REFLECTIONS OF ISLAMIC SPIRITUAL MESSAGE ON TRADITIONAL ISLAMIC ART AND ARCHITECTURE IN BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA

Spirituality is the inner dimension or the center of every religious teaching which, essentially, makes up the sum of all the crucial ideas or principles of believing. It was on the basis of these ideas that unsurpassable works of traditional architecture and art of different cultures and civilizations, as works of human spirit which owe their timeless beauty in this world of decay to these ideas. They are spiritual principles “imprinted upon that matter, that surrounds man in his daily life” (Nasr, 72).

Traditional Islamic art and architecture are a magnificent reflection of the spirit of Islam, the works of which, n the opinion of many contemporary art critics, are classified into the very top of world art and architecture. Having emerged on seedlings of Islamic spirituality, this architecture and art are an exterior reflection of the principles of Islamic faith which ultimately lead to Allah’s beautiful names and attributes. Since they are the very reflection of Islamic spiritual message some authors, like Seyyed Hosein Nasr, described them as the “helping hand of Islamic revelation”.

In its entirety, the traditional Islamic art and architecture represent a unique repertoire of particular artistic and architectural patterns, different colors and shapes and their relations, which build up the recognizable Islamic visual expression. It is a formal language which is possessed by each traditional art, since there is a strict reciprocity between form and spirit. „No art deserves this attribute unless its form especially reflects the spiritual vision distinctive for the given religion “ (Burckhardt, Sveta umjetnost, 5). For centuries, the traditional Islamic art and architecture in Bosnia and Herzegovina have been loyal to this formal language as an expression of the spiritual vision of Islam. Their far-reaching echoes remind of this luxuriant tradition even today, in the completely changed circumstances of contemporary life in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Kaaba, the prototype of Islamic architecture and art

The central importance and significance for Islamic art, and particularly for Islamic architecture, is attached to Kaaba, named Bayt Allah, the House of God. It is the spiritual and ritual center toward which all mosques and masjids are oriented and toward which every Muslim turns during the five daily prayers, wherever he may be. It summarizes the name, the shape, the sign and the signified in itself, and by its elementary geometric form of a cube it represents the proto-art, i.e. the embryo form out of which the entire Islamic art and architecture would develop. It is characterized by the static nature of cubic form, emptiness of the interior and non-existence of a visible center in the interior, which are essential references that make this temple unique in the world (Burckhardt, Art, 4).

The cubic form symbolizes the idea of creation, i.e. it symbolizes the Earth since it points to the four sides of the world, while the form of a cube itself, with its full symmetry and balance reflects a static quality as a crucial peculiarity. The traditional Islamic house or mosque, regardless of the part of Islamic world it has been made, always build a “space without tensions”, created as an unrepeatable reflection of the idea of peace and calming down, balance and harmony, as a recognizable Islamic feature. The ambience which is made up by these forms is a reflection of Allah’s beautiful name As-Salam and a completely physical reflection of the metaphysical idea of salam as one of the fundamental ideas of Islam. It is indicated by the sublime speech of Allah: “O believers! Enter into Islam wholeheartedly” (Qur’an, 2:208). Islamic greeting As-salamu ‘alaykum, which means peace be upon you, flows across the Islamic world like a bloodstream, carrying the universal and glorious idea of peace as the primarily Islamic idea, which is very often forgotten today.

On the other hand, by its empty interior, Kaaba indicated God’s immanence and transcendence, since Allah is present in everything and, at the same time, transcends everything that has been made. Since Maker cannot be represented by anything that he has made, emptiness has been declared one of the sacred elements of Islamic art and architecture and, at the same time it is one of its crucial features. Therefore, symbolism of emptiness and its use in Islamic art and architecture is by no means accidental or arbitrary but is rather a very eloquent reflection of the Qur’anic truth that, although present in everything, Allah is totally above and behind everything that man’s mind can comprehend and sense.

The empty interior of the traditional Islamic architecture, which has been conditioned by Kaaba itself, is free from redundant furniture and any meaningless content and thus created a strong feeling of the width of space in objectively small dimensions. Based on a particular “economy” of the use of architectural forms and their spatial relations, these interiors at the same time build a unique experience of void which “symbolizes the sacred and the gate through which the Divine Presence enters into the material order” (Nasr, 188). At the same time, they produce the intuition of widening these actually limited spaces to cosmic expanses behind and beyond them.

Authentic interiors of Islamic ambient architecture also have their distant echo in the contemporary culture of living. Their universal value and highlighted functionality are also present in the modern ambient architecture in the form of corner sofas and closets, which are actually not new ideas but are essentially modern interpretations of traditional sećijas (divans) and musanderas (wooden carved closets along the whole wall), which have been accepted throughout the world and especially in our region. It is little known that they are contributions of Islamic art and architecture to the contemporary culture of living.

Interior of the traditional Islamic architecture also confirms its Islamic quality in a special way of lighting these spaces. It is a “spatial order created to herald Divine Presence which encompasses believers on all sides” (Nasr, 62). It is referred to by a Qur’anic ayah which goes: “Wherever you turn you are facing ‘towards’ Allah’s Face.” (Qur'an, 2:115). This ayah speaks about Allah’s omnipresence in the created order, which is highlighted by even lighting of these interiors. Like the archetype Kaaba, which does not have a visible center in its interior, no part of these spaces is singled out and therefore emphasized by light. Even the mihrab, which marks the direction toward qibla, is not a separate space, since it directs toward the Kaaba, thus to an object which is outside of this space. It is primarily achieved by the distribution of windows, which are positioned in the way that the natural light evenly illuminates each part of the interior. Besides, window transennas, i.e. mušebaks, which serve to evenly balance entry of light into interior of the mosque or the house, which also contributes to the atmosphere of peace and tranquility as an essential Islamic feature. Artificial lighting is achieved by means of a special structure of the so-called tanur, a metal circle with evenly distributed lamps, which we often find in our old mosques. These special structures prevent coagulation of light, which makes them illuminating rather than glowing. They thus remain in the background, which achieves the intuition of Divine omnipresence in the visual field and facilitates the inward focus into its center, both in the fundamental Islamic ritual of daily prayer and in daily stay in these spaces.

A replica of the Kaaba has never been built in the Islamic world; however, every traditional Islamic architecture has a cube as its basic element. These fundamental characteristics of Islamic art and architecture would have their authentic implementation and consistent representatives in Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is difficult, almost impossible, to find a traditional Bosnian house or mosque which does not have a cube in its architectural form. Even today, thus fundamental and the most significant form of Islamic architecture is present in our contemporary architectural production and is visible at every step, regardless of the fact that it lost connection with the traditional Islamic architecture and building a long time ago.

References

• Nasr, Seyyed Hosein, Islamic Art and Spirituality, State University of New York Press, Albany, 1987.

• Burckhardt, Titus, Sveta umjetnost na istoku i na zapadu, Tugra, Sarajevo, 2007.

• Burckhardt, Titus, Art of Islam, World Wisdom, Ins., 2009.