Two Waqfnamas of Belgrade from the 16th and the 18th Century - Contributions to the Study of Belgrade Waqfs (Endowments)

This paper examines two waqfnamas (endowment legal document; deed of endowment) which date back to the 16th and the 18th century, and they refer to the waqfs (endowments) in Belgrade. Haji Osman, son of Husein, endowed the sum of 8200 akca (silver coins) by the waqfnama from 1566, and the income, which was earned from doing the business with that money, was intended for the purpose of maintaining the mosque in Zaynuddin-aga’s Mahala (mahala: a city quarter) in Belgrade and the reading of the Qur’an for the soul of the waqif (endower) on a regular basis. The second waqfnama, which established the waqf of Defterdar Ahmed Kamil-efendija, was written in 1741. This benefactor from Belgrade built, or to be more precise, restored the three mosques in Belgrade: Defterdar’s Mosque, the Tugdži Mosque and the mosque in the Požarevac qadiluk (the jurisdictional district of a qadi). For the upkeep of these mosques, but also for other charitable purposes, he endowed a hān (an inn providing accommodation, food, and drink, especially for travellers), a watermill, a vineyard, and a large number of properties such as residential buildings, shops and land.

Muhamed Efendi Zahirović and his Idžazetnama (Authorization)

This paper sets forth a biography of Muhamed efendi Zahirović and it gives a review of his social activism as well as a translation of the idžazetnama (authorization) he got from Hafiz Sulayman efendi Fazlić. He was born on the 14th of December in 1886 in Modriča. He spent his entire working life as a high school religion teacher. This paper is primarily based on the idžazetnama manuscript which is kept in Gazi Husrev-beg’s Library in Sarajevo (R-10790). Setting the sanad (a list of authorities who have transmitted a report (ḥadīth) of a statement, action, or approbation of the messenger Muhammad, peace be upon him) as a guarantee of the authenticity and a critical review of every person who transmitted a ḥadīth has provided a foundation for the tradition of issuing idžazetnamas. This common practice of seeking and issuing an authorization to transmit a particular ḥadīth or work carried on in Bosnia and Herzegovina until the beginning of the 20th century. The contents of the idžazetnama portrays Muhamed efendi Zahirović as one of the more learned people in Bosnia and Hercegovina at the beginning of the 20th century.

Two Waqfnamas of Belgrade from the 16th and the 18th Century - Contributions to the Study of Belgrade Waqfs (Endowments)

This paper examines two waqfnamas (endowment legal document; deed of endowment) which date back to the 16th and the 18th century, and they refer to the waqfs (endowments) in Belgrade. Haji Osman, son of Husein, endowed the sum of 8200 akca (silver coins) by the waqfnama from 1566, and the income, which was earned from doing the business with that money, was intended for the purpose of maintaining the mosque in Zaynuddin-aga’s Mahala (mahala: a city quarter) in Belgrade and the reading of the Qur’an for the soul of the waqif (endower) on a regular basis. The second waqfnama, which established the waqf of Defterdar Ahmed Kamil-efendija, was written in 1741. This benefactor from Belgrade built, or to be more precise, restored the three mosques in Belgrade: Defterdar’s Mosque, the Tugdži Mosque and the mosque in the Požarevac qadiluk (the jurisdictional district of a qadi). For the upkeep of these mosques, but also for other charitable purposes, he endowed a hān (an inn providing accommodation, food, and drink, especially for travellers), a watermill, a vineyard, and a large number of properties such as residential buildings, shops and land.

A Collection of Geographical Maps in Gazi Husrev-beg’s Library

Besides a multitude and great quantity of the archival material, the richness of Gazi Husrev-beg’s Library is reflected in a large number of geographical maps in different languages and from different time periods. The collection contains a significant number of topographical, thematic, straightforward and hand-drawn maps. This paper aims at presenting a collection of geographical maps, thus making information about this hitherto unknown collection available to research workers. While carrying out an analysis of geographical maps, the basic data was collected and listed (i.e. the publisher, the year and the place of map publishing- if there was such information on the map), and a brief desription was given by means of reading geographical signs. The geographical maps date back to different time periods, and most of them date back to the Austro-Hungarian period, starting from 1827, and also to the 20th century, the period of the SHS Kingdom (the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes) and Yugoslavia. There are also recent maps, to be sure, printed in the 21st century. The maps were made in different languages, and those maps that were made in Ottoman-Turkish and Arabic occupy a special place, as well as the maps in Latin which date back to different time periods. In September 2019, the Library got as a gift a large number of maps from a private collection owned by Professor Ibrahim Bušatlija, God rest his soul. The maps were examined and registered in the database of the Library’s stock of materials. The collection also includes three globes, two of which were made by hand.

Sultan Sulayman’s Mosque in Jajce from its Foundation (1528) until the Second World War (1941)

After the conquest of Jajce in 1528, by order of the Ottoman rule, the former Church of St. Mary was converted into a mosque which was named after the then sultan, namely Sultan Suleyman’s Mosque or the Emperor’s Mosque. Without referring to the pre-Ottoman period of the construction and activities of St. Mary’s Church for which our literature accumulated considerable material, this paper will focus on the period of the foundation of the mosque in 1528 until the beginning of the Second World War. Based on the archival material and published sources, this paper tries to explain why St. Mary’s Church had been converted into a mosque and how that had been done. More significant events from the history of the mosque are highligted, and also imams, hatibs, muezzins and other mosque officials are portrayed chronologically to the present day. Special attention is focused on the history of Sultan Sulayman’s Mosque in the 19th century when a fire broke out at the mosque, and it has never been restored to the present day. Referring to the sources from the archives of the Islamic Community in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the author has pointed to the causes of the fact that the mosque was not restored after the fire.

