THE CULTURE OF THE BOOK IN BOSNIA
Author: Osman Lavić, MA, Gazi Husrev-beg Library in Sarajevo • Photo: Rahle - stand for reading of Quran decorated with silver wire and nacre • Source: Gazi Husrev-beg Library
Upon its arrival in Bosnia, Islamic civilization had an eight-century long tradition of a favorable attitude toward the book and its production. This is confirmed by the impressive libraries in Baghdad, Cairo, Damascus, Cordoba and other Islamic centers. Upon its entry in the circle of Oriental-Islamic civilization in the mid-15th century, Bosnia experienced a significant economic, urban and cultural development. Acceptance of the Islamic culture led to the need for new infrastructural contents. For the purpose of satisfying religious and other needs, mosques, primary schools (maktabs) and secondary schools (madrasas), dervish lodges, schools for educating the members of the Sufi ranks (khaniqahs), public kitchens (imarets), inns, caravanserais, and later on, teachers' residences (mualimhanas) and hospitals were built. All these institutions needed books for their activity; thus, in Islamic civilization, the book was not a privilege of clerical circles or the feudal elite but rather it permeated a broad circle of the population, conditional only on their financial situation.
The first significant number of books were brought to Bosnia by soldiers, physicians, imams, sheiks and other escorts of Mehmed Fatih II, although a couple of books in Arabic, Turkish and Persian could be found in these regions even before their arrival. Imports of books, sometimes to a smaller and sometimes to a larger extent, lasted for almost half a millennium and was one of the ways of satisfying the need for textbooks and other literature. In addition to these imports, institutions and individuals satisfied their need for books by duplicating the existing literature. Due to the fact that printing shops took root only in the late 19th century, duplication was achieved only by copying, which was done by teachers (muderrises), students, imams of mosques, artisans, soldiers, people of other occupations, and even by women. Books were copied both for one's own needs and as a professional craft occupation. Copying centers included madrasas, libraries, dervish lodges, fortresses and specially organized scriptoriums, such as the one in Foča in the late 16th century. A particularly significant kind of scribe included calligraphers and miniaturists, who created true works of art by writing, illuminating and illustrating texts and books, using several types and subtypes of Arabic script. In Bosnia, they appeared fairly early, as soon as in the late 15th century. Some of them gained world fame and illuminated and copied the most significant works in the sultan's court. Jusuf, Ahmed's son of 1475, Nesuh Matrakčija, Osman Nakaš, Jusuf Bošnjak, Derviš-paša Bajezidagić in the 16th century, Muhamed Nerkesija, Mejlija, Husein Bošnjak, Sheikh Abdurahman Sirri-baba Sikirić, Abdulah Ajni Hasagić, Mehmed Mujagić, Hafiz Rakim-ef. Islamović, Ali Šerif-ef. Faginović, Mehmed-beg Kapetanović Ljubušak, Ahmed Seid Vilić – are some of the names which we find signed under the copies of poetry and prose works, diplomas (idžazetnamas), levhas, chronograms, epitaphs and other kinds of texts.
Besides copying, the production of books included other activities such as binding, embellishing covers and others. Two Sarajevo streets, Mali and Veliki mudželiti, were named after the binderies that were grouped in them.
Mushafs (Qur'an) were the most frequently copied books in Bosnia. Gazi Husrev-beg's library itself holds about 700 preserved copies. The oldest transcript of mushaf held in Gazi Husrev-beg's Library in Sarajevo was made in 878/1474. The manuscript was owned by Mehmed-efendija Serdarević, and was brought from the village of Crnići near Stolac (R-8797). As a rule, scribes wrote the ordinal number of their copy at the end of mushaf. At the end of the manuscript donated to the Library by Sadet-hanuma Mašić from Sarajevo we find the scribe's note that it is the 285th copy of mushaf(R-6303). In the second half of the 18th century, Sarajevo calligrapher Ibrahim Šehović, son of Muhamed, wrote the ordinal number of his copy at the bottom of each transcript. So far it is known that he transcribed the mushaf sixty-six times (R-4371, R-9840, R-6978, R-7575). His transcripts are masterpieces of Islamic calligraphy. The Juzes (parts) of the mushaf, which were commissioned by Mehmed-pasha Sokolović for his mosque in Sokolovići near Rudo in the 16thcentury, are some of the best works of both Islamic and world art. In an artistic sense, they are closely followed by two juzes made in the 16th century, found in Ferhat-pasha's mosque in Banja Luka, the mushaf in the collection of manuscripts of the National and University Library of Bosnia and Herzegovina transcribed by Husein Bošnjak in 1755–56 (Rs-836), Fadil-pasha Šerifović's mushaf transcribed in 1849 (R-9), Muhamad as-Sarajli's transcript of 1721–22 (Bosniak Institute Ms 576) and dozens of others.
