LIVING WATERS

Author: Lejla Bektaš, Riyasat of the Islamic Community in Bosnia and Herzegovina  • Illustration: Bregava river, Stolac • Photo: Tarik Jesenković

When describing the creation of the world, the Qur'an suggests that water is its basis: And We created from water every living thing (Qur'an, 21:30). 

In Islamic belief life originated from water – a Divine gift which symbolizes profound wisdom, a gift that quenches the thirst of the soul and the body. Islam attributed the most holy qualities to water, as a resource which gives, maintains and cleanses life. The Arabic word for water, mâ, appears at least sixty-three times in the Qur'an, even eighty-five times with other meanings and, as Professor Enes Karić says in his essay about water (1999): “In the Qur'an, water is mentioned in all its states: water is rain, water is the river, water is the sea, water is dew, water is saltwater and ice, water is freshness, water is steam.” Water is God's mercy materialized. It leans towards both ghaib (the imaginary) and the earthly (the tangible).

No other religion attaches such significance to water as Islam. Indeed, water has a crucial, one might even say a cult role in Islam, i.e. in the Islamic culture of life. It is necessary both for life and for practicing the religion – for cleansing, performing ablutions, and addressing Allah Jalla Shanuhu.

Bosnia and Herzegovina is endowed with the bounties of fast flowing, clean and drinkable waters. From these blessings local man's attitude toward water, and toward the cult of cleanliness and hygienic care, has developed. The cult of water has been so prominent that there is almost no travel writer who has not drawn attention to this aspect of the Bosnian environment. Thus, in 1864, in one of five letters about Bosnia, Ahmed Dževdet-pasha noted: “The river Bosnia and its surroundings cannot be described using the pen. I believe that the best artist's brush could not paint the beauties of these regions. On both banks of the river one can see pretty villages, well-arranged estates, beautiful green meadows and fertile gardens.”

Upon the arrival of Islam in Bosnia over five centuries ago, water reached its spiritual and material climax in the cultural life, at the individual and social level, and in civilizational, architectural, aesthetic, urban, religious and other forms. The need for water was enhanced by the Islamic culture of daily living. People began to build water supply systems, public water fountains, shadirvans, sebils and hamams. The first public water supply system was built by the founder of Sarajevo, Gazi Isa-beg Ishaković. In Sarajevo alone there were sixty-eight water supply systems, which culminated in water fountains or wells on both public and private properties. Moreover, there was an obligation to share a surplus of water or make it accessible, since in Islam water is considered to be a public good which belongs equally to everybody and which cannot be privatized, and it must be distributed properly among all living beings - people, animals and plants. Charging for water was considered a major haram (transgression). Bosniaks managed this precious natural resource well, with respect and with the highest degree of responsibility.

 “It seems that one could live here for a long time, since there are a thousand places in Sarajevo where tap water flows from the spring of eternity.”  This is how the best-known Sarajevo poet of the late 16th and early 17th century, Muhamed Nerkesija, described the public Sarajevo water fountains and sebils. It is also supported by the fact that in the last years of Ottoman rule there were about 156 street water fountains in Sarajevo, not including those in the courtyards of mosques, inns and hammams. The same was true of other Bosnian towns. Small neighborhood mosques were typically built on the corner of two streets, with water faucets on the outer side of the mosque courtyard wall. In this way, the whole community used the water for drinking, washing and ablution. These charitable facilities were supported by individuals, typically good ordinary people. No other kind of wakaf (endowment) is so related to philanthropy as public water fountains. “It is a sevap (good deed) to feed the hungry, and to give to the thirsty water to drink.”  This was the guiding idea of their providers. The water fountains were places for meetings, conversations, friendships and first loves. They were adorned with folk names: Djevojačka česma (Girls' water fountain), Zatikuša, Kadinuša, Feredžuša etc. These small masterpieces eventually became a constituent part of the town's landscape architecture, since these spaces were sufficiently prominent but never intrusive. They were always built of stone and decorated with spiritual writings (tarihs), which indicates that those who had them built always did it for the sake of their own soul or the souls of their closest family.

Shadirvans served the same purpose as public water faucets, and were typically built as an adornment for a mosque, madrasa, caravanserai, tekke or hammam. Under the dome of a shadirvan there is usually a fountain with a pool, and there is also a water faucet for ablution on each side of the hexagonal, or octagonal, shadirvan. 

Unlike shadirvans, sebils were built in squares, at intersections and by main roads, though with the same purpose as water faucets or shadirvans. The word sebil originates from Arabic and means a road; the term pertains to a charitable structure by a road, a fountain of a special shape, on the windows of which one could always find glasses full of water. 

In the daily life and culture of Bosnian Muslims particular importance is attached to bathing and hygienic care, which is a prerequisite for beginning a prayer and other religious rituals. Immediately upon their arrival in Bosnia, the Ottomans built three public baths (hammams), two in Sarajevo and one in Visoko. In his research (1991: 15-16), historian Hamdija Kreševljaković records that these, mostly religious and charitable endowments, totaled 56 facilities in 42 locations in Bosnia and Herzegovina by the end of the 18th century. 

Almost every Muslim house in Bosnia had a small bathroom (hamamdžik), a small room for washing hands before and after the meal, for ablution before prayer and for taking a bath. In the houses of the wealthy they were even built in every room. These facts speak of high standards of cleanliness among Bosnian Muslims, of a kind of spiritual hedonism and beauty. 

Thus, in daily life the Bosnian house and its architecture testified to a close relationship between man and water. The central place in the women's separate courtyard was occupied by a shadirvan or a well surrounded by sumptuous blooming flowers and fruit trees. It was this intimate ambience, enriched with the gurgling of living waters, that would engender the emergence of sevdalinka – the urban song. 

The motif of water is typically present in invocation: U bašči mi bunar-voda, / ja je ne pijem, / viš bunara ruža cvate, / ja je ne berem (In my garden there's water from the well / I don’t drink it / the rose is blooming above the well, / I don't pick it), or Drino, živa žeđo moja, / o moj dragi, živa željo moja! (Drina river, my living thirst, oh my darling, my living desire!) 

Indeed, some sevdalinka songs were about the phenomenon of living waters, and gave them a human (personal) character: Aj, dvije su se vode zavadile, / aj, the Ćehotina, aman, i studena Drina. / Aj, Ćehotina Drini govorila: / aj, što s' se, Drino, aman, mamom pomamila (Oh, two waters got into a quarrel / oh, Ćehotina, oh, and the freezing Drina. / Oh, the Ćehotina told the Drina: / oh, Drina, why are you in such a frenzy).

In Bosnian Muslim Sufi tradition, flowing water also had a symbolic and spiritual role. Bosnian Muslim beliefs were enriched by true, but also folk, stories about living waters, about their supernatural and healing power. Over time, many now centuries-old praying sites (dovištas), the best-known of which is Prusac, were formed. The Prusac dovište is based on a legend about the power of a days-long prayer by Ajvaz-dedo, which made a rock split in half and water flow through the newly formed canyon, which in turn allowed constructing wooden pipes to take the water to this small Ottoman town.

The Bosnian tradition of Islam involves a luxuriant, sublime culture of water, to the greatest extent possible and in various ways. Clean, blessed, living waters flow through the Bosnian civilization of Islam.

 

References:

  • Karić, Enes. (1999) Eseji od Bosne: Slovo o vodi. Sarajevo: Sejtarija.

  • Kreševljaković, Hamdija. (1991) Izabrana djela III. Sarajevo: Veselin Masleša.

Other sources: