Background
Omerbašić was born in Ustikolina, near Foča, Yugoslavia, presently in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Omerbašić was born in Ustikolina, near Foča, Yugoslavia, presently in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
He finished elementary school in his birthplace and went to Sarajevo where he entered high school, the Gazi Husrev-beg Madrasa which he attended from 1956 until 1964. After he finished high school education, he worked as an imam in Rudo, and then he returned to Ustikolina also as imam.
He returned to Yugoslavia in 1975 and was appointed as imam of Zagreb. In 1988 he became chief mufti of the Islamic Communities in Croatia and Slovenia. In 1990 when the Seniority of the Islamic Community of Croatia and Slovenia was founded, Omerbašić was named its president and thus he got the title "mufti".
Omerbašić attended two years of religious pedagogy at Catechetical Institute of the Catholic Theological Faculty in Zagreb.
Omerbašić is known for inter-religious tolerance. As he was teaching, he introduced the practice of sending his students to Catholic Massachusetts He is also an opponent of terrorism committed by Islamic extremists, explaining that such things occur because of misreading the Qur"an.