Amir PaSic
ISLAM AND TOLERANCE
IN BOSNIAN CULTURE
1
T
his article addresses the question of tolerance in
Bosnian culture, its Islamic component, and those
characteristics resulting from Mediterranean and
broader European influences, especially in architecture.
Bosnia and Herzegovina, on the western side of the
Balkan peninsula, share a history with Mediterranean
European countries. In the 3rd century B.C.E., Illyrian
rule was replaced by Roman rule, culminating in a
Roman Slavic entity by the 7th century C.E., where on the
Neretva river, the Roman Empire divided into the
Eastern and Western empires. In the 17th century, the
Neretva river became the north-western border of Islam.
Bosnia was part of the Ottoman Empire from 1463 to
1878. The Slavic tribal communities of the Balkan
peninsula gradually underwent a transformation that
resulted in a feudal system, and Bosnia became an
independent country in the 12th century. The Slavs of
Bosnia were not all of one religion; they belonged to the
Roman Catholic Church, the Christian Orthodox Church,
and the Bogomil Church. The Ottoman Turks brought
Islam in the late 15th century.
1 Amir Pasic is a research scholar at IRCICA, Istanbul.
Islam & Tolerance in Bosnian Culture 149
Before the arrival of the Ottomans, Bosnia had become a
meeting ground for many, sometimes opposing, cultural
elements--for example, the Greek and Latin alphabets,
Byzantine and pre-Romanesque artistic traditions,
Romanesque and Gothic styles, the Christian-Orthodox
faith and Roman Catholicism. The interactions of these
diverse elements took place during the three centuries of
the independent Bosnian state and gave rise to a set of
cultural traits for which Bosnia was known well beyond
its borders. In the religious sphere there were, for
example, the Bogomil Church and its tombstones; in
literature, there were the Bosnian Cyrillic and Glagolitic
scripts; in the graphic arts, there were the Bosnian book
illuminations.
Islam in bosnia
The Bosnian people have now had a long relationship
with Islam. A large majority converted in the century
after the arrival of the Ottoman Turks, that is, during the
16th to 17th centuries. From historical documents,
especially tax registers (defters), a detailed picture can be
formed of the spread of Islam in Bosnia. The process took
several generations, the best part of 150 years. Islam was
accepted by many instead of the Bogomil faith (which
started out as a Christian heresy but developed into a
religious system that had more in common with Islam
than with Christianity). Islam was not only a new
religion in Bosnia, it was one which regulated the way of
life and behavior of its followers, causing profound
changes in both the material and spiritual aspects of life
in Bosnia. The defters, however, suggest a rather
untroubled approach to the persistence of unconverted
150 The Bosnian Crisis and the Islamic World
Christians, with converts to Islam taking Muslim names
but continuing to live with their Christian families.2
The spread of Islam in Bosnia occurred during a period
of competition among the local Christians churches (the
Roman Catholic, Orthodox, and Bogomil). No support
existed from any one strong or organized church in many
areas, and in fact, the Ottoman government provided a
privileged legal status to Muslims.
Until the 18th century, at least 200,000 Slav children from
the Balkans were drafted into the system of boy tribute
(devsirme), which was the most important method for
drawing Christian Europeans into the Ottoman sultan's
janissary guards. Consequently, Bosnians had great
influence at the imperial court in Istanbul, where, for
example, Bosnian grand viziers were in office for 62 years
in the 16th century. As the language of the janissaries, the
Slavic language was the third most important in the
empire, after Turkish and Arabic. Bosnian Cyrillic script
became official in this period and was used for
administrative documents, as well as for diplomatic
correspondence with neighboring states, especially with
Dubrovnik. It was also widely used by the local Muslim
population. However, the long Ottoman rule in the
Balkan peninsula greatly affected the Bosnian language;
about 6,000 words of Turkish origin have been counted.3
The Ottoman discriminatory law, applied to non-Muslim
subjects, was not in full effect in the Balkans, where
2
3
Djaja, Die Bosniche Kirsche, 84.
See A. Skaljic, Turcizmi u srpskohrvatskom jeziku, (Sarajevo, 1965).
Islam & Tolerance in Bosnian Culture 151
Christians were allowed to build or repair churches by
special permission of the sultans. Nevertheless, the
Ottoman permanent warring state with Europeans across
the western borders caused many Catholic families to flee
into Catholic Hapsburg and Venetian territory. From the
1480s on, Christian-Orthodox priests, communities, and
monasteries are mentioned in Bosnian documents where
they had not existed before. For example, several
Orthodox monasteries were built in the 16th century,
such as Tavna, Lomnica, Papraca, Ozrer Gostovic, and
Rmanj, as a result of the Ottoman policy to fill territory
depopulated by war or plague. This spread is easily seen
in the defters.4 Orthodox believers had their religious
authority, the Patriarch of Constantinople situated within
the capital of the empire, and a Metropolitan (bishop) of
Bosnia is first mentioned in 1532.
