NOVI PAZAR – A CITY OF WAQFS AND A CONFLUENCE OF CULTURES

Novi Pazar is one of the cities in the Balkans which, besides Sarajevo, is the most important cultural, religious and national center of Muslims in the Balkans. In Novi Pazar, one can find the famous cultural-historical monuments, mosques, schools and universities. It is the home of the seat of the Islamic Community in Serbia, Bosniak National Council, Bosniak Academy of Sciences and Arts, as well as many other institutions of vital importance for Muslims in this region. Since its founding, Novi Pazar has been an unavoidable stop of merchants, it has been attracting researches' attention, though it has also been a scene of conflicts of interest and target of various conquerors. It has been developed, but also destroyed, then renewed; however, it has successfully defied all the adversities of the turbulent times it has been experiencing.

Kraj je ovaj star, stare doline, stare gradine...

Stari šumom zarasli putevi, stara grobišta, stara kućišta...

Pa se više ne zna kud se išlo, pa se više ne živi gdje se nekad živjelo...

O tome kako je nekad bilo ostale su priče, pa im vjerujete ili ne vjerujete.

(It is an old place, old valleys, old forts...

Old roads overrun with forest, old cemeteries, old housings...

And one does not know where to go, and one does not live where people used to live...

Only stories remained about how it used to be, and you can believe them or not.)

This old spot has been an everlasting crossroads of East and West, where people always arrived, where they stayed and which they unwillingly left for centuries.

All previous papers, based on the data provided in Krajište Isa-bega Ishakovića of 1455 and Dubrovnik sources where Novi Pazar was first mentioned in 1461, have concluded that Novi Pazar was built between 1455 and 1461. However, if we know that in 1468 it was registered as a šeher, a settlement of the highest degree in the Ottoman classification, it was likely founded before the year which is officially cited as the year of founding Novi Pazar.

The founder of Novi Pazar is a famous warlord, commander of Bosnian and Skopje Krajište (fortified administrative district), the founder of Sarajevo and Skopje – Gazi Isa-beg Ishaković, the founder of the first urban cell, builder of the mosque, caravanserai, hammam and 56 general stores.

This city has been a centuries-long inspiration for many world travel writers who cruised across these regions, such as Benedict Ramberti, who wrote in 1553: “Novi Pazar is a renowned square, large, full of stores and shops, Christian and Turkish, where people from Dubrovnik and other merchants live.”

In 1610, Mario Baci pointed out: “It is a big and beautiful town with over three thousand hearths; there are only two Latin houses of merchants from Dubrovnik, but many Schismatics.”

While passing through Novi Pazar, Jean Chesneau recorded that the city had well-developed trade.

Italian traveler Zen passed through Novi Pazar in 1550. He described it as a trading place where Bosniaks, Serbs, Dubrovnik people as well as Venetians traded. He recorded that there were plenty of victuals, and that they were cheap, and that goods arrived from everywhere. He also said that there were many mosques, several inns and caravanserais in the town.

Traveler Kontarini was in Novi Pazar in 1580. It seemed to him that the town had around 6,000 houses. He counted 16 mosques and saw a big bazaar with several stores.

Traveler De He, who was in Novi Pazar in 1626, wrote that the town seemed to him to be the best of all that he had seen on his journey from the coast.

Travel writer Evliya Celebii described it in detail when passing through it in the 17th century. He wrote that the town abutted three kazas, that in terms of jurisdiction it was divided among three qadis, and that on market days all the three gathered at one spot. He also recorded that it was a town with 3,000 houses, with one or two levels, covered with rooftiles and that they were in excellent condition. According to him, there were 23 mosques in the town, and two tekkes, one next to the Taš Kopru mosque, by a stone bridge. The town had, he said, “nine fountains where the water is as clean as the spring of life and 40 of them in the downtown. They had been commissioned by waqifs (donors) for the souls of martyrs from Kerbela.”

He also noted that there were many inns in the town, the best ones being Frankish, Sarajevo, Užice, Čorbadžija's market and Ibrahim-efendi's inn.

