A mushaf copied in Sarajevo found in the manuscript collection of the British Library in London

(Patria) - Following a contact made at a recently held international symposium on manuscripts in Istanbul, the Gazi Husrev-beg Library in Sarajevo was contacted by Dr. Michael Erdman, Head of the Department for Middle Eastern and Central Asian Collections at the British Library in London.

Along with digital copies of several pages of the mushaf, including the colophon and a ownership note, he requested assistance in correctly identifying its scribe and previous owner.

Librarians of the Special Collections Department of the Gazi Husrev-beg Library in Sarajevo determined that the aforementioned mushaf was copied in 1270 AH, in the Topal Ejnehan Mahala (today the congregation of the Lubina Mosque) in Sarajevo, by Yusuf, son of Sulejman, from Prozor (Yūsuf ibn Sulaymān Prōzōrlī).

In this mahala, where the mosque was built by hadži Topal Ejnehan, the founder of Vratnik, the Prozorac family still lives today, and it can be assumed with great probability that they are his descendants.

The Manuscript Collection of the Gazi Husrev-beg Library contains several other works by this scribe.

It is recorded that he attended the madrasa in Bentbaša and, as a student of the madrasa in 1262/1846, copied a manual on Islamic religious studies, Ḫodā rabbum (OIS, R-61). In the Divan Katib Mahala (today the congregation of the Bijela Mosque in Vratnik) in Sarajevo, he copied Anʻām (GHB, R-5120) in 1280/1864, and in the same mahala in 1301/1884, he copied Al-Qawl al-mutawāṭī fī šarḥ Qaṣīda ad-Dimyāṭī, a commentary by Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad al-Ğazā’irī on the qasida by Shamsuddīn Muḥammad ad-Dimyāṭī about the beautiful names of God (GHB, R-8697).

According to the ownership note, the Mushaf was registered as a waqf on the 16th of Kanuni-sani 1324 AH, i.e., January 29, 1909, by the deceased hadži Đulđula-hanuma, mother of the late shoemaker Nuri-efendi from Niš.

Everything has its destiny: people, plants, animals, and even books. We can only speculate about the way in which this mushaf, handwritten by a Bosniak originally from Prozor, copied in Sarajevo, in Vratnik, ended up first as a waqf in Niš, and then in the manuscript collection of the British Library in London.