Bosnia the Good: Tolerance and Tradition

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BOSNIA THE GOOD Tolerance and Tradition

Rusmir MahmutCehajiC

* l *

CEU PRESS 4 k b

Central European University Press

First published in Bosnian as Dobra Bosna by Edition Durieux, Zagreb, 1997

English edition publishedin 2000 by Central European University Press Nidor U. 15 H-IO51 Budapest Hungary 400 West 59& Street New York, NY 10019 USA Translated by Marina Bowder 01997 by Rusmir MahmutkehajiC English translation 0 2000 by Rusmir MahmutCehajiC Distributed in the United f i g a h and WesternEurope by Plymbridge Distributors Ltd., Estover Road, Plymouth, PL6 7PZ, United Kingdom All rights reserved. No part of this publication may bereproduced, stored in a retrieval system,or transmitted, in any form or by any means,without the permission of the Publisher

ISBN 963-91 16-86-6Cloth ISBN 963-9116-87-4 Paperback

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data A CIP catalog record for this book is available upon request

Printed in Hungay by Akadhiai Nymda

CONTENTS

PREFACE

3

Introduction THE BOSNIAN PARADIGM

9

Chapter l

THE BALKAN ARCHIPELAGO Introduction Sovereignty Christianity Islam Serbhood Croathood Bosniac Identity Political Downslide Modernity and Beyond Tolerance and Tradition

13 13 16 19 23 26 29 31 34 41 45

Chapter 2 KERNEL AND SHELL Introduction The Diversity of Religions

55 55 59

Tradition Corruption Islam through Phenomenology The Science of Symbols Speech into Script Chapter 3

61 64 65 69 72

Introduction The Five Signs of Duality The Wordand the Apple The Rose andthe Vine The Staff andthe Moon The Sword and the Web The Temple and the Tomb

81 81 85 85 87 91 94 97

The Face: Five Stages The Face Heaven and Earth Sun and Moon Stars and Mountains Trees and Animals Submission and Freedom

100 101 102 103 105 106 107

Chapter 4 T H E CYCLE OF SLAUGHTER Introduction The Secret Letter Christ and Christology ParaMetos The Transition Verticality and Horizontality ‘Heresy’ Opposition Splitting Changes Without an Answer

115 115 117 120 121 124 128 131 132 134 137 139

DUALISM RESOLVED

The Hand Disappearance and Renewal Conditions Chapter 5

THE MASDJID Introduction High in Low Building and Razing The Stations of Wisdom Fear: Flight and Attack Love: Patience and Passion Knowledge: I and I Humanity and Perfection

140 143 144

151 151 154 157 159 165 167 169 173

Chapter 6 GENOCIDE Introduction ‘The Endof History’ ‘The Clash of Civilisations’ Elites Ideologies Organisations Perpetrators Toxic Reaction Crime and the Future

183 183 187 190 193 196 199 202 206 208

EPILOGUE

213

BIBLIOGRAPHY

223

INDEX OF NAMES

229

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In the Name of God, the Mercificl, the Compassionate!

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PREFACE

‘Bosnia the Good’ has once again witnessedthe accomplishments of evil: the slaughtered are still rotting in their thousands, unburied, throughout the forests of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Lying in mud, washed up on riverbanks or thrown into pits-the distance humanity has travelled from itself can be crudely measured in the numbers of dead. The depths of degradation reached, here in Bosnia, deter the survivors from attempting to penetrate and understand their experience, letting evil pull back into the shadows to nurse itself for a new outbreak. The structure which evil inhabits, and from which, from time to time, it erupts, evades examination: and we continue passively to accept life ina darkened landscape, empty of principle. Learning to understand evil and its works can be compared to climbing a ladder, from the lowest aspects of humanity to the highest: to the Centre, whichcan be called Goodness. Inthe spanbetween the lowestand the highest, evil and good-terms which today sound naive, even embarrassing-stand as absolutes: either the total rejection of the principles in which our sacred traditions are rooted; or hope in the future and the salvation of humanity. Hope still breathes, although faintly, in war-torn Bosnia: a country moulded by the symbols whichthree of the widest and strongest of religious traditions (the sophin perennis, lex aeterna, din al-haqq) have inscribed in the Bosnian bookof life anddeath. The killers violatedthese scriptures by rejecting the principle that ‘a right way and an open road’ were individually created for all nations (Kur’an). If

4

Preface

the coequal existence of different laws and ways holds as a principle, then only the greatest evil can result from humanity’s failure to live by this principle. Our inability to acknowledge and accept all laws and ways has led us to act like false gods, demanding that our own laws and ways should dominate, or even annihilate, those of others. This failure prevents us from climbing the ladder of values, which, in leading us to the Cause and End of all, wouldfree us from false gods. Bosnia bears living testimony to the potential created when several sacred laws and ways are present together. Each has its own inherent form of defence against the possibility of mutual violence: denial of one sacred tradition by another means that the first has ceased to be sacred, has lost its capacity to achieve holiness for humanity. To join this denial is to join forces with the unreal, which seeks the annihilation of others to feed its own emptiness. To falsify the real identity of Bosnia means to deny goodness: inadequacy can only achieve potency by denying the presence and the existence of the holy, the whole. If we lose awarenessof the possibilities incorporated and suggested by Bosnia,there will be no more opposition to the continuing growth of a system of evil in the place of the real Bosnia. The sacred traditions of Orthodoxy, Catholicism and Islam are incorporated into Bosnia’s structure in a living relationship of mutual testing and confirmation. The sacred is unique, but the roads and ways to achieve it are many, since ‘to every one of you We have appointed a right way and an open road’. But Imam ‘Ali ibn Abi Talib adds: ‘The example of the world is like that of a snake, which is soft in touch but whose poison is fatal.’ The breaking of the original ties between the different sacred traditions forming the unity of Bosnia has resulted from a vicious campaign launched by nationalist powers, identifymg themselves as Orthodox and Catholic, against the BosnianMuslims. While justification was sought and found inthe West’s distorted images of Islam, the political ideologies of these attacks were based on the totalitarian conviction that an abased standard of ignorance and fear should be universally applied. This ideology, preaching that the nation and the state are one, involves a total denial of the principles which humanity’s multiple ladders of spirituality, all different but all leading upwards, are trying to reach. A turning-point has been reached in ideology: its sense ofa grand purpose is disappearing, to bereplaced by the endless,mechanical production of new methods for plunging the world into a specifically human darkness. The ladders of spirituality are being chopped off short: they no longer climb to the Highest, and the communities which were struggling to ascend by them are los-

P.eface

5

ing sight of the whole. Their attitude to otbws has become a campaign of smearing and exploitation, used to help conceal their own ideological emptiness. The obsessive killing in Bosnia was caused by, and is a revelation of, this particular form of politics, whichforce humanity away from the paths where it can find and fulfil its greatest capacity for holiness and joy. Disorientated and numbed, we lose the highest aspect of humanity: our sense that we are beings created for perfection. Instead, we let ourselves participate in the worst forms of degradation, following the road to darkness. Confronted by this lossof direction, manifest in the slaughter and division throughout Bosnia, all we can envision an is endless cycleof chaos and fear. To understand the evil, we must examine its target: a direct approach to the core ofBosnia’s identity is required. Only at the very heart of this identity, in its eternal, yet ignored testimony to the sopbia pwennis, will we finally recognise the misery of that state towards which the politics of ‘antiBosnia’ are driving us. To understand the intricate relationship of the roots and the branches of humanity, we should broaden our vision: only a higher and deeper perception will show us the shallow nature of the huge structures, without foundation or purpose, which are compelling their members to destroy Bosnia. The division of current Bosnian politics from their original, transcendent root has turned the competing ideologies into opposed and irreconcilable entities. Yet even in their present state of mutual antagonism they are willing to contribute to one another’s campaign of destruction for as long as the twin resources of money and human violence remain at their disposal. These ideologies cannot rise beyond themselves, being diseased a t the core: to conceal their deformity, each exalts the sacred treasures of its own religion, while denying and attacking those of others. This trend towards isolation and-ultimately-annihilation is the logical consequence of our acceptance of pure reason as a sufficient guide for humanity, coupled with a materialist view of the universe. The destruction of Bosnia, the manufacture and exploitation of a false opposition between Islam and the Christian West, are merely a part of the general trend towards the destruction of spiritual unity in the world. For, regardless of what religion the participants in this destruction claim to follow, they are similar in their absolute hostility to Tradition. There is a stark contrast between the deepening trend of destruction, in particular of destruction that claims religious motives, and the principles which are the real foundations and guides of every sacred tradition. If the

