Mula Mustafa Bašeskija

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Mula Mustafa Bašeskija
Bornc. 1731
Ottoman Turkish
SpouseSafija
Children10

Mula Mustafa Bašeskija (c. 1731 – 18 August 1809) was a

Bosnia, Herzegovina and in the Ottoman Empire during his lifetime and is considered an important figure in the history of Sarajevo for preserving information that would have otherwise been forgotten.[2]

Early life and background

Bašeskija was born into a poor

Muslim family in a Sarajevo quarter named after Mimar Sinan. Both his paternal grandfather Kadir and maternal grandfather Mehmed were Imams.[3] 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
in 1760.

As a child Bašeskija attended

maktab and later madrasa.[4] 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

Sharia law
. 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, 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 plague in the 18th century. Bašeskija chronicled the lives of 4,000 of the dead, mostly adult Bosniaks.[5]

Works

Mula Mustafa Bašeskija added a collection of poems in the

Arabic
, 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.[6]

Later life and death

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

References

  1. ^ "Mula Mustafa Bašeskija – Ševki". Avlija. 15 April 2013. Retrieved 25 August 2014.
  2. ^ "Mula Mustafa Bašeskija, mnogo više od narodnog pisara". Radio Sarajevo. 18 August 2014. Archived from the original on 19 August 2014. Retrieved 25 August 2014.
  3. ^ "Godišnjica smrti Mula Mustafe Bašeskije". Historija. Retrieved 25 August 2014.
  4. ^ "MULA MUSTAFA BASESKIJA SEVKI". Camo. 2006. Retrieved 25 August 2014.
  5. ISBN 978-0812241266
    . Retrieved 25 August 2014.
  6. ISBN 9781136889349
    . Retrieved 25 August 2014.


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