Status of monument -> National monument
Published in the Official Gazette of BiH, no. 77/11 and no. 85/11.
Pursuant to Article V para. 4 Annex 8 of the General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Article 39 para. 1 of the Rules of Procedure of the Commission to Preserve National Monuments, at a session held on 11 March 2011 the Commission adopted a
D E C I S I O N
I
The architectural ensemble of the Abdesthana (the Sheikh Feruh Mosque) with burial ground and public fountain in Sarajevo is hereby designated as a National Monument of Bosnia and Herzegovina (hereinafter: the National Monument).
The architectural ensemble consists of the mosque and harem.
The National Monument is located on a site designated as cadastral plot no. 1387 (old survey), Land Register entry no. 72, corresponding to c.p. no. 1 (new survey), title deed no. 2260, cadastral municipality Sarajevo II, Municipality Stari Grad, Sarajevo, Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The provisions relating to protection measures set forth by the Law on the Implementation of the Decisions of the Commission to Preserve National Monuments, established pursuant to Annex 8 of the General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina (Official Gazette of the Federation of BiH nos. 2/02, 27/02, 6/04 and 51/07) shall apply to the National Monument.
II
The Government of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (hereinafter: the Government of the Federation) shall be responsible for providing the legal, scientific, technical, administrative and financial measures necessary for the protection, conservation, restoration and presentation of the National Monument.
The Commission to Preserve National Monuments (hereinafter: the Commission) shall determine the technical requirements and secure the funds for preparing and setting up signboards with basic details of the monument and the Decision to proclaim the property a National Monument.
III
To ensure the on-going protection of the National Monument on the area defined in Clause 1 para. 3 of this Decision, the following protection measures are hereby stipulated:
- all works are prohibited other than investigative and conservation-restoration works, routine maintenance works, and works designed to ensure the sustainable use of the monument, including those designed to display the monument, subject to the approval of the Federal Ministry responsible for regional planning (hereinafter: the relevant ministry) and under the expert supervision of the heritage protection authority of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (hereinafter: the heritage protection authority);
- works that could be detrimental to the National Monument are prohibited, as is the erection of temporary facilities or permanent structures not intended solely for the protection and presentation of the National Monument;
- the removal of old tombstones is prohibited, as are new burials less than five metres from the old tombstones;
- infrastructure works are permitted only in exceptional circumstances, subject to the approval of the relevant ministry and under the expert supervision of the heritage protection authority;
- the dumping of waste is prohibited.
Conservation-restoration works must be carried out in compliance with the following conditions:
- the entrance portico may be reconstructed on the basis of prior investigative works and details of the original appearance of the entrance sofas before they were enclosed;
- damaged parts of the roof timbers, ceiling joists and floors may be replaced by new ones if their condition is such that they cannot be reincorporated;
- the same or the same type of materials as those used to build the mosque and the same building techniques and treatment of the material shall be applied;
- all parts for which there is no reliable documentation shall be reconstructed as part of the project so that their introduction is readable.
IV
All executive and area development planning acts are hereby revoked to the extent that they are not in accordance with the provisions of this Decision.
V
Everyone, and in particular the competent authorities of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Canton, and urban and municipal authorities, shall refrain from any action that might damage the National Monument or jeopardize the preservation thereof.
VI
The Government of the Federation, the Federal Ministry responsible for regional planning, the Federation heritage protection authority, and the Municipal Authorities in charge of urban planning and land registry affairs, shall be notified of this Decision in order to carry out the measures stipulated in Articles II to V of this Decision, and the Authorized Municipal Court shall be notified for the purposes of registration in the Land Register.
VII
The elucidation and accompanying documentation form an integral part of this Decision, which may be viewed by interested parties on the premises or by accessing the website of the Commission (http://www.kons.gov.ba).
VIII
Pursuant to Art. V para 4 Annex 8 of the General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina, decisions of the Commission are final.
