Jakup Asipi was born in the village of
Slupčane on 2 February 1951. Asipi completed his primary education in his hometown and his secondary education in
Damascus,
Syria at the "al-Furkan" madrasa in 1980. He completed his studies at
Al-Az'har University, in the Faculty of Islamic Religion in Egypt in 1985, while he continued his postgraduate studies in
Beirut,
Lebanon. During his studies, Asipi became a
Hafiz. During the years 1985–1990, he worked as an
imam in a
mosque in
Leverkusen,
Germany. Aware of the situation in his home country in the 1990s, he returned to contribute to the relieving of the plight of the population. His lectures led to numerous threats and interrogations by the Macedonian police. From this period until his death, he organized over 5,000 lectures. During the
insurgency in Macedonia, Asipi commanded units within the 113th brigade in the "Free Zone of Karadak," which consisted of villages such as
Lipkovo,
Matejče, and
Slupčane, among others, where some of the heaviest fighting during the entire insurgency took place. The terrified
Macedonian and
Serbian residents of these villages, mostly elderly people, were forced to flee south to the city of
Kumanovo. During the insurgency, he became the imam of both Slupčane and Matejče. According to Macedonian refugees, the Matejče mosque, where Asipi served as imam, was used as a site where
NLA militants allegedly detained and assaulted Macedonian civilians. Additionally, reports claimed that several Macedonian women were raped by
NLA militants during the fighting in Matejče. Macedonian media soon linked Asipi with the mujahedin but his friends and family rejected any connection with
Islamic fundamentalism.
After the end of the war in 2001, Asipi was elected as the mufti for the
municipalities of Kumanovo and
Lipkovo. Asipi was also a candidate for national leadership. He died in a car accident on 7 January 2006. His funeral, which took place at the
NLA war memorial center above
Slupčane, drew approximately 15,000
Albanians from across
Europe, including leaders from the
NLA/
KLA and various Islamic clerics. == Works ==