SULTAN MOSQUES IN BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA

Mosques which were commissioned by sultans have particular significance in the tradition of Ottoman architecture and are called “selatin” or “sultan mosques”. Some of them were built in the capital of the Empire and were symbols of the economic power, as well as of the sultan's spiritual and secular authority. Besides satisfying populations' needs for praying space, sultans often used building mosques to express their own artistic preferences or worldviews, and personally supervised construction of these buildings and directed their course. Such are mosques of sultans Fatih, Suleiman, Ahmed and Bayezid in Istanbul or Selim in Edirne.

Sultan mosques in present Bosnia and Herzegovina were built in fortified cities (fortresses) and on strategic locations, and their building was initiated and financed by the Empire with the aim of forming an urban settlement in the area. They were not waqf endowments of these sultans but were constructed with state funds only pursuant to sultan's orders, and can therefore also be described as state mosques. In some cases a sultan would order or suggest some persons to have a mosque built at a certain spot. It is illustrated by the preserved inscription on the Sultan Bayezid Mosque in Prusac, which no longer exists: “Under the order of sultan Bayezid, the mosque was built by the late Iskender-pasha in 893/1488 and reconstructed by kadi Hasan of Akhisar in 1010/1601.” Such a practice of targeted construction of mosques at strategic spots was not a result of a sultan's religious will, but rather an act of state policy aimed at satisfying military-administrative, strategic, communication, economic, educational and other needs. Sometimes these mosques were formed again, as in Sarajevo, and at other times within an existing medieval fortress, like in the case of Zvornik, where an imperial mosque (of sultan Fatih) was built.  Another imperial mosque in this city (of sultan Suleiman) was built in the neighborhood outside walls and marked the beginning of constructing a Muslim urban settlement adjacent to the medieval town. Servants in these mosques were public servants, i.e. they were paid from state funds or got timars (properties) as compensation, which was recorded in tax registers. Conditionally speaking, the state ownership of mosques is confirmed by the fact that no imperial waqf document has been found which pertained to any imperial mosque in Bosnia, and that no document of sultans' waqfs mentions imperial mosques in Bosnia.

In Bosnia of the Ottoman period, over 80 sultan mosques were built during the rule and in the name of twelve sultans form the mid-15th to the mid-19th century. Many of them have been destroyed over time, some of them have been rebuilt, and in case of others only walls within a fortress (Jajce, Bužim, Klobuk), minarets (Travnik and Vinac) or empty space where they were built (Rogatica, Kreševo, Prozor) remained. During only one century, from the 1470s to the 1570s, i.e. from the rule by Mehmed II Fatih to the end of the rule by Suleiman II, 25 nominal imperial mosques were built, which laid foundations for the following towns: Sarajevo and Zvornik before 1481, Foča, Rogatica, Višegrad, Srebrenica, Travnik, Prusac, Prozor and Nevesinje before 1512, Knežina, Doboj and Stolac before 1520, then Jajce, Banja Luka, Donja Tuzla, Bijeljina, Gradiška, Kamengrad, Oborci, Glamoč, Drniš, Dobrun, Blagaj and Jezero near Jajce before 1566, and Džisri-kebir, i.e. Kulen-Vakuf on the river Una in the early 17th century. In some towns there were two imperial mosques, e.g. in Zvornik, Srebrenica, Travnik, Jajce and Banja Luka, or one mosque which was commissioned by one and later renewed by another sultan, for example the Mosque of Sultan Fatih in Sarajevo, which was renewed by sultan Suleiman after it had burnt in a fire. It should be noted at this point that it is hard to support the tale that this mosque was built by Isa-bey Ishaković as his own endowment, and that he later donated it to sultan Mehmed Fatih. It is more realistic to assume that Isa-bey Ishaković had it built upon the order of Mehmed II, since he does not mention it in his waqf document. Most imperial mosques (eleven of them) were built upon the order or in the name of sultan Suleiman (1520–1566). Imperial mosques were typically small buildings and they were not always built with a specific purpose. Sometimes, they were buildings converted into mosques, and their size depended on the number of people it was built for. Besides, they were not always built of a solid material, the existence of which could easily be established later. An example of such an imperial mosque is the mosque of sultan Selim I (1512-1520) in the Tešanj fortress. A characteristic of this mosque is that in the first half of the 17th century, i.e. about a hundred years after it was built, it obtained some modest waqf funds in cash (3.400 akčas), which was not often the case with imperial mosques. These funds were used to cover the cost of lighting and rugs, since these resources were not planned when the mosque was built. 

Besides sultan mosques, there were other mosques in Bosnia and Herzegovina which were built by local donors. By their architecture, calligraphy and other elements, these mosques often exceeded the sultan ones. One of the examples is Gazi Husrev-beg's Mosque in Sarajevo compared to sultan Fatih's (Imperial) Mosque, Aladža in Foča compared to Imperial (sultan Bayezid's) Mosque, Osman-pasha Resulbegović Mosque in Trebinje compared to sultan Ahmed III Mosque and others. 

During the aggression on Bosnia and Herzegovina in the 1990s, a significant number of sultan mosques were destroyed or seriously damaged. Over the recent decades their reconstruction and bringing back to the original purpose have been in progress, aimed at further development and prosperity of the cities where they were built.