IX
On the date of adoption of this Decision, the National Monument shall be deleted from the Provisional List of National Monuments of Bosnia and Herzegovina (Official Gazette of BiH no. 33/02, Official Gazette of Republika Srpska no. 79/02, Official Gazette of the Federation of BiH no. 59/02, and Official Gazette of Brčko District BiH no. 4/03), where it featured under serial no. 556.
X
This Decision shall enter into force on the day following its publication in the Official Gazette of BiH.
This Decision has been adopted by the following members of the Commission: Zeynep Ahunbay, Martin Cherry, Amra Hadžimuhamedović, Dubravko Lovrenović and Ljiljana Ševo.
No:02-2.3-77/11-15
11 March 2011
Sarajevo
Chair of the Commission
Amra Hadžimuhamedović
E l u c i d a t i o n
I – INTRODUCTION
Pursuant to Article 2, paragraph 1 of the Law on the Implementation of the Decisions of the Commission to Preserve National Monuments, established pursuant to Annex 8 of the General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina, a “National Monument” is an item of public property proclaimed by the Commission to Preserve National Monuments to be a National Monument pursuant to Articles V and VI of Annex 8 of the General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina and property entered on the Provisional List of National Monuments of Bosnia and Herzegovina (Official Gazette of BiH no. 33/02) until the Commission reaches a final decision on its status, as to which there is no time limit and regardless of whether a petition for the property in question has been submitted or not.
The Commission to Preserve National Monuments adopted a decision to add the Sheikh Feruh Mosque (Abdesthana) to the Provisional List of National Monuments of Bosnia and Herzegovina under serial no. 559.
Pursuant to the provisions of the law, the Commission proceeded to carry out the procedure for reaching a final decision to designate the property as a national monument, pursuant to Article V para. 4 of Annex 8 and Article 35 of the Rules of Procedure of the Commission to Preserve National Monuments.
Statement of Significance
More than a hundred mosques were built in Sarajevo in the 15th and 16th centuries, all of them in the Ottoman architectural style, the latest offshoot of Islamic architecture, though they were much smaller than the monument mosques of Edirne, Istanbul and other cities in the Ottoman empire. This does not diminish their value, but merely reflects the resources available at the time they were built and the needs of the congregation. These mosques not only had a religious and educational purpose, but were also the centres of the mahalas that bore the names of the founders of the mosques.
The Sheikh Feruh Mosque, known as Abdesthana, was built before 1516 above Kovači, in the mahala named after its founder, Sheikh Feruh. Typologically, it is a single-space mosque of rectangular footprint with a hipped roof and stone minaret. It is flanked by a small burial ground with some twenty nišan tombstones of the 16th and 17th centuries and a fountain of more recent date.
II – PRELIMINARY PROCEDURE
In the procedure preceding the adoption of a final decision to proclaim the property a national monument, the following documentation was inspected:
- Data on the current condition and use of the property, including a description and photographs
- An inspection of the current condition of the property
- Copy of cadastral plan
- Land Register entry(1)
- Documentation on the location of the property and the current owner and occupant
- Details of legal protection to date
- Historical, architectural and other documentary material on the property, as set out in the bibliography forming part of this Decision
- Letter ref. 02-35.2-10/10-246 of 21 December 2010 requesting the opinion of the owner, to which the Commission to Preserve National Monuments had received no reply by the date of adoption of this Decision
The findings based on the review of the above documentation and the condition of the site are as follows:
1. Details of the property
Location
The Sheikh Feruh Mosque is in Abdesthana Street in Kovači, Stari Grad Municipality.
The National Monument is located on a site designated as cadastral plot no. 1387 (old survey), corresponding to c.p. no. 1 (new survey), Land Register entry no. 72, title deed no. 2260, cadastral municipality Sarajevo II, Municipality Stari Grad, Sarajevo, Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Historical background
Sarajevo’s territorial and economic development peaked in the 16th century, when it was the largest and most advanced city in Bosnia, as revealed by the defters or cadastral records, which include important details of the city’s urban development(2).
