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MEHMED BEG KAPETANOVIĆ LJUBUŠAK: WHAT MOHAMMEDANS IN BOSNIA THINK Title: Što misle muhamedanci u Bosni (What Mohammedans in Bosnia think) Originally published: Sarajevo, Spindler and Löschner, 1886 Language: Bosnian The excerpts used are from the original, pp. 4–6, 9, 18–19. About the author Mehmed beg Kapetanović Ljubušak [1839, Ljubuški (Herzegovina) – 1902, Sarajevo]: public official and writer. He received his primary education in his hometown and completed his secondary education in Mostar, thereafter continuing with his education in Ljubuški. Kapetanović was appointed a member of a commission under the chairmanship of Cevdet Pasha working to introduce reforms in Herzegovina . For his services, he was awarded with an award of distinction by the Sultan. Between 1865 and 1875 Kapetanović was appointed kaymakam (governor) of the town of Stolac, and later served also as the kaymakam of towns Ljubuški, Foča and Trebinje. With the 1875 Herzegovina uprising he moved to Sarajevo and two years later was appointed the mayor of Sarajevo. In the same year he got elected to the Ottoman Parliament. After the Austro-Hungarian occupation, Kapetanović’s next appointment was to the Sarajevo city council, for he played no significant role in the (armed) resistance to the 1878 occupation. Kapetanović became the first Bosnian Muslim to publish a work in the Latin alphabet in 1883. His ideas and opinions on the condition of the Bosnian Muslims under Austro-Hungarian rule are best illustrated in his pamphlet Što misle muhamedanci u Bosni, which was published in 1886 in response to an anonymous brochure which attacked Bosnian Muslims. Kapetanovi ć supported the project of Bosnjastvo, and it was in this context that the journal Bošnjak was founded in 1891. From 1893 to 1898 he served again as the mayor of Sarajevo. His views reflect those of the progressive-minded, urban intellectuals and sections of the ulema (figures such as Mehmed Teufik Azabagić), but they should not be taken to be representative of the majority of the populace. Main works: Risale-i ahlak [Treatise on morals] (1883); Što misle muhamedanci u Bosni [What Mohammedans in Bosnia think] (1886); Narodno Blago [The national wealth] (1887); Boj pod Banjomlukom 1737 [The Banja Luka battle, 1737] (1888); Budućnost ili napredak muhamedanaca u Bosni i Hercegovini [Future or progress of Mohammedans in Bosnia-Herzegovina] (1893). MEHMED BEG K. LJUBUŠAK: WHAT MOHAMMEDANS IN BOSNIA THINK 91 Context At the Berlin Congress of 1878, Austria-Hungary was given the right to occupy and administer Bosnia and Herzegovina. Following the withdrawal of Ottoman officials and troops, there was a determined but short-lived armed resistance to the occupation. The territories of Bosnia and Herzegovina were placed neither under Austrian nor Hungarian jurisdiction, but were termed as corpus separatum and were governed by the Joint Ministry of Finance. The occupation resulted in the severing of links between the Muslims of BosniaHerzegovina and the rest of the Muslim world. Bosnian Muslims no longer belonged to the Muslim millet of the Ottoman Empire but had become a Muslim minority under a Christian emperor (the Sultan had only nominal sovereignty over Bosnia-Herzegovina). The reactions of Bosnian Muslims to the new authority varied from armed resistance and massive migrations to the acceptance of an eventual modus vivendi. The first wave of migrations followed the 1881 introduction of military service for the inhabitants of BosniaHerzegovina and the subsequent debates it generated as to the recruitment of Muslims in a non-Muslim army. An influential Muslim alim (religious scholar) Mustafa Hilmi H. Omerović, as well as Mehmed beg Kapetanović Ljubušak, supported Muslim service in the Austro-Hungarian army. The Habsburg administration in Bosnia-Herzegovina, in the person of Benjamin Kállay (the Joint Finance Minister), pursued the policy known as Bosnjastvo (Bosnianism), which had in fact been initiated by the last vizier of Bosnia-Herzegovina. The term Bošnjak was used for inhabitants belonging to the Muslim faith, but this policy was now aimed to widen its scope and include the Bosnian Serbs and Bosnian Croats as well. This was to comprise a new Bosnian national ideology. To this end the journal Bošnjak was founded in 1891 by Mehmed beg Kapetanović (himself a pro-Habsburg). The Bošnjak was in favor of adopting European culture and saw Austria-Hungary as a vehicle to that end. The publication, which was in the Latin alphabet, also had the aim of countering the Serbian and Croatian nation-building discourses which claimed that the Bosnian Muslims were either...

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