HASAN KAIMI-BABA

Hasan Kaimi-baba Zerrin Oglu (Zerinović, Zrnić, Zrinić) is one of the most famous Bosnian shaykhs, who is better known from stories and legends than from documentary biographic data (passed away in 1691–'92). The scarce historical data which often interweave with folk stories do not allow an insight into the life and activity of shaykh Hasana Kaimija. It is known for certain that he was born in Sarajevo, in the first half of the 17th century, according to some researchers between 1625 and 1635. He began education in his hometown, and continued it in Užice, with famous shaykh Muslihuddin Užičanin. After the completion of his spiritual road, he returned to Sarajevo with idžazet for iršad (diploma and approval for leading and initiating dervishes) and was appointed shaykh of Silahdar Mustafa-pasha tekke, better known as Hadži Sinan tekke, where he began to transmit knowledge to muhibbs (lobvers), murids (novices), dervishes and all the admirers of belles-lettres and higher spiritual.

The fact that he was shaykh of Silahdar Mustafa-pasha tekke in Sarajevo until 1682, a tekke which has since its establishment up till now considered as exclusively Qadirite, as well as the fact that in his poems, particularly in Diwan, he often used the term “our pir Abdul Kadir”, are a kind of proof that shaykh Hasan Kaimi-baba was a shaykh of both Khalwati and Qadiriyya tariqas. It i snot known who granted him the idžazet for iršad pursuant to usul (rules) of this tariqa. It is, however, known that Kaimi-baba used his house in Ajas-pašina mahala, in the immediate vicinity of the Ćumurija bridge, as a tekke. Interestingly, this facility – which no longer exists – continued to work as a tekke even after Kaimi-baba left Sarajevo, even a women's tekke, managed by his wife.

It is known with the equal degree of reliability that he spent the last years of his life in Zvornik, where he passed away to the better world in 1691/92. Reasons for Kaimija's move from Sarajevo to Zvornik were long discusses, and were grounded more on stories and assumptions than on actual, documented historical facts.

There are many stories about his leaving Sarajevo. Thus, it is told that on his departure a woman heard him praying, and asking God, in his prayer, not to allow Sarajevo citizens ever have a religious head from Sarajevo. Besides, resenting a passive attitude of his fellow citizens, shaykh Kaimi-baba asked God not to allow any Sarajevo citizen come to his grave. The story goes that since that time on, no Sarajevo citizen with a bad intention managed to visit the shaykh's grave. Probably the most (un)popular story is one about prayers by Kaimi-baba for Sarajevo, according to which his prayers for air, water and soil were accepted (kabul), and therefore Sarajevo will always have good water, healthy air and enjoy on the good soil. His prayer for fire was not accepted, and therefore it allegedly made him utter: “You will burn, oh Sarajevo (when I am no longer in you)!ˮ Accidentally or not, the first of many great fires which caught Sarajevo in its history starting from that time, happened only five years after Hasan Kaimi-baba passed away, in 1697, upon the incursion of Prince Eugene of Savoy.

In any case, at the time preceding the years-long war of Turkey against Austria and Venetians (1683–1699), Sarajevo was hit by a severe lack of food. Merchants, eager for getting rich, found accomplices among authorities and part of ulama and agreed to withdraw food from the market, telling people to be patient, all in order to increase prices even more. In 1681, the city poor and villagers from Sarajevo surroundings rebelled due to hard conditions in the country. A year of draught, poor harvest, privation and hunger, even plague, ravaged both Sarajevo and whole Bosnia. Based on the knowledge of his ties with lower social classes of population which, together with his qasidas and poems, made him very popular, even charismatic, it is assumed that shaykh Hasan Kaimi also participated in this uprising, which culminated in the murder of kadi Omer-effendi and his deputy Ahmed-effendi, and that it was the reason for his deportation to Zvornik. Some people even go so far as to consider him the leader of the uprising, since he was extremely admired and enjoyed a great reputation among people. According to findings of the late Hifzija Suljkić, upon arrival in Zvornik shaykh Hasan Kaimija found a place to live at Čukura (neighborhood of Fetija, Bolnička Street before the war) and was appointed imam of the Namazđa Mosque. Although Zvornik was an important center of Ottoman authorities at the time, it was distant enough from the capital – Sarajevo, and it was probably not by accident that shaykh Kaimija spent there the rest of his life, that he died there and was buried in the village of Kula, above Zvornik. According to storied, he often visited the spot where he would be buried, and a day before his death he notified his friends that he would die. In the morning, they found him covered with his hrk (dervish vest). A mausoleum was raised above his grave, which exists even today, despite destructions in almost all the storms of war which blew over Bosnia for over three centuries after his death.

