At a session of the Islamic community's electoral council, Ceric won 180 out of 300 votes. His chief rival, Enes Karic, the dean of the School of Islamic Studies, gained 119 votes, while a third candidate, Hasan Makic, the mufti of Bihac, won none.
Ceric was born in 1952 in a village near Visoko, northwest of Sarajevo. He graduated from Al-Azhar University in Cairo in 1978. He served as imam of the Islamic cultural centre in Chicago, where he also completed postgraduate studies and earned a doctoral degree.
On returning from Chicago, Ceric became chief imam of the Zagreb mosque, and in 1993 he was elected acting head of the Islamic community in Bosnia-Herzegovina.