamed Porča, a Bosnian cleric with whom he studied in Saudi Arabia and who headed the Al-Tawhid mosque in Vienna, where many Bosnian Muslims settled.

He returned in 1996 to spread Salafism, calling for "back to the roots" Islam and challenging the Islamic Community of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Along with Nusret Imamović, Barčić became one of the principal leaders of the neo-Salafist community that sought to challenge the traditional Islamic order in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Barčić left Bosnia and Herzegovina during the Bosnian War and studied Islamic studies in Medina, Saudi Arabia. He studied under the mentorship of Al-Albani, one of the best-known Salafist authorities. While a student, Barčić did a final proofreading of the 1991 edition of Besim Korkut's Bosnian translation of the Qur'an. The publishing of the translation of the Qur'an was ordered by King Fahd of Saudi Arabia and was financed by the Ministry of Hajj and Waqif of Saudi Arabia.

During the war in the 1990s, Barčić was a representative of the Vienna-based International Islamic Relief Organization for the city of Zenica. The network established by the Islamic "charity" organisations helped spread material and non-material aid to the Islamic State and helped their recruiting campaign. Metodieva notes that the humanitarian aid of the Islamic organisation was linked to the growth of the Salafist communities in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Jusuf Barčić (25 September 1967 – 30 March 2007) was a Bosnian Salafist leader and a founder of the neo-Salafist movement in Bosnia and Herzegovina whose leadership shaped the Bosnian Salafist community.

Barčić was born in 1967 in the hamlet of Barčići in Petrovice, Kalesija. He studied at the Gazi Husrev Bey's Madrasa, where from 1984 to 1987 he memorised Qur'an and became a hafiz.