One of the best indicators of the urban development of any city in the Ottoman period is the number of mahalas (residential quarters). By 1516 the number of mahalas in Sarajevo had increased fivefold. There were fifteen Muslim mahalas, the Varoš mahala (Mahalle -i Varos-i Saray) which had evolved from an earlier Christian community, and a colony of Dubrovnik merchants (Cema'ta-i bazargan-i Dubrovnik). The names of the founders of the mahalas reveal that they had been instigated by members of the Ottoman feudal class, religious scholars and members of the esnafs (guilds). One of seventeen new mahalas that came into being at that time was the Sheikh Feruh mahala.
Every mosque built in the 15th and 16th centuries was in the Ottoman architectural style, the latest offshoot of Islamic architecture, though they were much smaller than the monument mosques of Edirne, Istanbul and other cities in the Ottoman empire. This does not diminish their value, but merely reflects the resources available at the time they were built and the needs of the congregation(3).
More than a hundred mosques were built in Sarajevo in the 15th and 16th centuries. These mosques not only had a religious and educational purpose, but were also the centres of the mahalas that bore the names of the founders of the mosques.
A residential quarter took shape around the Sheikh Feruh Mosque in the early 16th century. This was a fast-growing part of the town, which by 1516 already had seventy households, thirteen bachelor households and one widow’s household.
The mahala of the Sheikh Feruh Mosque arose above Kovači in the direction of Očaktanova Street, and was known as Abdesthana, by which name a small street in the former mahala is still known. The name derives from the word abdesthana, a place where ritual ablutions are performed, a small building with running water fed from a branch of the Mošćanica.
It is not known who Sheikh Feruh was, but the fact that Sultan Selim endowed a mezra for the officials of his mosque indicates that he was a prominent figure. The vakuf (deed of pious endowment) of this mosque is recorded in a 1541 list of vakufs which lists it among the vakufs of Sarajevo, stating that the late Sultan Selim Khan “from his great mercy, endowed for the officials of the mosque built by the said sheikh in Sarajevo the Nidžeric mezra in the nahija of Višegrad-Dobrun, the revenue of which is recorded as 1315 akça and bestowed to this end his noble hukum [order].”(4)
The 1541 list of Bosnian vakufs states that the Sheikh Feruh Mosque is in the Skender-pasha mahala(5). In 1604 the mahala of the Sheikh Feruh Mosque was recorded as having 63 households(6).
A public fountain of more recent date is located by the Sheikh Feruh Mosque. Sarajevo’s old fountains in its mahalas are a blend of utility and decoration. Many are referred to in travel chronicles and are depicted in works of art. Historical records reveal that Sarajevo had 152 public fountains in 1888, of which only about thirty were still extant in 1992. A programme to restore the old fountains of Sarajevo covered all 41 that could be reconstructed or restored. Many have already been restored on the basis of this programme, evidence of the city’s tradition and a significant type of monument of our cultural heritage. The Abdesthana fountain was restored by private donations (donation from Suada Gađo, 2004)(7).
The mosque is flanked on two sides by a small burial ground with some twenty nišan tombstones, three of which stand out and may be dated to the 16th-17th century(8).
The façades and minaret of the mosque were damaged by shelling during the 1992-1995 war, and there is also damage to the windows, where the glass is broken(9).
2. Description of the property
Mosque
In its basic design, the Sheikh Feruh Mosque belongs to the type of single-space mosque with a hipped roof and stone minaret. It is rectangular in plan, with sides of 17.60 x 11.40 as measured on the outside. It consists of an entrance area and a prayer hall.
The central part of the entrance area, which to all appearances was once a portico, leads to a portal with a simple arched decoration over the wooden door, now concealed by the addition of an upper storey. To the sides, the former sofas have been converted into enclosed rooms with new functions. To the north, a room of 4.30 x 3.90 m has been added for the imam, used in winter as a prayer space and mekteb. To the south, two rooms have been created, one a kitchen of 4.70 x 2.70 m with a storeroom of 2.50 x 3.00, and the other an abdesthana of 2.50 x 1.50 m. A single-flight wooden staircase in the front angle of the north sofa leads to the upper storey, level with the interior mahfil and currently used as a storeroom.