6

Prt$ace

language and message of any one of the sacred traditions forming Bosnia’s multi-stranded unity are compared with the brutality of the plan to destroy Bosnia, this contrast is starker still. The selection of the Islamic tradition and the Bosniac inheritance as the central targets for the anti-Bosnia campaign provides an insight into this campaign’s primarily anti-religious nature. We are compelled to realise the darkness of our modern attitude to religious tradition, which has helped increase the savagery of this destruction. ‘And some men there are who say “We believe in God and the Last Day” but they are not believers’ (Kur’an). To gain a fuller insight into the destruction of Bosnia’s pluriform identity, which is, in itself,a treasury of Tradition or Gnosis, we need to understand the depth of the gulf between Tradition and the shallow vulgarity of our new-age outlook. The essence of Tradition is its constancy and its universality-a global axis uniting the realm of mutability with the realm of principle, discernible in all symbolsand rituals andteachings. A society founded on Tradition is directed towards a primarily spiritual goal, a goal lost to the secular society which derives most of its principles from the demands of material gain. The first type of society may include significant elements of the second, but the latter cannot incorporate the former: the lesser cannot contain the greater. The systematic slaughter of Bosnia’s Muslims, and the claim that Islam is to blame, are features of a complex and intricate campaign, which should be interpreted against the background of modernity. The whole phenomenon has arisen from two simultaneous trends: that of destroying spirituality and building a ‘New World Order’, and the evolution of human individuality. The greatest fatality to befall the people of Bosnia would be rejection of their spiritual inheritance in the mistaken belief that this would contribute to their advance as a society. As violence and hatred assault their national consciousness, they are starting to acquiesce in the denial of the historical relationship between the separate sacred traditions which have combined to form Bosnia’s unique identity. They are accepting the denial of this identity, its unity in diversity, its potential to lead from the lowest towards the Highest, from darkness towards the Light. If Bosnia’s ethnic Muslims, after facing destruction by systematic killing, by the denial of their existence as a nation, by the rape of their identity and the sacking of their traditional inheritance, become what their killers portray them as-radicalised, power-hungry, bent on vengeance-this would be to destroy themselves from within. They can only discern and avoid this danger if they turn towards their own Centre and open the way to their

Preface

7

spiritual treasury, as a lost source of life; and to its language, as a treasury of eternal wisdom. Goodness could then enter the arena where rival powers are struggling for supremacy. T o submit to distortion is to submit to evil: the superficial and treacherous exploitation of religious tradition currently taking place isthe darkest denial of Goodness. But the truth, when alone, cannot be proved: ‘a first cause, being itself uncaused, is not prob-able but axiomatic’ (Ananda K. Coomaraswamy). God is, essentially, provable onlyto God: only the self can comprehend the self. Yet every genuine tradition offers its own indestructible form of testimony to the Centre: the idea of Goodness. Each testimony is independent and self-sufficient, but is not initselfopposed to any other form of sacred teaching. The sacred forms of the various traditions cannot be exchanged or compared: but the coexistenceof multiple and apparently contradictory forms has proved a difficult riddle to solve. The role Bosnia has played in resolving this riddle offers a crucial testimony to the potential of the world and humanity. At the centreof the denial and the destruction of Bosnia is the denial and destruction of its Islamic component, suggesting strongly that Bosnia’s diverse unity isinseparable from the Islam-based identity of the Bosniacs (Bosnia’s ethnic Muslims). The destructive forces proclaimed an essential opposition between the Islamic world and Western liberalism and democracy founded on Christianity, and this attitude is being urged on the members of the Catholic and Orthodox Churches in the guise of a requirement sprung from the core of their sacred traditions. Precisely the same outlook is now being touted-with the support and funding of external sourcesamong the Bosnian Muslims. All available means are being deployed in the effort to prove to them that their religious identity contradicts the concept that Bosnia should embody the unity of different sacred traditions. Those hostile both to the idea of Bosnia and to the Bosniac nation are well aware that, when the Bosniac national ideology finally succumbs to the dogma which teaches that unity in diversity is impossible, Bosnia will finally disappear. This book probes the evil from which this dogma has sprung, together with its present consequences, and in contrast examines the spiritual foundations of Bosniac culture: its guiding concept that unity is found at the heart of every holy tradition. Although this book mainly examines the Islamic elements of Bosnia’s triple-stranded religious diversity, the evidence and conclusions have general significance for both Bosnia and the world’s multiple structure of sacred traditions.

8

Preface

This book was written when the killinganddivision in Bosnia and Herzegovina were reaching their climax. Those who experienced the cataclysm found themselves reduced to the absolute basics of their own natures: their choices narrowed to the three options of defence, surrender, or flight. In this multitude of individual dramas, ranging across the scale of human experience, the image of the world as a whole, and Bosnia’s place in its context, was lost to view. This book mes to offer a wider vision, a more solid sense of identity: it reaches out tothe beleaguered defenders of the concept of Bosnia asa unity in diversity. In particular it mes to help them withstand what was perhaps the severest test of the war: the overwhelming pressure, from all sides, to accept the division of Bosnia into three ethno-national entities. Those who surrendered to this compulsion med to find historical and cultural justifications-and in so doing aligned themselves with those who were bent on division. This book tries to show that only by upholding and defending the concept of unity in diversity could they ensure for themselves and their country a road towards human salvation. It also mes to help them take a sceptical view of the modernist project of human self-sufficiency, and to direct them to the holy and infinite inner locus, the authority and transcendence towards which the self should turn. Bosnia the Good tries to show the width of the gulf between the archetypal Bosnia and the reality of genocide, and how well the latter was aided by ideological totalitarianism and the current intellectual disdain for religion. This book is dedicated not only to the Bosnian defenders of Bosnia and the coexistence of its different ways and laws, but to all who believe in the potential for finding unity in religious diversity, and the embodiment of this unity in the countryof Bosnia andHerzegovina. The author and translator express grateful acknowledgements to Francis R. Jones, Merima OsmankadiC and Oto LukaEeviC for their contribution to the translation of parts of this work.

INTRODUCTION

THE BOSNMN PARADIGM

T

HE revelation of Truth takes place in different languages, at different times and under different conditions. Its interpretations then have to meet various social and political demands and an awareness of the Truth itself is frequently diminished, subjugated by powerful individuals or groups who claim a monopoly of the Truth. Thisis accompanied by attempts to subordinate all other interpretationsto a single, predominant interpretation, and by a rejection of all the essential principles of Truth. The divine traditions which constitute Bosnia’s identity-Bosnian Christianity, Catholicism, Orthodoxy, Islam and Judaism-are different in form but share the same genealogy-going back to Abraham. Their close kinship suggests their potential to encounter and embrace these differences, as aspects of an underlying unity. On the other hand, the premise common to most or all religious traditions-that is, the potential of every individual to receive salvation-can besuppressed by anoveremphasis on differences between interpretations, symbols and ideas, which in turn can be exploited by nationalist regimes. The search for the highest ideals has always been manipulated in accordance with the totalitarian need for establishing simplified systems of ideas. Political and national programmes are presented in religious frameworks, the values of which are reduced to a fraction of the values required by the principle that all diversity is comprehended in essential unity. Religious interpretations, symbols and ideas become ever more subject to national