About the Founding of Sarajevo

This paper highlights the significance of dates in the history of all settlements, and in particular an urban settlement, and the significance of introducing them into their chronological calendar. This is particulary significant for urban settlements and the dates of their gaining the status of a city, which is a very important historical and civilizational act by which the proper legal status of a settlement and its inhabitants would be acknowledged and verified. By this act, a settlement was singled out from a multitude of other populated places in its surroundings for its urban, social and cultural characteristics with regard to its status. This matter raises no questions by any means about the continuity of life in the wider area of an emerging or newly- declared urban settlement. However, the differences in status and socioeconomic aspects are clearly shown. A complex legal procedure for gaining, acknowledging and verifying the status of a city in the case of Sarajevo had to be observed. The motives for choosing the location for building a new complex were highlighted, the complex with suitable urban facilities and under the urban criteria that needed to be met in order to be able in any way to apply for the status of a city. A source on this matter, produced immediately after the foundation of the city and its legal verification, contains an answer to such questions. The careful selection of the location for the emerging city was made, namely the land for those facilities was chosen by the founder „ ... because he found it suitable for building a šeher (city) on it... “ This syntagm also answers the question of whether it is an entirely new or some earlier founded settlement. The Brodac Settlement, with a newly- formed city founded within its boundaries, appears in the sources in parallel with the name of the city of Sarajevo until the middle of the 16th century, which clearly confirms that it was a completely new settlement that had been founded within the boundaries of the Brodac village, and surely it had not been founded on a previously built rural or town settlement. Moreover, other settlements found in the vicinity of the city kept their names from the Middle Ages and throughout centuries to the present day they have been recognisable and distinguishable for those names as the parts of the Sarajevo city zone.

Mufti Muhammad Šakir efendi Muidović’s Library

Muhammad Šakir efendi Muidović, born and bred in Sarajevo, spent almost his entire working life serving as the mufti of Sarajevo. During his lifetime, he collected a valuable library of works from different scientific disciplines, and he bequeathed it in his will to his heirs as evladiyyat waqf (family endowment), provided that his most capable and competent descendants would look after the library. Considering that the descendants did not abide by the waqif’s (endower’s) last will and testament and that they sold out of the library by the middle of the 20th century, this paper focuses on the way in which Mufti Muidović’s library was sold out. Our goal in this paper was to determine the exact number of preserved manuscripts from Mufti Muidović’s library and the place where they are stored and kept today. Moreover, this paper presents the activities that the Islamic community had undertaken in order to safeguard and protect Mufti Muidović’s library, while the appendixes to this paper contain the title and type of the works in Mufti Muidović’s library, registered on the list made by Muhammad Enveri Kadić, which is, to be sure, of major significance, since hitherto conducted research mentions only the number of the works that Mufti Muidović had left to his library.

About Qadiluks and Qadis of the Zvornik Sanjak in the 17th Century

The judicial and administrative division of a sanjak (province) is an important source of careful consideration that needs to be given to the overall situation in it. Qadiluks (jurisdictional districts of qadis), as well as qadis (judges) as immediate executors of important legal disputes, were a major factor in the stabilization of the Ottoman rule, primarily because of their independence from local authorities. The history of the Zvornik Sanjak in the 17th century was generally a subject of scanty studies, and consequently the study of its qadiluks and identification of individual qadis. Therefore this paper contains synthesized data on the aforementioned subject, which could be found in written literature thus far, but also, based on the archival material, it discloses a significant number of details from the Zvornik Sanjak in the 17th century. As the available data on the 17th century became scarce, it was necessary to provide the data from the 16th century for a more complete reconstruction of the matter.

The Kotar Sharia Court of Sarajevo - some data from 1878 until the end of the 19th century

This paper contains general information about the archival material stock of the Kotar Sharia Court of Sarajevo, the state of this archival material stock which is kept at the Historical Archives of Sarajevo, and also about the first steps in data processing and collation. This text collects together the data from the scope of the activities of the Kotar Sharia Court of Sarajevo and some curiosities from the archival material stock from 1878 until the end of the 19th century, such as the destruction of the archival material collected before 1878, the cases involving non-Muslims at the Sharia Court, the data on the inhabitans of Sarajevo going on a hajj pilgrimage or going elsewhere abroad, and so forth.

Mufti of Belgrade Munīrī Belġrādī and Hamzevis

This paper presents accounts in the Ottoman language on the movement of Hamzevis and their activities written by the famous mufti and muderis of Belgrade Munīrī Belġrādī by the beginning of the 17th century. In two of his seventeen works that are known to us, Belġrādī speaks directly about the Hamzevis, their founder and activities, and in two works, writing about other topics, he indirectly touches on the Hamzevis, their teachings and behaviour. Belġrādī’s accounts are important because they give a picture of the Ottoman State’s attitude towards religious movements as well as the positioning of a scholar, such as Belġrādī, regarding these movements. The paper also points out that the Hamzevi movement was not only of a religious character, but also had a potential to be a carrier of socio-political changes. This paper provides basic academic literature on Hamzevis, a brief overview of the author’s biography, a Latin transcription of Belġrādī’s reports with a paraphrased translation into Bosnian, and an analysis of these data in the light of socio-political events in the Ottoman Empire during the second half of the 16th century.