Adil Zulfikarpašić (23 December 1921 – 21 July 2008) was a Bosnian intellectual and politician who served as vice president of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, during the Bosnian War of the 1990s, under the first president of the Presidency of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina Alija Izetbegović. After the war he retired from politics and opened the Bosniak Institute, a museum in Sarajevo focused on the Bosniak culture.

Although in the early period of his life he was close to the Croatian national idea, Zulfikarpašić over time advocated the position that Bosnian Muslims should build their own national identity and advocated the adoption of the Bosniak name. At first there was resistance to this idea, including within the leading political party of Bosnian Muslims - the Party of Democratic Action - the idea still prevailed in 1993, when the new name was adopted at the Bosniak Congress attended by the Bosnian Muslim political and cultural representatives.

After becoming disillusioned with Josip Broz Tito's government shortly after the end of the war, Zulfikarpašić fled into exile in Zurich, Switzerland.^[12]

While on his way to Switzerland, Zulfikarpašić stayed in Innsbruck, Austria. There he met Tatjana Nikšić, daughter of the NDH diplomat Ante Nikšić. The relationship between the two caused a stir among the Croat emigres, especially the Franciscans. However, her father who was in Buenos Aires at the time, approved the relationship writing that Zulfikarpašić's head was "in the right place", though he preferred if Zulfikarpašić would convert to Catholicism.^[13]

Zulfikarpašić, a self-identified Croat,^[14] found allies in the exiled leaders of the Croatian Peasant Party (HSS), Juraj Krnjević especially, who was sympathetic towards Bosnian Muslims. Zulfikarpašić also befriended August Juretić, a Croat Catholic priest close to HSS, whom he succeeded jointly with Pavao Jesih as a co-editor of Hrvatski dom, the official magazine of HSS after Juretić died in 1954. However, he became more convinced that Bosnian Muslims need to develop their own political direction. Writing in January 1956 to Indiana sociologist Dinko Tomašić, Zulfikarpašić blamed the Ustaše for the interruption of the development of Bosnian Muslims towards Croatdom, stating that Tomašić's statement that "the rise of national consciousness among Muslims Bosnia and Herzegovina developed [...] exclusively in the direction of Croatdom" was correct, but added that "on the account of Ustaše transgressions during the war, there were instances of distancing from Croatdom even among those layers that had already started identifying themselves and becoming conscious in that direction" and that "the process of national awakening in the direction of Croatdom experienced heavy blows in the course of the war and was slowed."^[15]

In 1963, Zulfikarpašić founded the Liberal-Democratic Alliance of Bosniaks-Muslims. The Alliance brought together Muslims who studied outside of Yugoslavia during World War II, together with former imams of the German 13th Waffen-SS Division Handschar and former Young Muslims. It promoted the national name "Bosniak" with the aim of severing ties with Croatian and Serbian national identities.^[16]

At the beginning of the Party of Democratic Action (est. 1990), the party also included a very influential secular nationalist grouping, led by Zulfikarpašić and Muhamed Filipović.^[17]

On 26 December 1991, Serbia, Montenegro, and the Serb rebel-held territory in Croatia (Serb Krajina) agreed that they would form a new "third Yugoslavia".^[18] Efforts were also made in 1991 to include Bosnia and Herzegovina within the federation, with negotiations between Milošević, Bosnia's Serbian Democratic Party, and the Bosniak proponent of union – Bosnia's Vice-President Adil Zulfikarpašić taking place on this matter.^[19] Zulfikarpašić believed that Bosnia could benefit from attempting to forge a union with Serbia, Montenegro, and Krajina; and promoted a compromise between the Serbs and Bosniaks, in which Serb Krajina and Bosniak Sanjak from Serbia would be annexed into a Greater Bosnia that within a union with Serbia and Montenegro, would secure both the unity of Serbs and Bosniaks.^[19] Zulfikarpašić's proposition opposed any cantonization of Bosnia.^[19] The Bosnian Serbs did not include Zulfikarpašić's proposition alongside their propositions.^[19] However Milosević continued negotiations with Zulfikarpašić to include Bosnia within a new Yugoslavia.^[19] Efforts to include the whole of Bosnia within a new Yugoslavia effectively terminated by late 1991 as Izetbegović planned to hold a referendum on independence while the Bosnian Serbs and Bosnian Croats formed autonomous territories.^[20]

Zulfikarpašić returned to Bosnia and Herzegovina and in the lead up to the Bosnian War, as Bosnia and Herzegovina held an independence referendum for independence,^[when?] he stood alongside the future Bosnian president, Alija Izetbegović.^[21] He was a member of Izetbegović’s Party of Democratic Action, but soon formed another party because of differing political views, the Muslim Bosniak Organisation with Muhamed Filipović.^[22]

In 2001, Zulfikarpašić established the Bosniak Institute in Sarajevo.^[23] In 2002, he was elected an honorary member of the Academy of Sciences and Arts of Bosnia and Herzegovina.^[24]

• Adil Zulfikarpašić (1998). The Bosniak. C.Hurst & Co. Ltd. ISBN 1-85065-339-9.Gace, N., Đilas, M. (1998), The Bosniak: Adil Zulfikarpasic, London, Hurst & Company
• Filandra, Š., Karic, E. (2004), The Bosniac Idea, Zagreb, Globus
• Imamović, M. (1996), Bošnjaci u emigraciji: monografija Bosanskih pogleda, Sarajevo, Bošnjački institut Zurich, Odjel Sarajevo
• Zulfikarpašić, A. (1991), Članci i intervjui povodom 70-godišnjice, Sarajevo, Bošnjački institut
• Zulfikarpašić, A., Gotovac, V., Tripalo M., Banac, I. (1995), Okovana Bosna, Zurich, Bošnjački institut
• Zulfikarpašić, A. (2005), Osvrti, Sarajevo, Bošnjački institut – Fondacija Adila Zulfikarpašića
• Zulfikarpasic, A., Bučar, F. (2001), Sudbonosni događaji: historijski presjek presudnih zbivanja i propusta, Sarajevo, Bošnjački institut – Fondacija Adila Zulfikarpašića