MUSTAFA EJUBOVIĆ – ŠEJH JUJO

Mustafa Jujo bin Jusuf bin Murad Ejjubi-zade Mostari Bosnevi – Mustafa Ejubović is one of the most prominent Bosniak writers in Arabic. He was born in Mostar in 1651. In 1677 he went to Istanbul for education purposes, to the famous Sahn-i Seman University, which he completed four years later. Amir Ljubović, PhD, writes that Ejubović's biographers recorded that Shaykh Jujo recognized weaknesses, lethargy and difficulty of the old scholastic teaching method in madrasas, and attempted to pave new roads in teaching methods by means of the way of teaching of his own and his textbooks. In Istanbul, he wrote a dozen of works and many writings from almost all areas. He also wrote 27 short and long treatises, the most numerous ones being academic papers in logic and disputation (13 works) and law (six works). He also wrote a paper in Persian lexicography and metrics, two works about dogmatics and composed a collection of sermons. According to the number of preserved writings, it is assumed that he wrote over 60 academic works.

In 1692 he was appointed mufti of Mostar. He used the time spent in Mostar for engagement in education, lecturing, writing textbooks and other activities. In the foreword to his last work, Komentar obuke iz logike i apologetike (Commentary on the training in logics and apologetics) he recorded that he had been involved in these two disciplines for a long time and that he had written several useful, short and long, papers. Amir Ljubović, PhD, writes that Shaykh Jujo was absorbed in issues of logic which were necessarily related to dialectic, the so-called science of notions, as well as in syntax, stylistics and rhetoric.

His first work, Komentar Esirijevog Traktata iz Logike (Commentary on Esirije's Treatise in Logic), i.e. Komentar “Isagogeˮ (Commentary on “Isagogue”) was written in 1682 and was entitled Korisna glosa uz Al-Fenarijeve napomene za Esirudinov traktat iz logike; the second work in the area of logic Novi komentar “Suncanog Traktataˮ was completed in 1690. As early as in 1692, Mustafa Ejubović returned to Isagogue by Esirudin al-Ebheri, since he believed that in this way he would clarify a serious issues in logic. Amir Ljubović, PhD, writes that Mustafa Ejubović attempted to connect marginalia and discreetly draw readers' attention to where issues in individual chapters of the basic text began and ended. His last work in logic, Komentar obuke iz logike i apologetike was written in 1706.

Mustafa Ejubović passed away in Mostar on 16 July 1707, at the age of 57.

Illustration

Manuscript no. 264 – Work by Shaykh Jujo Šarhu'l-Awamili'l-Mi'ah

Work Šarhu'l-Awamili'l-Mi'ah (Ms 264/1) in Arabic is a commentary on the work on Arabic syntax Awamilu'l-Mi'ah, which is held in the collection of manuscripts of Bosniak Institute. It can be considered a true discovery, as Nametak and Trako established. Indeed, this work was not included in Shaykh's works either by Ibrahim Opijač or Shaykh Jujo himself nor by other academic sources. However, Muhamed Ždralović attributed it to Shaykh Jujo (one copy is held in Gazi Husrev-bey Library (Manuscripts of works by Shaykh Jujo in Gazi Husrev-bey Library (Anali GHB biblioteke, volume XI-XII, 1985). What makes the manuscript in Bosniak Institute a discovery is that now it can be claimed with certainty that it is a work of his, since author Mustafa ibn Jusuf ibn Murad is clearly referred to on leaf 1b. The basic work al-'Awamil was written by Abdulqahir b. Abdurrahman al-Džurdžani (passed away in 1078–79).

It is an extremely beautiful manuscript in calligraphic sense as well. The paper is yellowish and very well preserved, while the text was written in black ink, emphasized words in red, in Naskh  and Nastaliq styles of Arabic script. At the very end of the manuscript, the author humbly recommends not to underestimated his work because of the author's reputation and mentions that he wrote it in 15 days.

We have no data about the transcriber of this manuscript, but it can clearly be seen that there were at least two. Besides data on the author, the work, possibly the transcriber, manuscripts also often include very important and interesting data for studying the cultural and historical contexts where they were made. Thus, in this manuscript, we find a note on the liner which reveals that the manuscript used to be owned by Hadži Abdullah Zuhdi and Salih Ragib Sun'ullah in 1166 Hijri year/1752–3 A.D.