A Short Walk in Muslim Sarajevo

A week ago I visited Sarajevo for the second time this year after a wonderful snowy trip in February which inspired the Smoke over Cevabdzinici blog post. While last time the focus was on the culinary aspects of the city this time I am showing a bit of its Muslim side. It simply happened like that as somehow, during this short walk, mosques came seemed beautiful to me especially in combination with surrounding nature and buildings.

While walking in Sarajevo with Ellen and Ana I was thinking again that Islam, Islamic art and architecture are somehow far from me and my cultural background and I have often felt unease in their presence. I don't know what it is about Islam that enhances its otherness so much. I assume it must be mainly the manifestation of its radical fractions and all the negative PR that we have been getting during the last decade after 9/11. For me personally, it must also be all the negative indoctrination about the Ottoman presence in Bulgaria from the 14th to the 19th century that kids use(d) to get in school.

Never mind, I am taking it as a personal mission in the future to get closer to Islam and therefore try to understand more and better.

Actually now that I am thinking of it for many years I have looked for manifestations of beauty in the little of Islam that I have seen. It maybe all started in 1995 in Alhambra in Granada, Spain. Alhambra is the only piece of architecture that has brought tears to my eyes. I thought that people who built this place and lived there revered harmony.

Ever since I haven't traveled much in Muslim countries except Turkey, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Albania. And one can find great examples of Islamic architecture in Turkey like the early 17th century Sultan Ahmed (or Blue) Mosque in Istanbul for example.

I have never been closer to Islamic culture than in 1994-95 when I took a course on Islamic culture in university. We had a great professor who opened our eyes to Islamic poets, philosophers, etc. I don't remember much and I have never done any extensive reading but I am thinking of mystic poet Rumi now. I especially like the fact that God can be reached through music and dance inspiring the turning dervishes or the order of the Mevlevi. Now I remember that the museum of the turning dervishes in Istanbul was another Islam-related place where I have felt comfortable, especially in the presence of some sleeping cats. (It's a pity I can't find my pictures from there).

This renewed trip of understanding started a month ago when, while being in Serbia, I read the balanced chapter on Islam in Huston Smith's The World Religions. Now, I remember the simple revelation about the position of woman in Islam. It seems that Islam treatment of women was a huge improvement compared to pre-Islamic times. It is indeed true, as my friend Ellen noted, that 14 centuries have elapsed since then and I don't deny it but this information simply makes us think more about it and introduces some relativity to it.

But coming back to Sarajevo. Mosques there are numerous (Wikipedia mentions 186) including many new ones. Here is a view of the Miljacka river and the Latin Bridge with a minaret behind.

The Latin Bridge over Miljacka River

This is a closer plan of the same mosque. I made this picture because of the coexistence with this beautiful building of another architectural tradition.

Mosque and beautiful house

Sarajevo mosques are perceived on the background of the nearby mountain.

Mosque

As if this mosque in the Old Carsija has a ring of fire. The tree is a friend of the minaret and keeps company during the long nights.

Ring of Fire

Islam must have a special relation with roses. Remember the Budapest Gul Baba. This one is in the yard of the above mosque and they set up the lamp in such a way so that the rose is seen well.

Night Rose in Mosque Yard

The picture below is from Tbilisi, Georgia but I looked through my pictures for other beautiful mosques that I have seen.

Mosque, Tbilisi, Georgia

Come, come, whoever you are.

Wonderer, worshipper, lover of leaving.

It doesn't matter.

Ours is not a caravan of despair.

Come, even if you have broken your vow

a thousand times

Come, yet again, come, come.

(Rumi)

On the shores of the Hungarian Sea...

...as Lake Balaton is affectionately called around here. When you have no proper sea, anything goes, really. I feel their landlocked pain all right, coming from one of the few other European countries without a seaside (even Bosnia has its three and a half meters of coast, damn it!) but do check which two countries dominate water polo (I repeat, water polo) for years now.

Enough digressions, let's get down to the lake and see what we find there.

A sunset on the shore, and a tumultuous sky set against a big, calm water. Make no mistake, Balaton is huge--it is almost 80km long.

It's a great place for fishing

lounging

or having a walk in a pretty little town. Ours was Tihany, town on a hill from which you get the best views of the lake.

You can take the path that follows the shore, along the walls of a fortification from times long gone

and admire these thatched roofs resembling elaborate winter hats.

