Due to its geographic position, Bosnia and Herzegovina found itself in the whirlpool of turbulent historical events which, over time, shaped its cultural code the recognizable feature of which is a product of interweaving of the ancient Illyric and powerful cultures of the East and the West.

The arrival of Austro-Hungarian administration brought about great changes in the area of urban planning and architecture in Bosnia and Herzegovina, due to the encounter between two cultural-civilizational circles, which were not necessarily opposed categories but rather supplemented and built upon each other.

Continuity of burial through the centuries: tumuls and gradinas, nišan tombstones and bašluks.

The most representative monuments of artistic production in medieval Bosnia are stećaks – tombstones which testify of a unique cultural and artistic phenomenon within sepulchral practices at the European and global level.

A characteristic tone to the ritual practice of Bosniaks is provided by the tradition of visits to dovištes (pilgrimage sites).

One does not have to be an expert to notice that our forests and meadows hide many traces from the past, which clearly indicated a fairly long continuity of life in these regions.

The Middle Ages spawned the first form of nišans (Islamic tombstones) from the early stage in our regions, and for this reason a strong tinge of medieval culture can be observed on them.

Until the emergence of modern technical aids in agriculture, people fully depended on moody forces of nature: the Sun, rain and wind. The man very early realized that the quality of life depended on the Sun and, to ensure affection of this precious celestial body, began to consider the Sun a deity.

Although the practice of making nišans (Islamic tombstones) in accordance with the social status of the deceased person came into use in the mid-17th century, one kind of Bosnian nišan has this significance from its early period.

Jajce, Bosnia and Herzegovina

About twenty kilometers south of Zvornik, above the mouth of rivers Jadra and Drinjača, one can still see ruined remains of the medieval town of Kušlat and a renewed mosque with the wooden minaret.

In the early 1970s, Muhamed Hadžijahić referred to the so-called Record of Kunovo as an interesting example of syncretic elements in Islam in Bosnia and Herzegovina, which lingered longest among people and in folk customs and beliefs.

In one of his pioneer studies of history and culture of Islam in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Muhamed Hadžijahić (1918-1986) discussed some poorly researched phenomena, which portray specificities of the worlds of Bosnian Islam in an interesting way.

It is well known that arrival of a new culture always brings about certain changes. Thus, arrival of Ottoman administration was accompanied with changes is daily life of local population.

Even when he dies, the man remains a social being, the more so if he is a believer and an active member of a religious community.

All noblemen from Dubrovnik were mischievous and unbridled in their youth, but Stijepo Đurđević Giman (1579-1732) really stopped at nothing.

The traditional Islamic architecture in Bosnia and Herzegovina is powerfully characterized by the tradition of “whitening walls”, primarily the outside ones, while the interior walls were regularly whitened in residential, as well as in sacral architecture, with the exception of the most significant, mostly domed mosques.

The Ottoman Empire was distinctive in many things, among others by titles of dignitaries and officers and the way of their ranking.

The significance and influence of Sufism in Bosnia and Herzegovina during the Ottoman period was very strong and prominent.

With medieval, Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian layers