The simple portal opens onto the prayer hall of 10.30 x 8.70 m, with a front mahfil. This occupies the north-west wall, above the entrance portal, and is 2.30 m deep with a jetty for the muezzin which is 2.50 m deep. The mahfil rests on four wooden posts set 1.60 m apart, decorated with arches made of wooden boards. Below the mahfil are two enclosed spaces to the north and south, about 10 cm higher than the central section. The two pointed-arched blind windows or niches at mahfil level are directly above the ground-floor windows. The stone staircase leading to the mahfil also leads to the minaret.
The mihrab is semicircular, with a radius of 90 cm and a simple rectangular moulded frame of 2.30 x 4.10 m. The mihrab niche terminates in eleven bands of polychrome stalactite (muqarnas) decorations painted green, yellow and white, gradually narrowing to enclose the niche, which is surmounted by a crown. The mihrab niche is painted white, and the moulded frame is painted yellow and decorated with floral designs. On either side of the mihrab is a 10 cm high wooden podium. An area 90 cm in width is separated from the rest of the prayer hall by a wooden railing.
To the north of the mihrab, in the corner of the prayer hall, is a wooden ćurs.
The mimber is also wooden, of simple design, with a decorated, pointed-arched passage. The sides of the mimber are articulated by undecorated rectilinear vertical forms. The podium is surmounted by a canopy on four wooden posts, terminating in a cuboid cap.
All the interior woodwork, including the mimber, has been painted with green oil paint, and the walls are painted white. The wooden dado is 1.30 m high, above which the walls have a 70 cm high band of green. The flat ceiling is 5.50 m high to the joists.
The walls of the mosque are 80 cm thick, and those of the newly built parts of the entrance area are 20 cm thick. The outside walls are plastered and painted white.
The mosque has a single rank of rectangular windows measuring 280 x 94 cm, all of which are single-glazed two-light windows with plain glass, with the lintel on the inside in the form of a pointed arch. There are three windows each on the south-west and north-east sides of the mosque and two each on the north-west and south-east fronts, with the addition on the south-east front of another, round window.
The stone minaret stands by the south-west wall of the mosque. Its rectangular plinth of 2.40 x 2.70 m projects from the body of the wall, merging into a twelve-sided prism at the transition point of which is a polygonal jacket abutting the minaret onto the mosque. The šerefe or balcony is at a height of 11 m, below which the minaret is decorated with geometric designs. The spiral stone staircase of the minaret rises from the prayer hall. The minaret is surmounted by a polygonal copper-clad roof topped by an alem (finial) with three orbs and a vine-leaf.
The timber-framed hipped roof is clad with tiles; the eaves project beyond the building by 80 cm.
Burial ground by the mosque
The mosque is flanked on two sides by a small burial ground with twenty nišan tombstones of no particular value. Only three bear epitaphs, while one without an epitaph stands out in size from the rest of the burial ground, and could date from the 16th-17th century.
The epitaphs on the tombstones belong to:
- Hajj-Abdulah Baščauš, timur-holder, d. 1275 AH (1858)
- Jusuf Nurudin, son of Hajji-Ibrahim, 9 Muharram 1288 (31. III 1871)
- Alijaga, son of Hajji-Mehmed, 3 Rajab 1289 (6. IX 1872)
The burial ground is walled and has a stone gateway with a metal gate.
Fountain by the mosque
The fountain, which is of recent date, is next to the mosque, by the south-west wall. It was built of finely-dressed stone blocks, and is of simple design, measuring 30 x 150 cm. The front is decorated with a moulted pointed arch, a so-called blind mihrab. The stone trough is 30 cm deep and measures 35 x 86 cm. The canopy of the fountain is flat, and clad with a single layer of 6 cm thick edge-moulded slabs.
