Town with rich Islamic tradition

MOSTAR

Apart from Sarajevo, Travnik, Banja Luka and Foca, Mostar is the biggest centre of Islamic culture in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The foundation is related to a period of conquering of the Bosnian kingdom by the Ottoman’s empire in the 15th century. From that period, this town becomes a political centre and an example of the successful urbane development of Herzegovina.

The town of Mostar was founded in the middle of the 15th century during the intensive conquering of Bosnia by the Ottomans empire. The first mentioning of the town under its present name comes from 1469.

Otherwise, it is situated in the Mostar’s valley, between the hill of Hum and the foot of the mountain Velez, at the shore of Neretva, one of most beautiful rivers of the South-Eastern Europe. Before that, in that region, there were poorly developed pre-Islamic medieval housings.
At the beginning of the 16th century, Mostar becomes important political and trade centre, and that status will not lose until present.

All of this understood, a sudden development of he town infrastructure, so, at the beginning, Mostar got the physiognomy of the oriental town with the monumental mosques, Islamic high schools, traditional small shopes, the public baths and with the developed trade squares. Since it is placed only 80 km from the sea, within the Mediteranean zone, Mostar, in many ways differ from the towns of continental Bosnia.

This climate here conditioned a particular agriculture, and on the other hand, a developed building of all objects in stone, not only sacral but also the profane ones. Because of all this, Mostar resembles to Mediteranean towns from the shores of the Adriatic Sea. Not rarely, the Christian workers from Dalmatia were hired to build mosques, not only in Mostar, but also in other towns of Bosnia and Herzegovina. A large cultural inheritence and „poetics of stone“ of the Mostar’s buildings made this town special and very interesting for research of Islamic architecture in this part of Europe.

The rest of the article you can read in the magazine.