Two Madjmu’as From the First Half of the Xixth Century

Abstract

Madjmu'as (notebooks, collections, chronicles, chrestomathies) are specific and unique manuscripts written mostly by the local learned men and men of letters. They included various materials from other manuscripts into their collections, copied various documents, recorded contemporary events, and many of them wrote their own original works of fiction and verse (kasidas, ilahis, records, prescriptions, various notes, genealogy, chronograms, etc.). Therefore, these collections offer valuable information from every field of activity: history, literature, philology, astronomy, philosophy, astrology, eschatology, cabalistic, mathematics, medicine, etc.

Besides the texts in Oriental languages, Turkish, Arabic and Persian, many a Madjmu'a, especially those from later times, contain also aljamiado fiction and poetic works in Serbo-Croatian. Both of the mentioned Madjmu'as date from the later period of the Turkish rule in Bosnia and Herzegovina. One of them was written in Sarajevo (Bosnia), and the other in Mostar (Herzegovina), and both of them, especially the Sarajevo one, contain a:lso the aljamiado texts, which make it more valuable.

The Sarajevo Madjmu'a by an anonymous author contains mostly literary texts, poetic in content, in Turkish and :Serbo-Croatian (kasidas, ilahis, chronograms, and other verse). In it there are several longer poems and prose-texts in Turkish by the Mufti of Sarajevo Muhammed Shakir Muidović, which have not been published so far. In addition to the above mentioned, the Madjmu'a contains two longer poems in Serbo-Croatian (aljamiado). One of them was written by the well-known 17th century Bosnian poet Hasan Kaimi-Baba who wrote in Turkish and in Serbo-Croatian, entitled “On the Conquest of Candia”, and the other: “The emperor Mustafa died - long live Sultan Mahmud” Besides the above mentioned, the collection contains copies of documents and other historical notes relevant for the history of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

MADJMU'A OF MUSTAFA OF STOLAC, SON OF DERVISH consists of different materials, mostly kasidas and ilahis in Turkish and Arabic, and very few in Persian and Serbo-Croatian. Besides ilahis and kasides, there are historical notes on Mostar and Stolac and other places in Herzegovina in it, as well as a poem on Mostar in Turkish. A considerable number of texts concerns tabir-namas (interpretation of dreams), records and prescriptions.

According to the notes in the Madjmu'a, the author of .the above Madjmu'a Mustafa of Stolac (1.57), was the student of Karagöz-bey's Medresa in Mostar in 1834, and he began writing his madjmu'a there. His teacher was Mustafa-efendi the Mufti of Mostar.