Mula Mustafa Bašeskija ( – 18 August 1809) was a Bosnian chronicler, diarist, poet and calligrapher in the

Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire (), also called the Turkish Empire, was an empire, imperial realm that controlled much of Southeast Europe, West Asia, and North Africa from the 14th to early 20th centuries; it also controlled parts of southeastern Centr ...

. He chronicled the history and events in

Sarajevo Sarajevo ( ), ; ''see Names of European cities in different languages (Q–T)#S, names in other languages'' is the Capital city, capital and List of cities in Bosnia and Herzegovina, largest city of Bosnia and Herzegovina, with a population of 2 ...

Bosnia Bosnia and Herzegovina, sometimes known as Bosnia-Herzegovina and informally as Bosnia, is a country in Southeast Europe. Situated on the Balkans, Balkan Peninsula, it borders Serbia to the east, Montenegro to the southeast, and Croatia to th ...

Herzegovina Herzegovina ( or ; sh-Latn-Cyrl, Hercegovina, separator=" / ", Херцеговина, ) is the southern and smaller of two main geographical Regions of Bosnia and Herzegovina, regions of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the other being Bosnia (reg ...

and in the

during his lifetime and is considered an important figure in the history of Sarajevo for preserving information that would have otherwise been forgotten.

Early life and background

Bašeskija was born into a poor

Muslim Muslims () are people who adhere to Islam, a Monotheism, monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God ...

family in a

quarter named after

Mimar Sinan Mimar Sinan (; , ; – 17 July 1588) also known as Koca Mi'mâr Sinân Âğâ, ("Sinan Agha (title), Agha the Grand Architect" or "Grand Sinan") was the chief Ottoman Empire, Ottoman architect, engineer and mathematician for sultans Suleiman ...

. Both his paternal grandfather Kadir and maternal grandfather Mehmed were

Imam Imam (; , '; : , ') is an Islamic leadership position. For Sunni Islam, Sunni Muslims, Imam is most commonly used as the title of a prayer leader of a mosque. In this context, imams may lead Salah, Islamic prayers, serve as community leaders, ...

s. Bašeskija lost his father Ahmed when he was a child. His mother Fatima remarried and died in 1772 of a stroke after a long illness. His uncle Topal Osman-aga died in

Belgrade Belgrade is the Capital city, capital and List of cities in Serbia, largest city of Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers and at the crossroads of the Pannonian Basin, Pannonian Plain and the Balkan Peninsula. T ...

in 1760. As a child Bašeskija attended maktab and later

madrasa Madrasa (, also , ; Arabic: مدرسة , ), sometimes Romanization of Arabic, romanized as madrasah or madrassa, is the Arabic word for any Educational institution, type of educational institution, secular or religious (of any religion), whet ...

. It wasn't until 1763 that he began scribing Bosnian history. During the 1760s he also owned a small shop underneath a clock tower in Sarajevo. In his shop, in addition to clerical jobs, he taught students and other people in the Arabic calligraphy and

Sharia law Sharia, Sharī'ah, Shari'a, or Shariah () is a body of religious law that forms a part of the Islamic tradition based on scriptures of Islam, particularly the Qur'an and hadith. In Islamic terminology ''sharīʿah'' refers to immutable, inta ...

. In 1779, he wrote that he and few friends met once a week in a house, where, in addition to gathering and conversing for half an hour, were dedicated to reading books. Bašeskija left Sarajevo on 1 July 1781 and moved with his family to the village Zgošća near

Kakanj Kakanj ( sr-cyrl, Какањ) is a town and municipality located in Zenica-Doboj Canton of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, an entity of Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is the Europe's oldest continuously inhabitted settlement. As of 2013, ...

, only to return to Sarajevo less than a year later in February 1782. Bosnia and Herzegovina, along with most of Europe, experienced a resurgence of the

Black Death The Black Death was a bubonic plague pandemic that occurred in Europe from 1346 to 1353. It was one of the list of epidemics, most fatal pandemics in human history; as many as people perished, perhaps 50% of Europe's 14th century population. ...

plague in the 18th century. Bašeskija chronicled the lives of 4,000 of the dead, mostly adult

Bosniaks The Bosniaks (, Cyrillic script, Cyrillic: Бошњаци, ; , ) are a South Slavs, South Slavic ethnic group native to the Southeast European historical region of Bosnia (region), Bosnia, today part of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and who sha ...

Works

Mula Mustafa Bašeskija added a collection of poems in the

Bosnian language Bosnian (; / ; ), sometimes referred to as Bosniak ( / ; ), is the standard language, standardized Variety (linguistics)#Standard varieties, variety of the Serbo-Croatian pluricentric language mainly used by ethnic Bosniaks. Bosnian is one of ...

in one of his yearbooks, arguing that the Bosnian language is much richer than

Arabic Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...

, because there are 45 words for the verb "to go" in Bosnian. Probably his best-known work is ''Ljetopis o Sarajevu'' ("Chronicle of Sarajevo"), in which he detailed not only his life and the lives of his family members, but the urban life in Sarajevo in its various aspects and events in Sarajevo and the Bosnian province as a whole from 1746 to 1804.

Later life and death

Bašeskija became ill in 1801 and died in the summer of 1809 aged about 77–78.

References

1730s births 1809 deaths Writers from Sarajevo Bosnia and Herzegovina Muslims People from the Ottoman Empire of Bosnian descent 18th-century historians from the Ottoman Empire 19th-century historians from the Ottoman Empire Historians of Bosnia and Herzegovina {{BosniaHerzegovina-bio-stub