When Sephardic Jews were expelled from Spain in 1492,
some came to the Ottoman Empire, where their legal
position was similar to that of Christians. They probably
settled immediately in Bosnia as well as in other parts of
the empire, but their first mention in Bosnian court
records dates to 1565. They lived in their own quarter
and had complete freedom of movement, without gates,
curfews, or other discriminatory measures; however,
they were not allowed to build new places of worship
without special permission or suitable payment.
ARCHITECTURE
AS
A
ARCHITECTURE
RELIGIOUS TOLERANCE
4
SYMBOL
Adem Handzic, Studije o Bosni, (Istanbul: IRCICA, 1994.)
OF
152 The Bosnian Crisis and the Islamic World
Islam's religious tolerance follows from its recognition of
the legitimacy of all revealed faiths--Christians and Jews
are considered ahl al-kitab (people of the Book). With the
Ottoman conquest of the Balkan peninsula, Islam was
practiced alongside Christianity and Judaism. In Bosnia,
sociocultural traditions resulted in a special architecture,
one which gives a clear image of religious tolerance by
the Muslim rulers.
The architecture of the grand tradition, mosques and
monuments, followed a pattern developed and
standardized in Istanbul and several other Ottoman
centers. A much larger architectural group consists of
shops in the bazaars, mosques in the mahalas and private
houses--while these share the basic features of Islamic
architecture, marked regional characteristics exist. The
local population continued to live in their own
settlements, although non-Muslim subjects (raya) were
heavily taxed. The Ottoman administration built many
new settlements in which Ottoman standards of housing,
dress, and eating habits prevailed. The Ottomans built
their housing according to their eastern tradition, with
some adaptation from the local Balkan settlements
according to needs. Ottoman residential areas, the
mahalas, were strictly separated from the business section,
the bazaars.
The main unifying feature of the various types of
Ottoman housing in Bosnia and Herzegovina is the
layout of the basic functional units. The majority contain
the same essential elements of composition, structure,
and volume, but various elements reflect the social and
economic level of the owner. A housing survey of
Islam & Tolerance in Bosnian Culture 153
Ottoman regions reveals some distinctions in domestic
architecture, certainly some differences in the houses of
Anatolia, Bulgaria, Greece, the Moravian Basin in Serbia
Macedonia, and Herzegovina.
Islamic
Elements
Architecture
in
Christian
Christian art in the Balkans had, in a minor way, been
influenced by Islam even before the arrival of the
Ottomans.5 In 1557, the Patriarchate of Pec was renewed
as the supreme authority of the Serbian population, and a
tolerant policy toward the Franciscan order resulted in
improved living conditions for the Roman Catholic
population.6 This contributed to an enhancement of
mutual influences between Christian and Muslim
communities in all spheres of life, but especially in
architecture.
The period of greatest Islamic influence on Christian art
was during 16th and early 17th centuries. The first
Islamic elements were evident in the woodcarvings on
the iconostasis. The Islamic Saracen arch, semicircular
vaults, as, well as shallow and small rosettes were
pictured in a large number of Orthodox icons. Similar
5
See Zagorka Janc, Ornamenti fresaka iz Srbije i Makedonije od.12
do sredine 15. veka, (Beograd, 1961).
6 On May 28, 1463 Sultan Mehmet II issued a decree (ahiname)
granting freedom of actvity to the Franciscan order, on the
territory of his Empire. See M. Orsolic, Sedamstoljetno djelovanje
franjevaca u Bosni i Hercegovini, (Zagreb, 1988).
154 The Bosnian Crisis and the Islamic World
elements were evident in the interior decoration of
churches.
The best examples of Islamic influence on Christian art
are the Old Orthodox Church in Sarajevo built in the 16th
century, the Church of the Moscanica Monastery built in
1540, the Papraca Church built in 1540, the Lomnica
Church built in 1587, and the Old Orthodox church in
Mostar built in 1833.
Ornaments on illuminated Orthodox manuscripts from
the 14th and 15th centuries had a large number of Islamic
motifs.7 The best-known example of a Christian book
written in the Cyrillic alphabet and decorated with
typically Islamic elements is the Gospel of Karan from
1608. Similar Islamic-style ornaments, were also used on
religious household articles made of metal, wood, cloth,
and leather. This was especially true of articles of rural,
folk provenance.8
Christian
Mosques
Architectural
Elements
in
One would expect mosques to be free of Christian
influences. Since a place of worship is a spatial symbol of
an ideological background in society, it is usually built
with a commitment to some standard forms of
construction. Although standard forms prevailed, there
were also frequent deviations.
7
Sv. Radojcic, Stare sprske minijature (Beograd, 1950), 14.
8 Zagorka Janc, Islamski rukopisi u jugoslavenskim kolekcijama
(Beograd, 1956), 20.
Islam & Tolerance in Bosnian Culture 155
Some conspicuous deviations are in the construction of
minarets, whose shapes range from the archaic short type
to structures resembling Romanesque and Gothic
campaniles (bell towers). The influence of Italian
campaniles on Dubrovnik clock towers is visible in the
construction of Ottoman-Bosnian clock towers with a
quadrangular one-piece body, high windows, and a
pyramidal roof. They are similar to the Romanesque bell
towers built in Dalmatia during a later period.