3. Legal status to date
The property was not subject to statutory protection(10).
4. Research and conservation-restoration works
No information is available concerning investigative or conservation-restoration works on the property.
5. Current condition of the property
The findings of an on-site inspection conducted on 27 July 2010 are as follows:
- a number of minor interventions have been carried out inside the mosque, including enclosing the portico, as a result of which the building has lost its original features;
- new premises have been built on: premises for the imam, a kitchen and storeroom, an abdesthana and an upper storey where the portico formerly stood;
- the building is affected by damp: the effect of rising damp can be seen on the walls, as can cracks;
- the minaret was damaged during the 1992-1995 war;
- the old tombstones and the entrance gateway to the burial ground are in very poor condition.
6. Specific risks
None.
III – CONCLUSION
Applying the Criteria for the adoption of a decision on proclaiming an item of property a national monument (Official Gazette of BiH nos. 33/02 and 15/03), the Commission has enacted the Decision cited above.
The Decision was based on the following criteria:
A. Time frame
B. Historical value
C. Artistic and aesthetic value
C.iii. proportions
C.iv. composition
C.v. value of details
C.vi. value of construction
D. Clarity (documentary, scientific or educational value)
D. iv. evidence of a particular type, style or regional manner
D.v. evidence of a typical way of life at a specific period
E. Symbolic value
E.i. ontological value
E.ii. religious value
E.iii. traditional value
E.iv. relation to rituals or ceremonies
E.v. significance for the identity of a group of people
F. Townscape value
F.i. relation to other elements of the site
The following documents form an integral part of this Decision:
- copy of cadastral plan
- photographs taken by architects Arijana Pašić and Amra Sarić using Canon Power Shot SX10 IS 10.00 megapixel
- drawings, architectural drawing of the current condition by Amra Sarić
Bibliography
During the procedure to designate the property as a national monument the following works were consulted:
1995 Koštović, Nijazija. Sarajevo između dobrotvorstva i zla (Sarajevo between good deeds and evil). Sarajevo: El -Kalem, 1995
1996 Zlatar, Behija. Zlatno doba Sarajeva (Sarajevo’s golden age). Svjetlost, Sarajevo,1996
1998 Mujezinović, Mehmed. Islamska epigrafika Bosne i Hercegovine (Islamic epigraphics of BiH), vol. I. Sarajevo: Sarajevo Publishing, 1998
http://www.spomenici-sa.ba/dokument.aspx?id=75 accessed 11.01.2011.
(1) In response to letter ref. 11-10-AE/11 of 05.01.2011, the Commission received an official copy of the Land Register entry and cadastral plan, along with letter ref. 065-0-Su-10-05016 of 10.01.2011 from the Land Registry office of the Municipal Court in Sarajevo, from the Board of the Islamic Community in Sarajevo
(2) Zlatar, Behija, Zlatno doba Sarajeva (XVI stojeće), Sarajevo: Svjetlost, 1996, 38.
(3) Zlatar, Behija, op.cit., 183 -184.
(4) Behija, Zlatar, op.cit., 41 and 42.
(5) Mujezinović, Mehmed, Islamska epigrafika Bosne i Hercegovine, vol I, Sarajevo: Sarajevo Publishing, 1998, 213.
(6) Zlatar, Behija, Zlatno doba Sarajeva, Sarajevo: Svjetlost, 1996, 69 and 74.
(7) http://www.spomenici-sa.ba/dokument.aspx?id=75
(8) Mujezinović, Mehmed, Islamska epigrafika Bosne i Hercegovine, vol. I, Sarajevo: Sarajevo Publishing, 1988, 213.
(9) Koštović, Nijazija, Sarajevo između dobrotvorstva i zla, Sarajevo: El-Kalem, 1995, 269.
(10) According to a letter from the Federal Ministry of Culture and Sport ref. 07-40-4-4799-1/10 of 24.12.2010, the property was listed but not protected by the Institute for the Protection of the Cultural and Natural Heritage of BiH.
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