Out of respect for the Qur'an as God's word, richly decorated peshtahtas (benches for books and notebooks), rahle (a kind of foldable wooden stands for the Qur'an), scales, and brass bowls decorated with Qur'anic text which held water for moistening fingers when leafing the mushaf were made. With respect to topics, literature of various content such as Islamic tradition, law, history, astronomy, philosophy, logic, disputation, medicine, pharmacy, mathematics, lexicography, biography, autobiography, yearbooks, travel books and literature in other disciplines was copied. The early 16th century witnessed the appearance of commentaries (glosses and super glosses) and, later on, of original works by local authors who completed their education in their hometowns and in the larger centers of the Ottoman Empire. So far, we know of over 400 names of authors of local, Bosnian origin who were involved in writing in one of Oriental languages or in their native language, Bosnian, in Arabic script (Aljamiado literature). Autographs and transcripts of shorter or longer works by these authors are now held in all the larger manuscript collections, both in Bosnia and Herzegovina and in the world. They include Gazi Husrev-beg's Library, the National and University Library of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Herzegovina Archives, Historical Archives of Sarajevo, the monasteries in Fojnica, Kreševo, Kraljeva Sutjeska, Mostar and Livno, manuscript collections in Turkey, the National Library in Vienna, the Vatican Library in Rome, Paris, Berlin, London, to name just a few. Many of these works have been scientifically evaluated and translated into other languages.
The literature that was used in our regions was held in small and large libraries.
The first libraries in Bosnia and Herzegovina were formed in the early 16th century. Mosque, madrasa, maktab, lodge, public and private libraries were formed in many towns. Historians have recorded about 800 maktabs and 80 secondary schools (madrasas) which existed in Bosnia in the Ottoman period. Each of these schools had a large or small library of its own. The most significant among them include the libraries of Gazi Husrev-beg, Osman-šehdija, Đumišić, Kantamirija and Ajas-beg's maktab in Sarajevo, the Karađoz-beg library in Mostar, the Elči Ibrahim-pasha library in Travnik, the Behram-beg madrasa library in Tuzla, the libraries of Halil-ef. Trepanić in Gračanica, of Kizlar-aga in Mrkonjić-Grad, of Ali-pasha Rizvanbegović in Mostar, of Abdurahman Sirrija at Oglavak, of Husamuddin Bošnjak in Banja Luka, of Ibrahim Počiteljac in Počitelj, of Memišah-beg in Foča and in other towns. In Sarajevo alone there were over 200 private libraries registered in the books of the Sharia Court in the 18th and 19th century. There was almost no rich and noble family that did not have a home library. The tradition of forming private libraries existed in Bosnia even in the 20thcentury. One of them, the library of Safvet-beg Bašagić, can be found in the University Library of the University of Bratislava. In 1997 it was entered in UNESCO's World Heritage List of sites having outstanding universal value, and in 2010 manuscripts from this library were exhibited in the headquarters of the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in Paris.
Based on a fatwa by Šejhu-l-islama Abdulah-ef. Jenišehirlija and a decree by Sultan Ahmed III of 1727, the first state printing shop in the Ottoman Empire (Dār aṭ-ṭıbā‘a al-ma‘mūra) began to operate in Istanbul. The printing shop was managed by a high royal official of Hungarian origin. Out of the first seventeen works printed in twenty-two volumes between 1729 and 1742 in Arabic, Turkish and Persian, Gazi Husrev-beg's Library holds twelve. They include the work by Omer-ef. Novljanin Odbrana Bosne : 1736-1739. godine. In the 1870s, the first Wilayah printing shop was founded in Sarajevo. During its twelve-year long activity, besides many books, it printed the first periodicals and calendars: Bosna, Neretva, Bosanski vjestnik, Sarajevski cvjetnik and the yearbook Salname. During the Austro-Hungarian occupation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (1878–1918) there were about twenty private printing shops; among them we can single out Islamska dionička štamparija in Sarajevo and Muslimanska nakladna knjižara i štamparija Muhameda Bekira Kalajdžića in Mostar.