Church Architecture
Architecture
The city of Dubrovnik was always the main window of
Bosnia-Herzagovina on the West, both during the
Bosnian kings and in the course of more than 400 years of
Ottoman rule. With other Croatian towns on the Adriatic
coast, it played either a direct or an intermediary role in
bringing features of European art--especially preRomanesque, Romanesque, Gothic, and Renaissance--to
Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The construction of numerous Catholic churches in
Bosnia-Herzegovina in this period was also influenced by
trends in European architecture that came by way of
Dalmatia; for example, a single-nave base and a
semicircular apse with a small round window, the portal
with a lunette above it, and the bell in the shape of a
spinning wheel.
The Orthodox churches of the period were characterized
by a conspicuous traditionalism. This resulted from the
building schools of the Morava and Raska regions, which
156 The Bosnian Crisis and the Islamic World
became stronger, but there was also an influence from
Ottoman Islamic and oriental elements.
The Nineteenth Century
Century
A change in architecture about the middle of the 19th
century in Mostar and other towers in BosniaHerzegovina resulted from the decadent Ottoman
architecture prevalent in Istanbul at the time, itself a
product of previous Baroque and Rococo influences. It
used elaborate reliefs that clashed with the typically calm
search for aesthetic pleasure of Islamic decorative
patterns. It featured polychromatic decorations on wood,
ineffective niches in the walls of rooms, and plastic
ornaments of an uninspired imagination.
Toward the end of the 19th century, the AustroHungarian Empire ruled Bosnia-Herzegovina. As land
values increased, the sprawling Ottoman house became a
luxury that few could afford. In cities, people began
living in a transitional style building, in which the
ground floor kept its earlier features while the next story
was built on a European model. A new regional
architecture was thus created, merging several strong
cultural traditions. It was an example of cultural
cooperation by Balkan people having different histories
and traditions.
In spite of being an area of conflict between East and
West, Bosnia and Herzegovina are also examples of a
middle ground where the two worlds meet in peace, and
where their artistic traditional have intermingled to
create unique styles and forms.
Islam & Tolerance in Bosnian Culture 157
THE BOSNIA AND THREE EUROPES
The first Europe, established, with a center in Rome,
lasted from the first to the fourth century A.D. This
Europe had elements of tolerance, syncetrism of the
civilization and its cultural model, it was a place of life in
diversity, and Bosnia was an integral part of it.
Between the fourth and seventh century, inflamed by
wars, with the Barbars, Germans, Slavs, Avers, and
others, the Europe of tolerance and life in diversity
disappeared.
The second Europe came into existence with the
establishment of the Frankish Kingdom that proclaimed
itself a successor of the Roman Empire. Despite its
significant historical role, it failed to revive the
civilization and cultural tolerance. Instead, it constituted
a model that suited to the Christianity--based religious or
cultural unitarism that did not tolerate any other cultural
concept in Europe at that time. This idea was the basis of
the Crusades and the historical extinction of Jews and
Muslims from Europe. A foundation of everything that
would haunt Europe ever since, ethnic and religious
autocracy, long and lasting ethnic and religious wars is a
product of this age.
Despite the exalted technological and scientific progress,
the ideas of xenophobia, ethnic, religious and racial hate
was set, and they triumphed in the 20th century.
158 The Bosnian Crisis and the Islamic World
Bosnia was the only exception in whole Europe. On the
foundations of the earlier history and high standards of
tolerance, the original Late-Hellenic multilateral through
syncetrism of early Christianity, late Byzantine and early
Slavic cultural and religious traditions, was preserved
from the 11th century onward; this was transformed into
dual religious and cultural situation in the Bosnian
domain, and it acted as a contact zone between western
Catholic Europe and Byzantine East. The rise of NeoManchean Bosnian church strengthened this multilateral
character of Bosnia.
As of the 15th century, the Ottoman Empire and Islamic
cultural-religious complex plays a key role in Bosnian
history. This new momentum has only strengthened and
developed further the primary and original multilateral
nature of Bosnia. This quality was emphasized by the
birth of a new urban way of life, with arts and crafts and
trade, exchange and openness of society, whose core was
an inherent respect for the principle of this civilization
and cultural model, as opposed to who belongs to what
religion, race or nationality. Islam has in fact, completed
the creation of this model. Islam did not destroy,
exterminate nor restrain anything in Bosnia. To the
contrary, everything continued to live and thrive in its
original and natural form. With the historical settlement
of Spanish Jews in Bosnia, who were expelled from the
Christian
Europe,
the
inherent
character
of
multilateralism and diversity was further emphasized in
Bosnia.
Islam & Tolerance in Bosnian Culture 159
Such a Bosnia survived the second Europe only to
indicate the birth of a third that is esteemed today.
Europe, born after the bloodstained wars of the twentieth
century, the Europe of people, communications and
cultures, and not of national borders and states.
A centuries old confrontation with Bosnia is repeated in
its bloodiest and genocide form with the last countdown
before a third Europe is born.