10

INTRODUCTION

ideologies. The voice calling for humanity to remember its shared, sacred elements becomes ever weaker:the voice calling for strong, defined borders grows evermore powerful. The revival of religion within the separate groups comprising Bosnia coincided with the collapse of the ideological system of the Yugoslav communist state and the rise of nation-state ideologies which demanded the redrafting of the existing national borders. This in turn produced ‘national unions’ based on the undisputed dominance of one leader and one political party, each aspiring to transform the Bosnian matrix of complex and interwoven identities into separate, isolated totalities of state and territory. The real masters of this war, from its very beginning, were Serbia’s Slobodan MilogeviC and his elite, and Croatia’s Franjo Tudman with his eliteand their Bosniac counterpart, Alija IzetbegoviC. An integral aspect of their systems is that of placing religious meanings, symbols andideas in a subordinate position, serving and upholding the new ideologies. The voice of opposition to these new,militarisedideologieshas, until now, remained weak in Bosnia. Also weak were, and are, those forces that could have become a base for, and partner to, the international order, in its ambition to establish social stability and respect for human rights in the Balkans and in Bosnia itself. Contacts between Bosnia’s component groups are maintained today largely through the mediation of the individuals and organisations representingthe international community-with thefrequent result thatthe divisions between these groups have become more solidly institutionalised. All parties assume that the political and religious establishments and individuals of the ideologised, totalitarian entities of Serb, Croat and Bosniac, are reflections of insurmountable ethnic, religious and political differences. Thus, the basic elements of trust, which the rational modelling of economic behaviour fails to approach, are blocked out by political reservations. Members of Bosnia’s component groups find it easier to establish connections with the outside world than with individuals and institutions in their own environment. This outlook produces an increasingly rigid and closed mentality. T h e sense of the unity underlying Bosnia’s land, history, language, ethnogenesis anddivine traditions isfast or slowly disappearing from the outlooks of individuals and groups. The near is seen as distant: small differences are encouraged to grow into impossible barriers. Without a renewed willingness to acknowledge and accept the ideas behind the Bosnian concept, change cannot take place. While noachievements

The Bosnian Paradigm

11

are made in this direction, the present ceasefire will remain a partial cure that in no way guarantees healing. The ideologising-and idealising-of history will intensify. Acceptance ofthe restricted scales of values prescribed by ideological exclusivenesswill continue to prevent individuals and groups from entering the field of open dialogue andstrengthening trust. Since the prevalent concept of co-operation is that of a purely political dialogue, between totally separate, ideologised ethnic entities, all efforts to strengthen trust are interpreted as a denial of these entities. The political stage displays the paradox of opposition between virtually indistinguishable politicaloligarchies. The area where allcanachieveconsensusoffers no room for the resolution of differences: it lies in their joint opposition to all efforts a t transcending the borders by which they have confined themselves. Open dialogue, in which all participants of Bosnia’s unity of diversity can join, is, from where these forces stand, dangerous not only to themselves, but to the very essence of the Serb, Croat and Bosniac entities. ‘Everything can be divided’, they claim. ‘Everything can be joined’ is the need of the Bosnian people. This unification does not demand the exclusion of individual differences:it speaks to thecore of every group.1 Bosnian poetMakDizdar suggested a generation ago, in The Stone Sleeper, how Bosnia’s identity rises transcendent above the persistence of slaughter and the extinction of culture: You’11 bum my home to the ground Till all Falls And then you’ll saythese dark word

This nest is done for now This cursed cur Is slain With pain

,

But by a miracle Iwill still be dreaming here an earth (-‘

Andfiom afar

I’ll let it be tohi This tncth of mine Unm’ng And old

12

INTRODUCTION

(uou know nothing about thesign

Of the husbandman Or his vine

Yon don’t know what such gffts are worth) (Mak Dizdar, ‘Message’)2

NOTES 1 For a more detailed analysisof the most recent attemptsto disrupt Bosnia’s unity indiversity,seetheforthcomingtranslationintoEnglish The Denial of Bosnia (Pennsylvania:The Penn. State University Press). 2 MakDizdar, Kameni spavat (StoneSleeppr), trans.Francis R. Jones(Sarajevo, 1999), pp. 179,181 and 183.

CHAPTER 1

THE BALMNARCHIPELAGO Had God not driven back the people, s m e 6y the means of others, there had been destroyedrlo&ers and rhrrrches, Jynagogues andmosques, wherein God’sName is mrrch mentioned. (Kur’an, 22:40)

Introduction

T

HE clash between political, religious and national entities within the Balkans has been experienced by their hapless peoples over a long period. Frequently this experience has taken theform of genocide, the mass killing of the weaker by the stronger, on a greater or lesserscale. In the transition from faith in the holinessof man, as the highest creation of God, to the ecclesiastical faith in ‘the sacredness of the supreme authorities over the people’, a complex multitude of national and supra-national contradictions has emerged. The intricate structure of the Balkan matrix interweaves various concepts of supra-nationalism and nationalism: the histories of the Balkan nations interact, permeate one another and conflict endlessly, a riddle without an answer. The urge to construct a logical model to analyse this state of affairs has been defeated by the intricacy of the Balkan matrix. Small differences in language, faith and historical experience have expandedcatastrophically into unbridgeable gulfs, and these differences have helped fuel the drive for exclusive rights to territory. The individual national and religious entities form a virtual archipelago of multiple but isolated units. While none have yet succeeded in defining their borders in precise accord with their national presence, the unending attempts to establish new borders or change the old have always been productive of disaster. Where one unit has attempted to impose its rule over another, or part of another, multiple death has always

14 THE BALKAN ARCHIPELAGO

been the result. As the Croats, Bosniacs, Serbs, Montenegrins, Albanians, Bulgarians, Greeks and other members of the Balkan archipelago have come to acknowledge one another as separate nations, their consequent campaigns to impose their individual national sovereignties have produced insoluble conflicts. The concept of the ethnically pure nation state, as the only effective method of ensuring national sovereignty, is impossible to implement in the Balkans without genocide. The natural remedy would be for the various Balkan nationalisms to resolve their differences with the help of supranational concepts: religion above all. However, the forms of supranationalism present in the Balkans are themselves in bitter conflict over the issues of national borders. Each supports its own favoured nationalism, to which it is linked by tradition. Thus the various supra-nationalisms directly or indirectly support individual demands for nation states, as the condition for national sovereignty, and so have played their own part in national conflicts. The multiple nationalisms of the Balkan peninsula are catered for primarily by two forms of religious supra-nationalism: the Christian, in the dual manifestation of Orthodox and Catholic; and the Islamic. This brief study attempts to analyse the premises of the supra-nationalhational relationship in this part of the world, focusing on the prevalent attitudes towards Bosnia from the perspective of Orthodoxy, Catholicism and Islamand Serb, Croat and Bosniac. The question about universal history, posited from the earliest times, involves the need to define a law governing the flow of history, to render phenomena explicable as manifestations of a unique, guiding force. Ibn Khaldun, in his Mukaddima, examined the proposal of a general law in depth: the fluctuation of civilisations is decreasing, he felt, due to the unchangeable internal forces of history. On an exceptional basis, Ibn Khaldun held, upheavals of such dimensions occur that the result is a new creation, a renaissance, the rise of a new age.l Ibn Khaldun pointed to this dynamic of fluctuation-which can be seen in retrospect as the dialectic development of human faith-and predicted the growth of new civilisational trends in the West. Several centuries later, Immanuel Kant laid emphasis on the need to place and incorporate the principles of universal history within an interpretation of the sequence through which humanity passes and the future achievements of this progress2 Kant’s concept of universal history was elaborated in the work of Georg W. F. Hegel and Karl Marx: for both,

Introdunion

15

history is heading for climax in the resolution of the tensions which act as the moving forces.The historical development of society is perfectedin the liberal state, for Hegel, and in the communist state, for Mam: these will fulfil all human desires. The liberal state will be achieved by the battle for recognition, and the communist state by social economics. After the fall of the ‘Communist Empire’, a t the end of the second Christian millennium, Hegel’s predictions were accepted as proven, in particular by Alexandre Kojhe, who claims that the end of history is in sight. According to Kojeve, the ‘universal and homogeneous state’ which can be called ‘liberal democracy’, is finally resolving the issues of recognition, replacing the master-servant relationship with one of general and equal rec0gnition.3 Today, liberal democracy and the free market have a t their disposal the resources to impose and defend their belief in their ‘fulfilment’, thus running the risk of regarding everything which they perceive as being other as archaeological remnants incapable of achieving the post-history nirvana. On the otherhand, the phenomena of Nazism and Communism:structured and (albeit temporarily) dominant systems of violence, confirmed thatthe proposition of a united moving force or law, leading history towards its ‘end’ and humanity towards ‘the last man’, must remain an open question. The general sweep of opinion has passed over a large amount of evidence seen as having hadno impact on humanity as a whole-in fact, this material is of decisive importance for evaluating the proposition of a general law defining the trend of history. Kant’sconcept of the ‘advance of history’ has been refuted, according to many modern thinkers, by the sheer volume of phenomena which fall outside the law.4 The collapse of the ‘Communist Empire’, founded on the ‘advance of history’ principle, testifies overwhelmingly to thefact that this analysisignores too many crucialelements. This evidence is citedto demonstrate that there is neither a God nor any secularmechanism-likeHegel’suniversalhistory-todefine the significance of the current of events. History is, accordingly, a chaotic multitude of conflicts between nations, in which liberalism does not hold the decisive-or even a decisive-position. On the other hand, Hegel’s dialectic of the fight for recognition, which can claim to be a more comprehensive system since it stresses the spiritual aspectsof humanity as decisivein directing the currentof history, has againre-entered the arena. The disappearance of the fault-line dividing the globe into two ideological kingdoms was accompanied by stresses whichtransformed Bosnia into a bloody battlefield. The image of war-torn Bosnia, imprisoned by siege but

