[1] As a young imam, Čengić led a group called Tabački Masjid, which condemned discotheques and mixed marriages and advocated veiling of women as well as the prohibition of alcohol.
In the article, Čengić investigated the application of Sharia in the Islamic world and wrote about Iran that it shows "a growing tendency to break with Western models and a determination to return to their own laws, culture and civilisation".
In the article, along with Jaafar Nimeiry of Sudan and Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq of Pakistan, he relied heavily on Ruhollah Khomeini, quoting him extensively.
Loftus writes that in the article, Čengić sees the Iranian revolution as "the most representative moment of the strength of the new Muslim coalition alongside 1973 oil embargo".
In the article, Čengić holds the view that "Muslims have the space, population, dynamism, strength, energy and money," concluding that there is no reason why they cannot become "the master of tomorrow's world".
Loftus further writes that, although Čengić doesn't mention Yugoslav Muslims in the article, he "implicitly made space for his own community" in "a potential coalition of Islamic "masters of tomorrow".
[5][6] During the Bosnian War, Alija Izetbegović appointed Čengić a chief fundraiser and weapons buyer,[7] tasked with negotiating clandestine arms deals.
[9] He was also a member of the advisory board of the Third World Relief Agency (TWRA) which is assumed to have brought $350 million to the government of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina during the war period from 1992 to 1995, at least half of which was used for arms smuggling.
In June 1991, before Slovenia and Croatia declared independence and ten months before conflicts broke out in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the SDA decided to form its own paramilitary, the Patriotic League with Čengić, then a 43-year-old imam, as its head.
[10] Čengić, together with his father, was responsible for the maintenance of the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina (ARBiH), supply, traffic control, transport, and medical and veterinary services.
[6] The Slobodna Bosna newspaper argued that Čengić was the business partner of Russian arms dealer and former KGB officer Viktor Bout, otherwise known as "the Merchant of Death".
However, in the post-war period, the removal of Iranian fighters and influential persons was a non-negotiable condition for the implementation of the Train and Equip Program (T&E).
The SDA-controlled Sarajevo newspaper "Ljiljan" published an interview with Iranian diplomat Seyyed Mohsen Rasidouleslami, who revealed that in case the T&E fails, Iran is waiting to train and arm Bosniak forces.
Already on June 26, Pardew presented the information that Iranian and other foreign fighters had been expelled and that there were less than 70 of them left in Bosnia and Herzegovina who were married to locals.
The situation escalated by October 1996 when the United States was supposed to deliver over 40 tons of weapons to Bosnia and Herzegovina via the Croatian port of Ploče.
The insistence on Čengić's removal caused great political difficulties in which high-ranking officials of the American, Bosnian-Herzegovinian and Croatian governments were involved.
While Izetbegović was considering the ultimatum, the T&E was stopped, and the ship that delivered a large amount of weapons stood still in the Adriatic Sea in front of the port of Ploče from 24 October onwards.