Hağğ Mustafā Muḫlisī al-Bosnawi

Abstract

Hağğ Mustafā Muḫlisī al-Bosnawi, a poet and traveler, occupies by his work and erudition a special place among the writers of Bosnia and Herzegovina who wrote in the Near-eastern languages. He was born at the beginning of the XVIIIth century in Gornji Vakuf. He was a kadi by profession, and he worked in several towns of Bosnia and Herzegovina. As a kadi of Sarajevo he participated in the battle of Banja Luka on August 4^th 1737, and was a member of the Committee for the exchange of prisoners of war as well as of the border negotiating committee between Turkey and Austria in 1739. In the year 1161/1748 he left Agriboz <Greece> to perform hagg describing the route in a poem of 888 verses in Turkish. Well-known is also his poem-eulogy to Hekim oglu Ali-paša, consisting of 27 verses·and glorifying his heroic victory over the Austrians at Banja Luka. In addition the these, two other so far unknown lyrical poems are published here, namely a love poem of 19 verses and a chronogram written on the occasion of death of a girl called Fatima from Gornji Vakuf, consisting of 10 verses, further a short satire on kadis 5 verses long, as well as the poem on harmfulness of tobacco in 4 verses. In the poem on his journey to haiHJ he described his route from the starting point, Istanbul, via Cairo to Mecca and the way back through Medina and Damascus to Istanbul. He described 104 resting places (manzil) with comments on Bedouins, merchants.