16

THE BALKAN ARCHIPELAGO

nevertheless scrutinised and manipulated by leading international factors, raises urgent questions about the future. All Balkan states have at some stage defined Islam asother in the course of their struggle for recognition: nearly all the Muslims of Bulgaria, Romania, Greece and Serbia have been destroyed or expelled by genocidal campaigns. Bosnia must, while abiding by its original form, which lasted intact for a thousand years, somehow find a solution to its quest for recognition which does not involve self-destruction. For if the general trend of destroying the other has risen from individualsto the village, tribe, nation and state, the end must be in total conflict between the most powerful members of the world mosaic. This conflict may ultimately end in a totalitarian equilibrium, in which we neither can earn, nor care to earn, the recognition of the others. And if, as Samuel P. Huntington foresees, the great conflict of the future will be that between the West and Islam,5 then the Bosnian conflict has the significance of a key to universal history.

Sovereignty The current European understanding of sovereignty is founded, primarily, on the conclusions of Jean Bodin and Pierre de Belloy, published towards the end of the sixteenth century. Their concept of sovereignty is closely linked to the monarchy: this is God-created, and therefore the monarch is answerable only to God. Sovereignty belongs to the monarchy, since it was bestowed by the Absolute Sovereign. No contractual agreement can exist between the monarch and his subjects: instead, Bodin, in giving absolute powers to the monarch, stresses the monarch's obligation to accept and uphold the natural rights of his subjects. This concept of God's justice as the source of the monarch's sovereignty can be seen as historically responsible for promoting in the monarch a sense ofduty towards his subjects.On the otherhand, this concept placed the people in the position of subject and deprived them of equal status with the monarch. The consequent desire for a civil society, a human and spiritual renaissance, influenced the development of civil and political theories of humanism and the philosophy of nature. Secular powers replacedthose of the church, and interest swung from religion towards politics. In line with this development, the mutual antagonism of nation states, and the diminution of internal forces for unity and reverence, pushed sovereignty into the realm of the nation and the state. The necessity arose for

Sovereignty

17

defining the moral status of political power:this brought the accompanying issues of national unity, state power, internal stability and security, and international justice, into focus. A series of new politicalconcepts sprang upin Italy, England, France and Holland. Niccolo Machiavelli had laid the foundations in the fifteenth century when he urged that ‘reasons of state’ supersede morals. Thomas Hobbes developed the theory of the protection of the interest of individuals and society,binding it exclusively to the state. Sovereignty is, on the basis of the social contract, transferred to the individual who, in return, supports the security of the community. This theory of sovereignty received further elaboration from the German political essayists of the nineteenth century, who formed the concept of the distribution of sovereignty, shared between the empire and its federal units. George Waitz offered the theory of sovereignty divided between the centre and the state members, but his theory was challenged by Max von Seydel, who maintained that sovereignty canbe neither shared nor transferred. Georg Jellinek subsequently tried to resolve the question of whether sovereignty is divisible: moving towards a juridical theory of the voluntary limitation of sovereignty, Leon Duguit offered a sociological-positivist description of the law which would perform this task. Maurice Hauriou, who developed the theory of the institution, takes a similar approach. All of the foregoing can simply be related to the concept of sovereignty as the right and the ability to create and manage a state. The concept of national sovereignty is most profoundly expressed in the American Declaration of Independence (1776), which adds to the concepts expressed in the French constitution of 1791. Sovereignty is one and indivisible, and cannot be removed or transferred. It belongs to the nation, and no separate group or individual can claim it exclusively. The concept of popular sovereignty incorporates the expression of national sovereignty. Inquiring who, in the name of nation or state, actually realises sovereignty, Austine decides that sovereignty belongs to the national parliament, as the highest organ. The parliament passes laws which bind allcitizens, but is not itself confined bylaw, since it can change the legislation at will. On the other hand, the constitution of the United States does not give unlimited powers to the legislative body: in fact, it imposes significant limitations on this body. From these concepts arises the dual sovereignty characteristic of every complex federal structure: next, this sovereignty must be founded on a functional basis. In our century, theories of ‘multiple sovereignty’ have developed: sovereignty comprised of various political, economic and religious

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THE BALKAN ARCHIPELAGO

groups. Sovereignty is connected in various ways to the people, nation and state, and these separate categories permeate and condition one another. The 1948 declaration of the United Nations laiddown the principle of equal, defined sovereign rights for all members, as the founding principle of international relations. Accordingly, sovereignty ceased to be the symbol of the unlimited powers of the state, since the states accepted a significant limitation of their sovereignty. If all these models are included in our analysis of the term sovereignty, as applied inthe Balkans, then several contradictions emerge. The Balkan nations of today base themselves on early mediaeval kingdoms, but their borders havesignificantly altered, and the populations have shifted and dispersed themselves among other ethnic groups. All the present nations derive their historical identity from these vanished kingdoms, but the borders of the modem states are validated only partly by historical continuity. The national sovereignty of one Balkan nation cannot be established in a single nation state without violating the rights of other nations. State sovereignty cannot be bound exclusively to a single ethnic group without endangering the basic rights of a significant portion of the state’s citizens.This state of affairs, however, has not prevented the formulation and implementation of national programmes which have threatened the survival of other nations present in the same geopolitical territory. The people of every Balkan state are broken up into several nations: every Balkan nation is dispersed over several states. The sovereignty of the nations cannot exclude the sovereignty of the state; conversely, the sovereignty of the state must validate equal rights for all its citizens-for all the various nations comprising the total population of the state. With the acceptance and implementation of modern formulations of national and state sovereignty in the Balkan area, the need has arisen for the promotion of theoretical and practical acceptance of proximity and unity, interrelationships and co-operation. If the concepts of sovereignty are adopted without these additional concepts, they will merely add to the bitter Balkan experience of historical hatred and conflicts. Denial and division, the most basic forms of human weakness in action, will find justification in ideology and ‘reasons of state’ far more readily than will constructive plans for cooperation and coexistence. What attitudes do theCatholic, Orthodox and Islamicsupra-nationalisms assume towards issuesof popular, national and state sovereignty? This question takes on its most complex form in Bosnia,which is inhabited jointly by three nations. The Bosniacs derive their identity from the medi-

Christianity

19

aeval Bosnian kingdom, andits subsequent experiences, in a single historical flow. The acceptance of Islamunder the Ottoman Empire is, for them, the continuation and fulfilment of this kingdom: the continuation and fulfilment of the BosnianChurch’sbeleagueredsearch for salvation. The Bosnian Croats share the memory of the Bosnian kingdom, but its surrender to the Ottoman Empire is seen as the start of a difficult period under various usurping governments. The Bosnian Serbs have no interest in either the Bosnian kingdom or the Church of Bosnia: they look only to mediaeval Serbia. Later we will investigate some of the background to this difference in outlook. The Bosniacs participate primarily in the Islamic tradition, the Croats in the Catholic, the Serbs in the Orthodox: these differences in tradition are used to identify the fundamental differences between these three nations. The engagement of the three Bosnian nations in liberal democracy, therefore, is crucially conditioned by the involvement of Islam, Catholicism and Orthodoxy in national politics.