Kaimi-baba was a productive shaykh, both in his practice, iršad, and in the area of theory in tasawwuf, and in charity work. Hasan Kaimi-baba left behind two Aljamiado poems and two collections of poetry in Ottoman Turkish, one of which is entitled Diwan, and the other Varidat. Diwan is more comprehensive than Varidat, is more homogenous, and most poems are dedicated to the founder of Qadiriyya tariqa Abdulkadir Gejlani, the tariqa which the poet himself belonged to. Varidat, which is sometimes also called Kasaid-i Kaimi, is a mixture of poetry written from spiritual inspiration and verses which can be interpreted as another domain. Interestingly, out of his poems in Bosnian, which he without any doubt wrote, only two have been preserved, one about harm of smoking tobacco and the other about conquest of Kandija.

In his major work Islamska epigrafika BiH (volume II, pp. 128-130) Mehmed Mujezinović describes an interesting detail. Actually, he writes that in the mausoleum of shaykh Hasan Kaimija there used to be a wooden partition made of shingle, where visitors carved or wrote verses, and which burned down together with the mausoleum in the latest war in BiH.

As a poet, Hasan Kaimi-baba remained within limits of classical Sufi poetry, showed knowledge of various domains, from the Qur'an and hadith to rules and contents of Oriental poetics, and from the aspect of doctrine he was clearly an advocate of the teaching of existential monism, i.e. vahdet-i vudžudu.

Jesi li shvatio zašto te Istina na ovaj svijet donijela?

Sebi dođi, sebe spoznaj i pravo na sebe

Kroz sebe pogledaj!

Tajna: “bio sam skriveno blagoˮ sam ćeš postati, ako si sebe poznao,

Otvori stranice Knjige postojanja, u njoj si od Boga pouk uzeo.

(Have you understood what Truth brought you to this world?

Come to your senses, know yourself and right to yourself,

Look through yourself!

You will become the secret: “I used to be hidden treasure” if you know yourself,

Open pages of the Book of Existence, it is there that you learned from God.)

Tri slova i dvije tačke znanost su čitavog svijeta

U srce kako si ušao, dokaz svepostojanja si spoznao.

(Three letters and two dots are the science of the whole world

As you entered the heart, you realized the proof of all the existence.)

Tačka u “Bˮ i “Bismillah-aˮ srce je svakog vjernika.

Čovjek, i cijeli svijet, njega je Bogom nazvao.

(The dot in “B” and “Bismillah” is the heart of every believer.

The man, and the whole world, named him God.)

Dođi do Adema, svijet je on, jedan je on, i Ahmed.

Niko mu nije ravan, jedna je Istina, Bog je Istina (postao)

(Come to Adem, he is the world, he is the one, and Ahmed.

Nobody equals him, Truth is one, God is Truth (become).)

Ko do sebe nije došao, Drugi jedan postoji,

Povjerovao je.

Sve što postoji od Njega je, sve što se kreće i nepomično što je.

Vjerovanje u raznolikost njeg će u haps baciti.

Ko Jednoga spozna, u jedinstvu ko je,

U kaljuzi neće boraviti.