You will inevitably run into pottery--on wooden fences, window sills or on the ground, dozens of brightly colored cups, pots and plates dot the landscape. I loved the colors and couldn't resist taking (way too) many pictures so, beware, gratuitous pottery shots follow

with some flowers thrown in for good measure, shot a la Polly, who likes to look at the world in a skewed way (literally, not metaphorically, although I can't vouchsafe for that, having missed a chance to get to know her live at Blog Camp 1.0)

Of course, you knew that all this walking must lead to something or somewhere, and that's straight to a bowl of hearty goulash, on the terrace of a csarda overlooking the lake,

where you find an unexpected treat--a sea of wild lavender.

Il pleuvait sans cesse sur Budapest*

I have to consult my calendar to make sure we are still in June and I haven't somehow overslept half a year and woke up in November. A quick look out of the window--a milky fog and a heavy shower. What happened to our summer?!

At least I have something useful to do--I enrolled in a super-intensive French course at the French Institute. I'm a student again! Ok, technically I was a student last year, too, when I took a course with the Open University but when you only study online you don't really feel like you are a part of something.

It's also been ages (seven years, precisely) since I last attempted to take a French course, and that one wasn't much of a success--we had too many levels in the group and I missed a lot of classes because of travel so in the end I just stopped going.

To be fair, I was so not motivated. I wanted to enroll Italian but reached a pragmatic decision that

a) since French is more useful (it's one of 5 UN languages)
b) and I had some basis back from high school

I should actually try to "take it to the next level," literally. But it didn't work.

This time I think I might actually enjoy it, for a change. So, while the enthusiasm lasts I might as well go do my homework...


*a paraphrase of a poem by Jacques Prevert (Ruslan's influence is showing already)

Five favorite things, or playing along

Seaside Girl tagged me the other day with a five random favorite things meme, and since I have never done a meme before, I decided to play along. Without much ado:

Five favorite songs:

1. Space Oddity--David Bowie
2. Ring of Fire--Johnny Cash
3. Help--Beatles
4. Umbrella--Rihanna
5. Ha Uma Musica Do Povo--Mariza

Five favorite films:

1. Burnt by the Sun (Utomlenie solncem) by Nikita Mihalkov--I've seen it about a dozen times and I think it's a masterpiece. It manages to be both a historical film (the story takes place in the late 1930s in the Soviet Union) and a drama of complicated personal relationships.
   
2. Before the Rain (Predi dazhdot) by Milcho Manchevski--another one I've seen many times, and my stomach ties into a knot every time I do. It's a story about love, about the Balkans and therefore about vicious circles of hatred and violence, but it isn't a war movie. Acting is fantastic, the shots of harsh Macedonian landscapes stunning, and the soundtrack is very mystic and powerful.
   
3. Casablanca by Michael Curtiz--great dialogues, meticulous crafting. Of course, some things look a bit naivistic (the movie was shot in 1943) but it is still a fantastic movie after all that time. So many punchlines and witty exchanges--by now I know most of them by heart.
   
4. Il Gattopardo by Lucino Visconti--film based on the novel of the same name by Giovani Lampedusa, about an aristocratic family in Sicily trying to come to terms with the tumultuous times in Italy in 1860s. It has an incredible cast: Claudia Cardinale, Alain Delon, Burt Lancaster.
5. Picnic at Hanging Rock by Peter Weir--this one I have seen only once, as a child, and never heard of it again until someone mentioned it recently (in a blog post, I think) and the memories came back. I remember that it was very thrilling and mysterious, or maybe I was just young and impressionable.

Five favorite books:

1. "Speak, Memory" by Vladimir Nabokov
2. "The Tomb for Boris Davidovich" by Danilo Kis
3. "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" by Milan Kundera
4. "Atonement" by Ian McEwan
   
5. "Good Omens" by Neil Gaiman and Terry Prachet

Five favorite crushes:

1. Toni Kukoc--probably the best Yugoslav (then Croatian) basketball player of the early 199s and very cute at the time.
   
2. Roger Moore--the best James Bond ever.
3. Michael Johnston--an online communications guru. I attended one of his workshops a few years back here in Budapest and fell in love with the whole new media thing as a result. So this is more a new media crush than Michael Johston crush, although he's a pretty smart and fun guy in his own right.
   
4. Theodosii Spassov--a Bulgarian musician, plays caval (an instrument similar to flute). Saw him live once at a concert in Budapest and was stunned--he's one of those men who oozes sex apppeal without coming accross as macho or pretentious.
   
5. Sherlock Holmes--I just happen to like clever guys.

Five random favorite things:

1. Haribo jelly bears
2. The Adriatic Sea
3. Smell of fresh print
4. Beautiful notebooks
5. watching my kids asleep

OK, now I'm supposed to tag another 5 people. They are:

Delwyn from A Hazy Moon
Tulsa from The Art of Living in Japan
Polly from Sotto Voce
Squirrel from The Realm of the Lone Gray Squirrel
B from Cuttings on a Blog