Christianity There are two basic stems forming the Christian view of the state in the West: one rooted in Augustine, the other in Aquinas. Both branched off from Eastern Christianity, in the form declared to be the Imperial Religion by Emperor Constantine. Constantine had turned one of the most dangerous opponents of the Roman Empire into a means for achieving the goals of the state, seeing a solid spiritual-religious system as the pre-condition for establishing and maintaining the state. The unity of the church became, therefore, one of the essential issues of the state. Eusebius of Caesarea, Emperor Constantine’s court theologian, emphasises the indissoluble union of the empire and the imperial church. For Eusebius, Constantine, as the premier Christian ruler, is ‘the expression of God’s will on Earth’, armed by God’s decree withthe means of making war to cleanse the world from the deniers of theTruth. Thepolitical metaphysics of Eusebius became the foundation of the historical perception of the state, and of the church’s concept of orthodoxy. The church is, in Eastern Orthodox understanding, a tool in thehands ofthe state. In the relationship between the state and the Orthodox Church, national egoism supersedes any ecumenical desires. This is clearly seen in the part the Orthodox national churches have played in the Balkan tragedy: their role has never been

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that of peacemaker or protector of the helpless. Instead, their tradition of being bound to the state-originating, ironically, in the church’s ancient policy that every nation should receive the gospels and liturgy in its own language-has been manipulated to strengthen the link between Orthodox Christianity and the national identity of individual Orthodox nations. Hence, we see the churches collaborating willingly in nationalist enterprises. The different views held by Eusebius and Augustine on the relations of church and state are reflected in the difference between Orthodox and Roman Catholic relations to the state. The Catholic Church has repeatedly become involved in the design and implementation of the national projects of Catholic peoples, but never as a mere tool in the hands of the state. It is not even unusual fora Catholic state to submit to the influence ofthe Catholic Church on its policies. This differs sharplyfrom the position of the Orthodox Churches, which are always the tools of national policies and are always subject to them. The Catholic Church remains genuinely supra-national, while from time to time allying itself with national projects in order to further its own goals; the Orthodox Churches have been seen to voluntarily engage in nationalist projects, colluding fully in the exploitation of Orthodoxy’s supra-national qualities. For Augustine, the fallen Roman Empire prefigured the Roman Catholic Church,ratherthan Christian Byzantium. Augustine saw theCatholic Church, in its earthly manifestation, as a projection of God’s Kingdom here on earth, its constitution founded by Christ himself. This concept significantly influenced various political thinkers, such as the papal authors of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries: later it shaped the thinking of John Calvin and Martin Luther, and of Reinhold Niebuhr as their modem interpreter. For Augustine, man is not primarily a rational being. He is a creature of many fears, and the world he creates is the product of this aspect of his nature. H e discovers or creates false gods which he serves, compelled by his nature. The urge to satisfy these desires and fears sways individuals, groups and peoples, who achieve their position in the social equation on the basis of the balance of power. Disturbing this fragile balance results in division and bloodshed. Augustine sees the world as driven by a suicidal compulsion towards destruction, symbolisedby the multitude of latter-day rivers of Babylon. Those who have rejected the false gods are left to mourn on the riverbanks, in the bleak understanding that theworld is a place of perpetual slaughter. Nations and states seek satisfaction for their fears and lusts in endless conflicts: even collective membership of a single faith fails to provide an

Christianim 2 1

effective umpire and peacemaker. Only those who withdraw from the world and unite themselves to God are saved. It is important to be aware of the extent to whichAugustine’s innate pessimismmayhave influenced his views: he turns in revulsion from the desiresofhis corporeal being and struggles to prevail over the self as fallen and damned. But his position also stems from his logical acceptance of political reality: he knows how many millions are killed and displaced in the name of justice, and how many killers believe in the justice of what they do. According to Augustine, the love of God and the denial of the self lead to the New Jerusalem, the church of this world, and to the heavenly community of the saints. But he has little faith in the concept that man’s yearning for heaven willproduce any form of order in this world. For Aquinas, the state enshrines the concept of life on the basis of public discourse. This expressesman’s rational nature, and the political order which is its logical consequence. The state, as res publica, supports the populace in overcoming their desires for temporal gain and in turning towards the realisation of universal good. Man’s natural capacity, which includes the principle of morality, is the consequence of man’s similarity to God. Rationality is predominant, according to Aquinas, in the core of humanity. Human nature incorporates element.. which enable society to prevail over selfhood, and which make possiblethe formation of political order; therefore the civil laws of every nation must be in harmony with natural laws. The process of leading a Christian nation towards practical acceptance of these laws demands, according to Aquinas, that there should be a supremely authoritative supra-national interpreter for these laws. This interpreter never engages directly in state affairs, but, on exceptional occasions, can and must issue decisions, resolving the conflict in the spirit of justice. Aquinasbelieved strongly that, in the adjustment of relations between Christian nations, the authority of the Pope of Rome would be accepted as supreme and incontestable. ‘In order to be spiritually divided from the temporal, management of this kingdom is entrusted not to this world’s kingdom, but tothe priests, but above all to the highest among them, the heirof St Peter, the Vicar of Christ, the Pope of Rome, to whom all kings must submit, just as they submit to Jesus our Lord.’ In the period when Aquinas presented this view of state and inter-state order, the tide of history was carrying the Christian West ina totally different direction. The future no longer belonged to any form of united Christian empire, but to separate nation states. The feeling of belonging to a particular nation became the most important sense of membership. People

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placed their hopes on the peace which could be secured for them by a national army, rather than the pope. But Christianity had a decisive role to play in the development of modern liberalismand democracy, inwhich many thinkers see the prospect for universal satisfaction of all human desires. Hegel’s dialectic of the battle for acknowledgement showed the future possibility of the liberation of the slave to be of greater historical significance than all the privileges and powers of the master in the present. The most significant form of liberation ideology, the realisation of which would produce a society founded on freedom and equality here on earth, is Christianity-fulfilled and perfect religion. Friederich Nietzsche and Max Weber, along with Hegel, affirm the existence of a direct relationship between Christianity and the growth of Western-style liberal democracy. The concept of freedom, Hegel believes, received full expression in Christianity, since the latter established the principle of general equality for all peoples before God, with regard to their ability and freedom to choose between good and evil. Christian freedom is the internal freedom of the soul, not the body. All people are created equal, since God gave them inalienable rights. Thus the slaveachieves freedom and human dignity. Christianity does not, however, offer the realisation of human freedom in this world: this is possible only in the Kingdom of God. From the viewpoint of liberalism, the concept of freedom is not yet adequately catered for by the methods currently existing for its realisation in this world. According to Hegel, the achievement of this goal demands the secularisation of Christianity, or rather the transfer of Christian concepts of freedom to the present time and place. The French Revolution, Hegel believed, was an attempt to realise in the present world the Christian vision of a community of freedom andequality. The contemporary liberal state potentially embodies the Christian concepts of freedom and general equality for all the people of this world. Since the Christian perception of history is strictly linear, it cannot accept that God’s message has ever been manifested in the world subsequent to the First Comingof Christ. This means that Christianity, in all its forms, cannot accept the message of Islam. Therefore, the existence of Islam as a living entity has to be explained away, and, as a spiritual truth, denied-an inheritance which Christianity haspassed on to its own descendant, the liberal, democratic state.

