SCRIPTORIUM IN FOČA IN THE LATE 16th CENTURY

In a work published in 1963, Kasim Dobrača claims that as early as in the 1580s there was a scriptorium in Foča, a town in Eastern BiH, where transcribing manuscripts intensively developed. In the 1580s, the Foča scriptorium had twenty-five registered transcribers and proofreaders. Dobrača reached this conclusion based on his catalogue research of the “manuscripts of comments entitled Ṣadr al-sharīʻah, in the field of Islamic law”. The names of legators, transcribers and proofreaders who worked on copying parts of this manuscript are frequently recorded as local, Bosnian ones, e.g. “transcribed with his own hand and bequeathed by our renowned alim Hadži Omer”, “bequeathed by Mustafa, Ferhad's son from Travnik“,  “compared to the original by mudarris Šaban”. 

The very intensive urban development of the town of Foča is also confirmed by the following data provided by Kasim Dobrača: “As early as at that time – i.e. in the 1580s – there were ten mosques, smaller or larger, several maktabs and at least one madrasa.”

Reference:

• Dobrača, Kasim, “Skriptorij u Foči u XVI stoljećuˮ, Anali Gazi Husrev-begove biblioteke, no. 1, Sarajevo, 1972.