29 years have passed since the death of Nerkez Smailagić

Today marks 29 years since the death of Nerkez Smailagić, a prominent Bosniak writer, doctor of sciences, translator, and publicist, writes the BH News Agency Patria.

FROM BIOGRAPHY

Smailagić was born in 1927 in Banja Luka, where he completed primary and secondary school. From an early age, his intelligence attracted the attention of those around him.

He enrolled in the Faculty of Law in Sarajevo in 1947 and graduated in 1951 as an excellent student, being chosen as an assistant for the subject History of Political Doctrines. In 1953, he went for specialization in France, where he also stayed during the 1954/1955 academic year. During that period, Smailagić completed his specialization studies in contemporary political doctrines at the Paris Institute of Political Studies.

He returned to Sarajevo in 1955 and continued his assistant career at the Faculty of Law. His scientific interests included law, political philosophy, and the history of cultures and civilizations. His interest in philosophy, sociology, and political philosophy led him to the Chair of Sociology at the Faculty of Philosophy in Sarajevo, where he worked as an assistant.

MOVE TO ZAGREB

Smailagić continued his career in 1962 at the Faculty of Political Sciences in Zagreb. The University of Zagreb and the city of Zagreb offered Nerkez Smailagić everything he had not found in Sarajevo or Banja Luka at the time, primarily greater freedom of work and thought. Smailagić wrote and published his major works in the capital of the Republic of Croatia, including those on Islam, to which he made a lasting contribution in the second half of the 20th century.

During that period, he was a welcome university lecturer, a respected author, translator, and publicist of valuable books in the fields of legal and political doctrines, philosophy, culture, civilization, history, and Islamology. He translated from French, German, English, and Italian. He earned his doctorate at the Faculty of Law in Ljubljana in 1976.

CREATIVE WORK

Nerkez Smailagić's works, which he wrote, translated, or edited, in the fields of Islamic lexicology, Quranic studies, philosophy, culture, and civilization, restored dignity to Islamic literature in this region, not only in terms of scholarship and expertise but also scope. Nerkez Smailagić offered his own conception of Islamic studies with the aim of presenting Islam in its internal originality and uniqueness, as well as its external multidimensionality.

For Smailagić, "Islam is not just a religion, but a way of life that shapes the existence, everyday life, and behavior of its followers. In other words, Islam is not just a theological, but also a cultural system.".

Smailagić intended his Islamic studies for both Muslim and non-Muslim readers. In his works dedicated to Islam, he particularly affirmed the universality of Islam. Islam is a global phenomenon simply because world history itself is made possible by Islam. In his studies and chrestomathies on classical Islam, Nerkez Smailagić sought to answer the question of how much the modern world owes to Islam as, in his words, "a great culture on whose foundations so many peoples have grown and live.".

Some of the works of this significant Bosniak intellectual include "Introduction to the Quran," "Lexicon of Islam," "History of Political Doctrines," and "Classical Islamic Culture." He also translated significant works by European and world thinkers, philosophers, and creators.

He died suddenly on December 14, 1985, at the age of 58. One of the streets in the Alipašino Polje neighborhood of Sarajevo bears his name.