Islam

23

Islam Islam6 considers itself the final and most complete message from God. It sees itself as comprehending the full inheritance of God’s word, from primordial man, through a long series of believers and prophets, to their CUImination in the prophet Muhammad. It embraces the whole of the world and humanity, the totality of individual and social life. At the centre of the Islamic messagestands humanity, as the most perfect of God’s creatures.’ Human nature achieves fulfilment in awareness of God and forgetfulness of the self: relations between peoples depend on the extent to which they have succeeded in achieving oblivion of the self. People are, according to Islam, divided into races, nations, tribes and faiths, in order to acknowledge andinfluence one another: 0 Mankind, We have createdyou male and female, and appointedyou know races and tribes, that you may one another. Surely the noblest of God is among you in the sight the most God-conscious of you.*

However, membership of any of these groups cannot have priority over the awareness of God and the obligation to do good and prevent evil. Humanity is ultimately a single unit and its laws are those of God. The Islamic model for existence involves attaining conditions in which human nature, which in itself yearns for God, can be freely expressedand liberated from its shell of false values(kuf;). Interpersonal relations should be established on the basis of confidence and trust. Submission to God will result in an increased sense of responsibility towards humanity and the world: the more submission, the greater the sense of responsibility. Inversely, excludingthe imperative of submission to God limits the grounds on which interpersonal relations can be established. Islam stresses the humble biological origins of man-‘the drop of seed’ and the unity of the branches, of which all humanity, from the first to the last, are theh i t , as the children of a single union. This message finds expression in the perfect example which the prophet Muhammad presents to humanity. His followers are given the taskof building a model community, guided by their obligation to establish a place where people will be brought into God’s moral structure (madina9).Wher-

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ever Muslims are living, they should order their community and their society on the basis of the Message and Example of God’s Messenger. They should desire that the whole world be transformed into a madina, a community of believers. But their intention is not tocreate a world order which excludes the multitude of religious traditions, since God ‘has created for all nations their own law and their own way’l0. Humanity as a whole is a collective umma, or united community, composed of many different ummas, each of which is defined by its dedication to one of the forms in which God’s message has been revealed (Tewish, Christian, Buddhist, Zoroastrian, Islamic, etc.). Each of the individual ummas can in turn contain a multitude of members of different races, nations and tribes. These ummas are ruled by their own sacred laws, and their communities are each a madina. Their independence ceases only at thepoint where it limits or endangers the priority of Islam-Islam in its literal sense, as ‘submission to God’. Axiology, or the study of values, is derivedfrom the spiritual scale of Values and cannot be in opposition to the general definitions of Islam. When it is in opposition, this is the consequence of failure to accept the indivisibility of God’s sovereignty. The medina is the way of realising this sovereignty in human society: no individual and no group can possess sovereignty if this conflicts in any way with total subjection to the will of God, revealed by God’s Messengers and their example. In drawing a comparison between Islam and the political philosophies of Western Europe which have produced the modern concept of liberalism, it is possible to claim that the Islamic concept of the state also enshrines a form of constitutional sovereignty. This sovereignty is limited by the rule of law and the obligation of the community to prevent the holder of sovereignty from failing in full submission to the Kur’an and Sunna. Islam’s laws are God’slaws, but the Message and the ExampleofGod’s Messenger oblige the people of Islam to testify to their faith, before all nations, in carrying out God’s laws and prohibitions within their own communities. Nations are, according to Islam, recognisable and acceptable components of an umma, whether this is the community of all humanity, or of all Muslims-that is, all who are in submission to God. Since Islamdefines the level of world enlightenment on the basis of the achieved degree of either submission or opposition to theself, national communities of all denominations can be defined as standing with or against Islam (submissionto God) on this basis. Sovereignty in the context of Islam signifies the capacity for defence against all forms of imposed sovereignty which are, by their nature, opposed to God, and against the rule of laws which do not accord with the laws of

Islam

25

God. The nation state is, accordingly, non-Islamic and opposed to Islam if it is not a medina, or place where people are able to submit to God’s moral system rather than to human domination. According to Islam,man is granted the capacityand the freedom to choose between good andevil. The choice of good, the rejection of evil, and the acceptance of full individual responsibility for every good or evil action, however minuscule, confirm and strengthen human worth and dignity. All differences between peoples, which do not result from differences in response to these choices, are signs sent by God, symbols of the unity of diversity. The struggle for recognition, manifest in the dialectic of the master and the slave, is not mediated by any one institution: the totality of the social order is responsible for enabling the relationship between humanity as the slave and God as the Master. All elements of the social order which deny or obstruct this relationship are fundamentally flawed. Although this concept of a universal world order based on principle is preserved among Muslims, in the last five centuries they have been in general uninvolved in the development of the natural sciences and the consequent developments of technology, economics andsociety.Islam’ssocial reality now appears to be no more than the cultural inheritance of a large part of the world, where human desires and the fight for recognition brew bitter conflicts. This areacovers a multitude of would-be nation states, whose records on human rights are currently abysmal, which lack clear national ideologies andconsensus on the definitions required to legitimise government, and which can above all be seen as essentially opposed to the world of liberal democracy. In the world mosaic, the religion of Islam is reduced in the eyes of many to the status of an ideology: ‘a systematic and coherent ideology, just like Liberalism and Communism, with its own code of morality and doctrine of political and social justice’, as Francis Fukuyama puts it.” The message of Islam is universal, since it addresses all nations as members of humanity and not only as members of various ethnic or national groups. ‘The current revival of Islamic fundamentalism, touching virtually every country in the world with a substantial Muslim population, can be seen’, says Francis Fukuyama, ‘as a response to the failure of Muslim societies generally to maintain their dignity vis-a-vis the non-Muslim West ... The Islamic revival was rather the nostalgic re-assertion of an older, purer set of values, said to have existed in the distant past, that were neither the discredited “traditional values” of the recent past, nor the Western values that had been so poorly transplanted to theMiddle East.’lz

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The linear perception of a succession of heavenly messages,characteristic both of Islam and Christianity, has placed these two religions in a totally irreconcilable relationship. Christianity denies Islamandemphasises the finality and perfection of Christ as the Word of God. Islam confirms Christ as the Word of God, allocating Christianity a significant position in the message given by the Kur’an and the Sunna. The consequence of Islam’s attitude to Christianity shows, in general, that wherever Islam governs, Christianity has survived. On the other hand, where Christianity has maintained or reasserted political rule, the presence of Muslims and their culture is exceptional.Bosniaoffersan incontrovertible example: churches and monasteries survived, and many more were built, during nearly five centuries of Ottoman rule whereas more than a thousand of Bosnia’s mosques were destroyed during this last decade alone. Although Islam accepts the existence of nations, it does not accept the national form of axiology, which springs from national myth. Tribes and nations raise their own welfare to the level of an absolute principle, and everything which can be seen as opposed to this welfare is intolerable, even if it stands for the good of others. This justifies acts against others which would be viewed as intolerable if those others were responsible for these same acts. Islam therefore rejects axiology, when applied to national values, as a distortion, since it risks altering the fundamental values of humanity. Islam promotes a political view of the world as a unified space, not as a purely Muslim umma-which could only ever be one part of the multiple constitution of the true Islamic state. The governing identity of every individual umma is its unique sacred tradition or traditions: the Kur’anic principle that compulsion in faith is u n a ~ c e p t a b l eis~the ~ primary basis for relations between Muslims and other communities.

Serbhood

e

The concept of Serb national freedom and the creation of a Serb nation state is fundamentally anti-Islamic. Islam and the Muslims are always identified with the Ottoman Empire and thus blamed for the fall of the mythologised fourteenth-century Serb-Orthodox kingdom of DuSan Stefanwhose dynasty succeeded in establishing sole control over a large territory. In the construction of Serb national ideology, during the nineteenth century, this former kingdom became the archetypal basis for the projected nation state. The kingdom can only be renewed through the destruction of

Serbhood

27

everything that is Islamic and Muslim-and much of this primary goal was achieved through the genocidal slaughter of Serbia’s Muslims during the Serb rebellion against the Ottoman Empire at the beginning of the nineteenth century. The foundation hadbeenlaid for creating a corestate around which Serbia wouldarise again as ‘the resurrected empire of Dugan’. In the political arena, the deep-planted nucleiof the politicalplan for Greater Serbia were gradually evolving. They make various appearances in the works of a series of political essayists, over a period of nearly two centuries, ranging from Vuk KaradiiC to the authors of the infamous Memorandum ofthe Serb Academy ofSciences and Arts. l4 Although many ethnic groups already occupied the Balkan territories over which Greater Serbia was designed to expand, these territories were declared Serb, on the basis of ‘sacred historical rights’. All populations in these geopolitical regions were therefore declared Serb and required to submit to the ‘general unification of all Serbs’. Subduing or expelling those ethnic communities which are not Serb and which do not consider themselves to be Serb, is a core element of the Greater Serbia project. These communities are, chiefly, Bosniac, Croat, Albanian and Montenegrin; the key component for the realisation of the Greater Serbian state is implementation of this policy against the primarily Muslim communities of the Bosniacs and Albanians. Only with the final rationalisation of Greater Serbia’s borders do the concepts behind the project lead to conflict with the Bulgars, Hungarians and Croats. With regard to the destruction of the Bosniacs and their culture, the drafters and backers of Greater Serbia believed they could count on the inertia, if not the support, of all international polities founded on, orinspired by, Christianity. The Design of 1844 identifies Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina as the main areas where Greater Serbia should be imposed. The plan for Bosnia assumed the support of Bosnia’s Catholic ~1ergy.l~ Jovan CvijiC remarked in 1908 that ‘as the incontrovertible minimum of the principle of nationalism, it must be established that it cannot be permitted to give to another, foreign state thecentral authority and core of one nation, for this is what Bosnia and Herzegovina means to the Serbnation’.16 Accordingly,any Bosniac efforts to express a separate national identity should be denied and quelled by internal action. At various-and overlapping-points in history, the possibility arose of physically destroying the Muslim nations via the means faithfully transmitted by CubriloviC in his description of the historical Albanian and Bosniac experience of genocide: The Displacement of the Arnaud7.

