INTERWEAVING

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. During mass migrations in the 6th century, Slavic settlers in Bosnia and Herzegovina found the Romanized Illyric population, who were eventually Slavicized under the influence of more numerous settlers. This period witnessed the interweaving of pagan religion of ancient Slavs with the Romanized idolatry of the native population. Unlike the Slavic tribes of Croats who, having settled west of Bosnia and Herzegovina, soon came under the influence of Western culture and Roman Catholic Church, and Serbs who, having settled in the regions to the southeast of our country entered the zone of the influence of the Byzantine state and Orthodox religion. In Bosnia and Herzegovina as a central country, influences of the East and the West interwove. Stronger influence of Rome in the centuries that followed brought about strengthening of the influence of the Roman Catholic Church in Bosnia and Herzegovina, particularly in its west regions, while east regions of the country were more subject to the influence of weaker Byzantium and the Orthodox Christian Church.  On the other hand, upon the formation of the medieval Bosnian state, a new, people's Bosnian Church was formed in the central part of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Although the Catholic and Orthodox church proclaimed the Bosnian Church heretic, due to its wide acceptance among people the medieval rules of Bosnia relied upon its and its priests had a privileged position on the Bosnian court. The main characteristics of the Bosnian Church are freedom from church discipline, roots in the folk culture and customs, and tolerance. History has not recorded that priests or members of Bosnian Church, although they enjoyed aristocrats' support, initiated any kind of military activities against Catholic or Orthodox Christians, who peacefully coexisted with them in Bosnia and Herzegovina. On the contrary, the recognizable cultural phenomenon which developed under the influence of Bosnian Church is the emergence of distinctive tombstones – stećaks, the geographical spread of which reveals the zone of cultural influence of the medieval Bosnian kingdom. Vivid pictures of hunting, wedding, knightly games and geometric and natural symbols with only few symbols of the cross clearly show that most part of the medieval inhabitants of Bosnia and Herzegovina did not truly adopt Christianity of either Catholic or Orthodox church. 

Ottoman conquest of Bosnia and Herzegovina in the second half of the 16th century was followed by the expansion of Islam and Oriental-Islamic culture in this region. Most Bosniaks who had belonged to the Bosnian Church converted to Islam in the 17th century, in the first generations formally and later on truly and actually. Since Islam respects all cultural phenomena which are not opposed to its strict monotheism, adoption of Islam did not imply a breakup with the inherited culture and tradition. On the contrary, the first centuries of the spread of Islam witnessed powerful interweaving of pre-Islamic culture and religious tradition with Islam and culture of the Orient. Traces of this interweaving can be found in the tangible and the intangible culture of Bosnia and Herzegovina alike. 

Across Bosnia and Herzegovina, in the immediate vicinity of medieval stećaks, one can find old Muslim cemeteries, which doubtlessly confirms the continuity of the existence of local population, as well as many cultural layers of Bosnian society. Upon converting to Islam, Bosnian stonemasons, who had so skillfully embellished medieval stećaks, transferred their mastery to ornamenting the first nišans – Muslim tombstones where one can find, same as on stećaks, a diverse spectrum of geometric, plant and astral symbols and even figural images which are otherwise alien to Islam. 

During spreading of Islam, pre-Islamic praying sites and some religious traditions of Christian inhabitants of Bosnia and Herzegovina assumed a new form through which they have survived to this day. In this respect, Bosniaks' pilgrimage sites by springs, on mountain peaks, next to stećaks and in deep caves reveal syncretic elements that found their place in the culture and religious tradition of Muslim Bosniaks. 

Besides, as a cattle-raising and agricultural people, inhabitants of Bosnia and Herzegovina did not reject the Gregorian calendar upon adoption of Islam, but began to use the Muslim Hijri calendar in parallel. It was according to the Gregorian calendar, i.e. according to Christian saints' days St. George (St. George's Day) and St. Elijah (St. Elijah's Day and, upon converting to Islam, Alija's Day or, in Turkish, Alidjun), they determined the time for agricultural works and local social and religious festivities, while they performed their Islamic religious obligations according to the Hijri calendar. Interestingly, on pilgrimage sites which have the purely Islamic form of salat and dua prayer, they gathered according to the Gregorian, rather than Hijri calendar, which was usual before the arrival of Islam.

The encounter and interweaving of Islam with pre-Islamic Christian culture in Bosnia and Herzegovina have left permanent traces in the literary, linguistic and gastronomic culture, architecture, fine arts, music, housing and in other fields. 

The period between the 16th and the 19th century was marked by strong Oriental-Islamic influences on the local Christian culture of the time. The Austro-Hungarian occupation of Bosnia and Herzegovina in the mid-19th century opened the door wide to stronger Western European influences on the culture of Bosniaks, who initially selectively, and then in greater numbers, began to adopt various segments of the European culture. Same as travel writers from Europe were sometimes surprised to see Christians in Bosnia and Herzegovina who dressed in the same or similar way as Muslims, nowadays tourists from the East are probably surprised to see that Muslims have adopted western fashion and that there is no difference in the manner of dress between Muslims, Catholic or Orthodox Christians in our country. Western cultural institutions: theatres, cinemas, concert halls, schools of music, academies of fine and performing arts have become a constituent part of Bosniaks' culture. It is by no means unusual for a Bosniak of today to go to the cinema after the prayer in the mosque, and in theatre one can almost regularly see women with their heads covered, which implies their attachment to the values of both Islam and Western culture.