He described high castles, and said that the best one was one of hadži Ibrahim-efendi, the man who had put Sarajevo and Herzegovina roads in order, built bridges and inns. He also mentioned Zulfikar-zada Mahmud-aga's castle. He recorded that there were two hammams in the town: the old one, which was first mentioned in 1489, as Isa-beg Ishaković's waqf, and a new one. He also recorded that there were two imarets (public kitchens). One of them was also Isa-beg's waqf, where food was given out for free, to gents and the poor alike.

He believed that there were seven churches in the town – Latin and Serbian ones. There were no Frankish, Jewish and Hungarian churches. The town had 10,000 dunams of vineyards, and thirty minutes away from the town there was a warm spa commissioned by hfz. Ahmed Paša.          

He wrote that the climate in the town was very pleasant, “it is summer in the summer and winter in the winter”, as he said, and that the people were healthy and robust.

Finally, he described that the town is situated on seven rivers. “The Raška flows under the Drvena ćuprija (Wooden Bridge), on the south side. It springs from a lake on Pešter – a nahiya of the town of Bihor in Albania. It feeds into the Ibar, and then into the Jošanica. For big branches of the river spread across vineyards and mills, and one flows into yards and fenced gardens. Down there, all the seven rivers unite and feed into the Morava, on the Belgrade road.”

This town has experienced glory and poverty, touched the bottom innumerable times and then rose from the ashes like Phoenix. Tyrants have crushed it, and great ones have built it.

Novi Pazar remembers the following waqifs: Isa-beg, Ahmed-beg, Ahmed-duke, Đul-Šaha –Abdullah's daughter, who endowed seven stores, the house and the garden, and gave the proceeds to the poor, but it also remembers the following oppressors: Palidžak, Mojsije Rašković, Karađorđe and others. For centuries, they and those similar to them, blood-thirsty, used to come to its walls, and returned powerless and humiliated.

Like any Bosniak town, Novi Pazar was founded on waqfs and survived on them. Turbulent times made landowners and merchants leave these regions and withdraw deep in the Turkish empire. They often refused to sell their land and assets, but gladly endowed their property to a waqf. The rich Pazar citizens' practice to endow part of their property still exists. Almost every big settlement has a mosque or another waqf building which was commissioned by one or more wealthy Muslims – Pazar citizens.

The contemporary architecture of the City of Novi Pazar reveals the image of a modern city, while at the same time its sacral buildings – cultural monuments are a source of spirituality which provides its urban architecture with a spirit that refines it and gives them a distinctive taint. Numerous cultural-historical monuments of Bosniak and Serbian people, as well as ancient walls (fortifications) of Illyrian and Roman communities make this area extremely rich with cultural-historical monuments.

The most significant sites include the old marketplace in Novi Pazar, old merchant settlement Trgovište, and fortification Stari Ras near Novi Pazar. The site of Stari Ras became significant and well-known across the world after extensive archeological research, which began late in 1971. Since 1979 it has been part of UNESCO World Heritage List in the group of medieval monuments integrated under the protected whole Stari Ras.

Novi Pazar is home of well-known mosques, such as Lejlek and Altun alem from the 16th century. Due to their structure, these mosques are masterpieces of Islamic architecture. Besides mosques, Sandžak hosts interesting cultural-historical monuments which deserve attention, including madrasas, maktabs, hammams, spas, inns, fountains and other.  

Today, Novi Pazar is a city which represents a junction of East and West in both architectural and cultural sense, and as such it is a harmonious example of the junction of differences which, with its particularities, make up a unique mosaic of cultures and traditions. What makes the local people proud are good relations among peoples of different religious and ethnic affiliations. People in this region have proven that, despite destructions, different people can live together, and that their city can be a meeting point of different cultures and narratives. The preserved cultural-historical monuments testify of the tolerance and coexistence, which are deeply rooted in the city.

Today, Novi Pazar is a city with over 130,000 inhabitants, sixty mosques, two universities, one of which is a waqf (International University) and the other public-owned (State University). Novi Pazar is a city of youth, with over 30% share of youth in the population. It is now also known by private entrepreneurship, with over 700 business entities registered in various fields. Despite the fact that it has been neglected and suppressed by Serbian state authorities, particularly in the post-Communist period, its diligent entrepreneurial citizens still make it the trading center of the region. Its geographic position makes it unavoidable, and cultural-historical monuments widely known.