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‘Saint-Savaism’, the ideology of the Serbian state, named after a canonised member of the Serb royal family who helped create the Serb national church in the thirteenthcentury, performed the role of uniting all members of the Orthodox religion living in the territory once covered by DuSan’s empire. Nikolaj VelimiroviC, bishop of the Serb Orthodox Church, saw the realisation of Saint-Savaism in the events of the twentieth century. ‘Respect must be given to the current German leader Adolf Hitler, who as a simple artisan and man of the people realised that nationalism without a faith is an anomaly, a cold and unsafe mechanism. And here in the twentieth century he arrived a t the idea of St. Sava, and as a layman undertook for his people this most importantlabour, which is suited to a saint, a genius and a hero.’18 The Greater Serbia dream must be imposed, peacefully or by force, on all who are not Serbs or do not feel themselves to be Serb. Failing this, they must be destroyed or driven out wholesale, and all traces of their culture and existence(houses,mosques, cemeteries, schools, arts, customs, traditions, names) erased. Throughout historical Bosnia-which spreads far beyond the borders of modern Bosnia and Herzegovina-systematic obliteration of the Bosniacs, and everything connected with their presence, was practised over a period of three centuries. It is easy to trace the various acts of genocide committed in the course of a series of Serb uprisings involving massmurder and the looting and confiscation of Muslim property-subsequently confirmed by the passage of new agrarian legisIation.19 The, concept of the ‘Serb State’ is a thoroughgoing refusal to recognise the rights of separate ethnic, national or religious communities in contemporary Europe. It demonstrates an arbitrary selection of values: its advocates have centred all on the struggle for their own recognition. Serb nationalism as a feeling or as a movement can best be defined as the demand for the equating of a political entity with a single nation. Serb national feeling is revealed asbased on hate: centuries-old resentment at the major powers’ denial of the Serb demand for recognition, seeking satisfaction in the fulfilment of its revenge fantasies.20 The force of the fantasy is evident in the violence of the Serbdenial of others and the campaigns for theirtotal annihilation. However democratic the ‘Serb State’ may perceive itself to be, it cannot be liberal, for it utterly ignores the concept that human beings are equally God’s creatures. The insights offered by Christianity and by the totality of European history are ignored in favour of the urge-seenas backed by both Christianity and European history-to build a comprehensive nation state.

Croathood

29

Bosnia and its history are distorted by the needs of this project into an image which reflects the aims of the ‘Greater Serbian State’. But the real history of the Bosnian Orthodox (Bosnian Serb) Church and people21 is inherently opposed to this design.

Croathood In relation to Serbhood, whichisexplicitlyaggressiveandexpansionist, Croat national policytakes a defensive-even a reactive-position. It is frequently a mere reflection of, or response to, Serb national policy, and thus receives its central raison d’h-e from its occasional enemy. The Croatian national territory is confined to those areas which the perpetrators of the Greater Serbia project are prepared to see ‘amputated’ from their own design. The Serb project covers, for preference, all or part of Bosnia and Herzegovina and significant portions of modern-day Croatia. Croat national policy endorses the concept of Greater Croatia, which also covers all or part of Bosnia and Herzegovina; it also justifies itselfby the claim of historical rights-based on precisely the same greater-state logic which we find intheGreater Serbia politicalmanifestos. This attitude to Bosnia and Herzegovina can be encountered in the writings of leading Croat politicians-from Ante StarEeviC, one of the nineteenth-century founders of Croat national ideology, to Franjo Tubman, the recently deceased Croatian president. The concept of Croat national sovereignty presupposes the creation of a Croat state incorporating all Croats. This is inspired by the need to rescue Croatia from its current state ofgeopolitical fragmentation: this in turn necessitates the takeover of large parts of Bosnia. Thus all areas of Bosnia where Croats live in significant numbers have been declared ‘Croat ethnic territories’. Since Serb and Croat designs on Bosniaclash, and since the presence of Bosniacs is anobstacle to both greater-state projects, both view the political future of Bosnia and Herzegovina as an explicitly Serb-Croat question. Bosniac national interests are ignored out of existence by both parties. As far as the Croatian project is concerned, all territory where Bosniacs constitute the majority of the population can be abandoned to Greater Serbian hegemony if they cannot readily be incorporated into the Croatian project. When Croat greater-state politics criticise their Serb counterpart, the squabbles are primarily over the exact division ofterritory: a remarkable

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harmony is maintained regarding the question ofBosniaitselfand the Bosniacs. There was plenty of Croat opposition to the Memorandum of the Serb Acnrlemy of Sciences and Arts-seenas launching ‘the destruction of brotherhood, unity and the possibility that Croats and Serbs may live together, with the purpose of replacing community in accord, and mutual respect, by the legalisation of Greater Serbian imperialism and the direct and open imperialismwhich demands the creation of a Greater Serbian state’.22 The Croat author of the Antimemorandum, quoted above, defines Bosnia and Herzegovina-the target area for Greater Serbian expansionism-as ‘the Serb-Croat regi0ns’.~3 Greater Croatia and Greater Serbia both summon up exactly the same explanation for their imperialist policies towards Bosnia. Both use the mediaeval title of Antemurafe Christianitatis (‘The Rampart of Christendom’) to justify themselves before the West, implicitly expecting unity and support among Christian nations and Christian supra-nationalism. For, as Stjepan RadiC, leader of the Croat Peasant Party in the twenties, wrote, ‘every European nation must be in the front line, according to its Christian culture, according to the political desires of Europe, and according to their correct understanding of Christianity and Europe as one and the same’.24 Christian rejection of Islam as God’s message has had deeply destructive effects in the areas where Muslims havebuilt their culture and where Croats have now establishedthemselves in absolute majority. Behind Croat national sovereignty stands the Catholic Church, since this is explicitly linked with the Croat identity. This results in a direct or implicit ideological denial of Islam, whichin turn accords perfectly with the Croat design of establishing a united Croat state-which should incorporate Bosnia and Herzegovina in part, if not infull. Huntington’s discourse onthe world’s eight civilisational entities, in which Croatia, with its overwhelmingly Catholic population, can be defined as ‘the WestyZS, as opposed to the ‘Orthodox-Slav’ East, suggests that Croatia and Croathood must ‘fight for recognition’ on the basis of both nationalism and liberal democracy. Croat nationalism incorporates, theoretically and in practice, forthright exclusion of the rights of Muslims (Bosniacs) and the Orthodox (Serbs). This directly discourages any policy incorporating the concept of human equality before God. The effort of Croat national policy to legitimise its truncated form of liberalism via democracy conflicts with the demands of minority groups for the ‘general recognition’ of the rights of all citizens-the key definition of liberal democracy.

