BEAUTY AND TRUTH OF SIMPLICITY: ŠEREFUDIN WHITE MOSQUE IN VISOKO

Leaving the plane of daily life and busy life of the town core, we descend to the entrance porch of the White Mosque at Visoko, beginning communication with notions, desires and strivings woven into the work of Zlatko Ugljen. An encounter between Western rationalization and Islamic symbolization makes this mosque a rare architectural testimony of the complex context of Bosnia and Herzegovina and successful filling local people's life and work with meaning, having remained an attractive mystery even half a century after the creation of the project. His debt to the great of modernist architecture La Corbusier is indubitable, since in the Ronchamp chapel La Corbusier applied a rational form in a sacral building, thus contributing to the wealth of ideological image of modern society. And while in the Ronchamp chapel we enjoy in an encounter between different historical planes of Western European historical continuum (modern rationality and medieval symbolization), the White Mosque at Visoko is an encounter between different spiritual moods, which draw origin from different cultural horizons, Western and Eastern, here in Bosnia and Herzegovina, where all these worldviews are factors of the past and are indistinguishably interwoven in social fantasms and functions.

I will here focus on the share of rational form in the fabric of symbolic function which transfuses social and affective contradictions into daily practice. Ugljen used the functionality and rationality of modernist architecture in getting closer to collective awareness and disturbing borders which would separate people on any grounds, returning to the primordial relationship between the man and the environment, the man and the surrounding reality under the sign of functional, useful and practical. In this way the mosque shows its affinity for the man for his actual earthly existence, to allow us to step, from this point, to higher transcendental perspectives of life. Since, “the Qur'an also attached a huge significance to earthly existence of the man. It is not a full life, but is the right place where the man has to earn his purpose and truth.” (Smailagić, 1990, 351).

The refined and simple form of clean geometric shapes is an expression of rationality suitable for accepting differences in desires, strivings, expectations and emotions and indicate equality of all people before God. This ideology cannot be expressed by monumental forms but rather a form which will be coordinated with other social functions, a structure in collusion with the environment and the space it inhabits. From the Ottoman mosque, Ugljen abstracts the pyramidal form and uses it to express existential needs of the actual man of Bosnia and Herzegovina in the late twentieth century.

There are many details and careful executions which confirm the thesis of an encounter between modernist rationality and Islamic symbolization under the sign of something simple, practical and suitable for the man; however, I will focus on the language of form, related to the basic purpose of the central interior space of the mosque, i.e. the prayer. Indeed, it is the only measure which distinguishes ones from others before God: ”'Service of prayer is the pillar of faith', Prophet said. The Qur'an refers to it over a hundred of times (...)” (Smailagić,1990, 433). Prophet recognizes the daily prayer as the “first argument which indicates respecting the contract of believing and a ritual which distinguishes believers from non-believers” (El-Kardavi, 2001, 199).

Architecture of the White Mosque juxtaposes eschatological consequences of the prayer with actual engagement of the individual, through a process which proceeds by rules, at accurately defined periods of day, and is a constituent part of the accelerated daily life of the modern man. It does not diminish the power of religion; on the contrary, it indicated its potential omnipresence and the importance of nourishing spiritual being in the daily life.

By entering the front yard which isolates us from the town commotion and descending toward the porch for ritual washing, we satisfy a prerequisite for spiritual purification – washing of the body (ablution). “Islam considers cleanliness a constituent part of believing” (Ibid. 204). Prophet said: “Allah is really beautiful and loves beauty, He is clean and loves cleanliness” (Ibid.). The base of the mosque is below the level of the street, and the visitor encounters darkness at the entrance porch and a building without openings on side walls. It makes illumination of the central praying space even more amazing, since it is illuminated by light which spreads from above and contributes to vertical orientation of the space, symbolizing spiritual ascension of worshippers. Five windows on the central dome-pyramid allow a symphony of light which is performed in the interior during the day and sets the beat to worshippers for the five daily prayers, in accurately defined periods: at dawn, at noon, in the afternoon, at sunset and when the darkness falls. “Floodlights from the main minaret are directed toward skylights. During night praying rituals they also zenithally illuminate the space of the interior, creating the illusion of moonlight.” (Bernik, 2002, 56).

As much the man has meals continuously during the day, as much he needs spiritual meals: “The five daily prayers are an opportunity for the sinner-man to get better and return to his Lord, to extinguish the flame of greed, passion and ignoring Allah dž.š. and the future world” (El-Kardavi, 202). Five times a day, the man withdraws from this world, worldly needs, worries, disagreements, mess or uncertainties and pay attention to hie spiritual being, to communication, without mediators, with the Supreme, to re-question limits of broad-mindedness and knowledge. The daily prayer is both recitation of ayats and a significant bodily activity which sets in motion all parts of human body, as well as thinking about the Lord and the purpose of existence.

Compared to other mosques in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the praying space is empty; it is a space with white walls, clear and simple geometric forms, abstracted forms which weave the story of Islam at significant spots of the mosque space. The whiteness of space associated to modernistic inclination to simple and refined forms, to whiteness of walls of old Bosnian houses and, importantly, to the importance of white color in Islam, as a religion of purity and simplicity. In such “modesty” of the interior, supported by light-green carpet which covers the whole surface of the central interior space of the mosque, the light installation achieved by the distribution of roof windows gains importance and significance.

The thought about light as a principle of life and a medium of knowledge is very old. Perhaps the best-known presentation of the metaphysics of light, a philosophy which deeply affected Islamic philosophers, is that of Plotinus. Plotinus calls the supreme One the sun and when explaining the process of emanation of Nous (Intelligence), Soul and corporeal world from the One he uses analogy with the sun which lights up what exists and thus grants life. Thanks to having the soul, the man has the possibility to ascends from the worldly existence and embarks on a spiritual journey toward the One, out of which everything emerges and springs. According to al-Ghazali, the Almighty is not simply „The absolute of philosophers who is pale and cold but rather the personal God, the living God. He wants to communicate with His creatures and allows them to get closer to Him through prayer and contemplation, and above all through the gift of deep mystic gnosis“ (Smailagić, 1973, 441). The light installation in the White Mosque represents this uniqueness of Islam by active, bodily and spiritual participation of worshippers in Power and Mercy.

References

• Bernik, Stane (2002), Arhitekt Zlatko Ugljen, Međunarodna galerija portreta, Tuzla.

• El-Kardavi, Jusuf (2001), Ibadet u islamu, Majlis of the Islamic Community, Konjic.

• Smailagić, Nerkez (1973), Klasična kultura islama I, Zagreb.

• Smailagić, Nerkez (1990), Leksikon islama,  Svjetlost, Sarajevo.