Svaki oblik od njegovog postojanja lik je preuzeo.

On sam sebi veo je postao, čovjek mu je:

“Drug siˮ, rekao.

(Who has not come to himself, Another one exists,

He believed.

Everything that exists is from Him, everything that moves and that does not.

Belief in diversity will throw him to jail.

Who knows One, who is in unity,

Will not stay in mud.

The figure took each form of his existence.

He has become his own veil, the man

Told him: “You are a friend.”)

Nema Boga osim Njega i kako bi neko drugi to mogao biti?

I prije neg' što Vijesnik (smrti) od njega stigne,

To, jadniče, trebaš shvatiti.

(There is no God but Him, and how could anybody else be?

Even before the Harbinger (of death) reaches him,

You should understand it, poor soul.)

Stvaranje si rekao, svijet si rekao, Bog si rekao, Njemu, Jednome.

(You said creation, you said the world, you said God, to Him, One and Only.)

Nema više strana osim jedne, okreni uho Njemu (Jednome)!

(There is only one side, turn your ear to Him (One and Only)!

Inače ćeš izgoriti vječno u vatri mnoštva i raskošja.

A znaš li zašto si ovdje došao poput svjetlosti plamena jedinstva?

(Or else you will burn forever in th efire of multitude and luxury.

And do you know why you came here like the light of the flame of unity?)

Nije se još ništa zbilo, o Kaimi, barem riječ kad bi prozborio,

Iz Muhammedovog ružičnjaka jedan cvijet ti je stigao.

(Nothing has happened yet, oh Kaimi, if you could utter but a word,

One flower arrived for you from Muhammed's rose garden.)

Translation into Bosnian taken from:

Azra Verlašević, Vedad Spahić, Ašik istine: orijentalisti i književni historičari o Hasanu Kaimiji,

Tuzla, Bosnia Ars, 2006, pp.7-29.

Illustration:

Manuscript no. 210: Diwan by Hasan Kaimija

Hasan Kaimija was a famous poet from Sarajevo who wrote poems in Ottoman and in Bosnian, the so-called Aljamiado poems. He is considered the best-known poet of the Balkans of the time. That he was irrefutably very popular and admired at his time is proven by a large number of transcriptions of his works. His poems were transcribed both as independent collections, such as the manuscript from the holdings of Bosniak Institute Divan-i Qa'imi (Ms 210), or as part of various medžmuas (collections), such as the case with another manuscript from our holdings, entitled simply Medžmua (Magmu'ah, Ms 193). Manuscripts of Kaimija's poets are numerous and, as Jasna Šamić points out, are found in many libraries of the world, in Sarajevo, Zagreb, Belgrade, Cairo, Istanbul, Paris, London, Bratislava etc. In Sarajevo, Kaimija's manuscripts are held by Gazi Husrev-bey Library and National and University Library of BiH, Library of the Academy of Sciences and Arts of BiH and Sarajevo Historical Archives. Library of the Oriental Institute used to hold as many as 14 transcriptions of Kaimija's manuscripts, which were unfortunately destroyed during shelling of the Institute in 1992.

Unfortunately, this manuscript of Kaimi-baba's Diwan has no data on the transcription, and from notes on the liner it can be seen that the manuscript was previously owned by Shaykh Sirri-zade Muhammed Behauddin from the village of Oglavak and Sejfuddin Fehmi b. Ali Kemura (1890–91).

Medžmua, a collection of diverse contents written in Ottoman Turkish, whose author is unknown, includes an interpretation of the Qur'an by poet Hasan Kaimija, which indicates some future happenings. Indeed, Kaimija was involved in 'ilm-i džefr, interpretation of numerical values of harfs (letters), and therefore his well-known work Varidat is actually a collection of peculiar istihradžats (predictions) of future events.

Transcript of Mathnawi in Isa-bey Tekke in Sarajevo from the holdings of Bosniak Institute – Foundation Adil Zulfikarpašić