The sky was thick with mist as we began our descent into Sarajevo, the plane lurching as it banked into position. Suddenly, we broke through the cloud just a few hundred metres above the mountains surrounding the city—a transition that was terrifying, for a moment at least, as we flew lower than the highest parts of the steep Miljacka valley in which Sarajevo sits. The lush, green mountains, fresh with the recent rain, were dotted with orange-roofed houses that we seemed barely to be skimming over, but this semi-rural idyll gave way quickly to the built-up town of Ilidža as we dropped lower and lower towards the runway.
As we touched down, the drab, Communist-era apartment blocks of Novi Grad loomed on the skyline, obscuring my view of the main city. Combined with the dank and dismal drizzle, and my general anxiety about the trip, I felt a growing unease about the potential foolishness of moving to a city—and indeed a country—in which I knew no one and of whose language I spoke barely more than some awkward phrasebook uselessness. There was nothing for it, though; no turning back. I headed to the taxi rank, and hailed the first one I saw.
My driver was an amicably shifty-looking man of about 40, dressed in jeans and a worn leather jacket, his tanned skin wizened and wrinkled before its time. His taxi’s meter lay unplugged in his ashtray, and he had a dodgy-but-likeable look about him; a member, I assume, of Bosnia’s booming grey economy.1 I resisted the urge—one that overcomes all lazy travellers—to interview my taxi driver, and to base my entire impression of the place upon that interview; I did rather enjoy his impromptu tour of Sarajevo’s alternately war-damaged and newly reconstructed landmarks, though, and admired with a certain jealousy his preternatural ability to give a tour in halting English while simultaneously smoking a cigarette, angrily answering his mobile phone, and weaving at speed through Sarajevo’s demented traffic.
With minutes shaved off my journey time, and years off my life, I arrived at my journey’s end, met my landlord, and—once the banal formalities had been agreed upon—took the keys to my apartment. As soon as I had dumped my anchor of a suitcase, it was onto the streets.
As I sat near the Baščaršijska džamija—the Baščaršija mosque—the unmistakeable sound of angry chanting rose from one corner of the square. A curious crowd gathered as a parade of demonstrators came into view, waving placards and chanting. “Mi smo Gaza, mi smo Palestina!”, they chanted: “we are Gaza, we are Palestine”. It was a group, varied in age and appearance, protesting the recent attack by Israel on an aid flotilla destined for Gaza. “UN, prestanite sa duplim standardima!”—”UN, stop with the double standard!” came the cry from the crowd. “Allahu akbar, allahu akbar!”
Despite the obvious passion, it was a peaceful affair; groups waved huge Turkish flags, a response to Turkey’s recent outrage at the murder of its citizens on the boats. Others held small flags with the Bosnian flag transposed alternately with that of Palestine and of Turkey as a show of solidarity. Microphones were set up; some speakers made impassioned speeches, sadly lost on my philistine ears. And then, as soon as it had arrived, the crowd dispersed; four several hours afterwards, I saw its participants in the cafés and bars of the baščaršija, still holding their flags, watching Bosnia play Germany in a pre-World Cup friendly. It seemed to me a perfect encapsulation of the Bosniak ethos, or the one I had idealised at least: passionate but not extremist, religious but not theocratic.
In the heart of the baščaršija, an immense structure towers above its perimeter walls in delicate, pale stone. Built in 1530, the Gazi Husrevbegova džamija, the mosque of Gazi Husrev-beg, is one of the grandest buildings in all of Sarajevo, and certainly the most beautiful.
Its frontispiece is dominated by five grand arches, their once-painted voussoirs faded to their original stone colouring, each one resting on a simple, green-capitaled marble column. The impression of space beneath these grand arches is staggering. Further, perpendicular arches form a cross-vaulted porch; its elaborate ceiling, with its delicate arabesques and carved muqarnas, draws the eye irresistibly upwards toward the heavens.
In front of the mosque, a fisqiyya sits proudly in the centre of the courtyard and is crowned with a beautiful, stilted dome, its underside carved with arabesques and calligraphy. Worshippers approach the fountain and delicately perform their ablutions, the ritual washing of their hands, faces and feet before prayer; the sound of its constantly running faucets is a gentle, background murmur.
The whole courtyard is an embodiment of calmness and serenity; though it is in the centre of the city, and though the busiest thoroughfare of the baščaršija is just the other side of the perimeter wall, the only sound within its grounds is the gentle lapping of the fisqiyya and the murmur of praying.
The mosque was built by Adžem Esir Ali, a Persian student of Hajrudin—the builder of the famous stari most in Mostar—and one of the most skilled Ottoman architects. It was built at the behest of its eponym, Gazi Husrev-beg, an Ottoman governor of Bosnia and one of Sarajevo’s most successful patrons; indeed, he was responsible for almost all of the construction of the old town that today charms so many visitors.
Good deeds drive away evil, and one of the most worthy of good deeds is the act of charity, and the most worthy act of charity is one which lasts forever. Of all charitable deeds, the most beautiful is one that continually renews itself. — Gazi Husrev-beg
Sitting in the grounds of the mosque, after a stressful day of travel, Husrev’s commission those five centuries ago seemed to me the most beautiful of deeds; as the muezzin called the faithful to evening prayer, and the fisqiyya continued its mollifying burbling, I sighed into the wall and smiled: this was why I had come to Bosnia. I had arrived.
Notes
- ↑1 Unemployment in Bosnia is officially 45 per cent, though in reality it is nothing like that; some estimates put the size of the grey economy—that is, legal but non-taxpaying, contrasted with the black market—at some 40 per cent of GDP.