Bosniac Identity

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Bosniac Identity ‘Bosnian’ or ‘Bosniac’ were names given to, and used by, the inhabitants of Bosnia for most of its history. All the peoples of Bosnia used to call themselves Bosnians: an identity freely shared by all religious affiliations including the Krstjani (members of the Bosnian Church), the Catholics, the Orthodox and the Muslims. With the rise of national ideologies, accompanied, in general, by nationalised religions, in the late nineteenth century the Bosnian Orthodox were recruited into Serbhood and the Bosnian Catholics into Croathood-ideologies formulated and orchestrated from outside. The BosnianMuslims,meanwhile,have hesitated to identify themselves as Bosniac, in the sense ofan ethno-national category, since they would appear to be excluding the members of different religions from sharing the same rights to the country of Bosnia. In the final decade of this century, however, when the Bosnian Muslims found themselves more and more isolated in the defence of Bosnia, they ceased to hesitate over adoptingthe name of Bosniac. The decision was made in the thick of war, when siege, expulsion and genocide-and diplomatic pressure at international negotiating tableswere all being deployed to force Bosnia’s Muslims to accept the ethnonational division of Bosnia. Although Orthodox and Catholics have inhabited Bosnia throughout its history, the country has never been a part of either a Croat or a Serb state. It has been for over a thousand years a separate entity, incorporating a diversity of different religions. The distinct Church of Bosnia, which ceased to exist with the coming of the Ottoman Empire, represents a desperate attempt to unite these differences in the face of the aggressive designs of surrounding churches. If we take the Bosniac identity as a symbol of this resistance, it cannot be categorised purely under the modern European concept of nationhood: it is most profoundly characterised by consciousness of the essential unity of all sacred traditions. When Islam made its landfall in the complex archipelago of Bosnian diversity, already complicated by the uneasy relationship between Orthodoxy and Catholicism, it was logical forthe members of the beleaguered ‘heretical’ Church of Bosnia to embrace this powerful, welcoming religion-hence the rapid extinction of that Church. As Muslims, they continued to accept the Christian community, since Islam acceptsChristianity as a part of the message of God. The Orthodox and Catholic communities, however, backedand instructed by their respective supra-nationalisms, could not accept Islam-although this is a general rather than a precise picture, due to

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the various shifts and crossings-over between the groups. Thus the members of the Catholic Church of Bosnia became open to becoming Croats in the national sense, while continuing to maintain their sense of Bosnia as their country. In the same way, the Orthodox Christians of Bosnia came to see themselves as primarily Serb, while, if to a lesser extent than the Croats, due to the specifically national nature of their church, they continued to see Bosnia as their homeland. The Muslims were left to deal with the dilemma of identifylng themselves as Bosniac, and thus enabling the final destruction of Bosnia. For, if the Muslims are forced to try and claimtheir own ‘Bosniac national territory’, this territory would be seen as primarily ‘Islamic’, thus placing the Bosniacsin direct conflict with the anti-Islamic West. This would also justify the Serbs and Croats of Bosnia in the creation of their own national territories in Bosnia, which could then be added to those of Serbia and Croatia. The question of national sovereignty takes on one of its cruellest and most complex manifestations in Bosnia. The Croats are a nation and therefore cannot be denied their right to national sovereignty-and therefore their right to unite in a single state. This also applies to the Serbs. Yet this denies Bosnia the right to sovereignty as a state, dividing it instead into three‘ethnic territories’, each occupied by one of the three nationswhich in practice means that Bosnia endsup divided piecemeal by its neighbours. To a greater or lesser degree, the greater-state designers of both Serbia and Croatia long ago foresaw and prepared for this outcome. T o legitimise this division, and make it permanent,theEuropean and Christian perception of Islam as hostile and alien could be exploited. T h e refusal of the Bosniacs to play their allotted role of ethnic Muslim nationalists seeking a pure territory for their Islamic state, however, was the primary obstacle. The only course to pursue was that of radicalising those members of the Muslim population who survived the campaigns of ethnic cleansing, until they should become positively eager to embrace the prospect of a Bosniac-only mini-state. This course was pursued efficiently. Externally, it was accomplished through straightforward violence on a mass scale-nothing new in the centuries of Balkan experience. The internal course-of removing any remaining desire for coexistence-was accomplished more subtly: by diminishing all awareness of the historical continuity of Bosnia as a cultural and state entity. The retreat of the forces fighting for Bosniawas manifest in the withdrawal of Bosniac political focusfrom regions cleansed of their Bosniac population and placed under ethnicSerb or Croatrule.

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While Serb and Croat nationalism enjoy the benefits of numerous efforts, past and present, to strengthen awareness of their historical continuity, this stimulus is denied the Bosniacs. They have been tom away from the foundations of their inheritance anddeprived of their historical rights within Bosnia and Herzegovina. The narrowed outlook which has resulted from the loss of vast numbers of homes and vast amounts of land can only be re-expanded by promoting the awareness of Bosnia as a cultural, historical and state entity, its unity ofdiversity integral to the survivalof the Rosniac nation. On the other hand, the state sovereignty of Bosnia must be realised without danger tothe due rights and sovereignty ofBosniacs, Croats and Serbs alike. Bosniacs in particular cannot separate themselves from the unity of Bosnia, since in their case national sovereignty does not automatically result from adoption of a national identity. The Greater Croat and Greater Serb politics are a clear testimony to this: they have med to impose an alien sovereignty, external to the sovereignty of Bosnia, a sovereignty that automatically excludes the Bosniacs from realising the right to be a sovereign people in a sovereign country. In the Balkans, Christian and Islamic forms of supra-nationalism interweave with Serb, Croat and Bosniac nationalism. No supra-nationalism has succeeded in prevailing over nationalist partisanship, and the concepts of national and state sovereignty have been used as tools by the strong to impose their will on the less strong. The result has been the creation of alliances for the destruction of historical, cultural and state identities, such as those of Montenegro and Bosnia, in favour of Greater Serbia and Greater Croatia. The religious prejudicesof the Western world havebeenused skilfully against the Bosniacs, on whom was superimposed a simplified and mythological image of Muslims and Islam. This has helped justify the continuation of genocide against this ancient European nation, squeezed to the edge of existencebetween two militant nationalisms. The Bosnian riddle-of the conflict inherent in absolute demands for recognition and sovereignty-raises fundamental questions about freedom, and the accompanying issue of recognition. Both should protect the rights of the individual, regardless of ethnic, national and religious membership: this principle is a t the foundation of all supra-national traditions and is the foremost precondition for world peace: Humanity, seen by both Christianity and Islam as the highest of God’s creations, is free to choose its religious laws and ways of life,just as it is free to choose good and reject evil.

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Political Downslide Commenting in 1924 on RenC Guenon’s, D’Orient et Occident, Leon Daudet suggests that it might bepossible to summarise GuCnon’s arguments as follows: ‘Since the time of the encyclopaedists, and even earlier-since the Reformation-the West has been brought into a state of intellectual anarchy, which is true inhumanity ... the civilisation on which the West prides itself so greatly relies on a sum of material and industrial achievementswhich multiply the chances of war and invasion-these are built on a very fragile moral and intellectual base, and on no metaphysical base whatsoever. The West is in greater danger from within, through feeble-mindedness, than from the outside, where it has to be admitted that its situation is not totally safe either.’*6 Since Bosnia is‘the thin place of the West’, it inevitably suffersthe effect of intellectual anarchy, the multi-faceted possibilities of war and invasion, the danger of divisionfrom without and within. Above all,it risks the loss of its highest role, that of expressing unity through diversity. In addition to facing the onslaught of violent internal and external forces, Bosniac politics have for a long time lost their way. But a true path, the opposite way to the endless slippery slope, must exist. It is impossible for this nation to find it, however, without the courage to meet and do battle with its own weaknesses and failures,both of understanding and ofaction. Today, when most ofBosniahas been ‘ethnically cleansed’ by armed conquest, it is necessary to re-examine the projects which planned and inspired the attacks. In the course of history, single unified awareness of Bosnia as a country has divided into a series of differing and contradictory perceptions. When the Croat and Serb nations adopted greater-state projects as an essential part of their national identity, Bosnia became the destined arena where these projects wouldseek their realisation. Serbia attacked Bosnia with the intention of incorporating this country into its own territory, wiping out its individuality, destroying everything opposed to this process. Similarly, according to the Croat national project, a considerable part of Bosnia was allotted to the Croat nation state. Bosnia is thus the target of twin take-over plans,with a sinister component of ethnic totalitarianism. The only possible response to these campaigns is to strengthen and unite awareness of Bosnia’s archetypal nature as a model for unity in diversity. Bosnian unity in diversity has its foundation in the core of religious tradition, and has survived with this core intact for a thousand years. Its unique

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identity is close to the transcendent sources of goodness. Yet for this very reason this identity came to be seen as a potential danger to the first god among the gods of Western civilisation: global stability, on the basis of the Westem-backed concept of ‘the end of history’. The nationalist regimes in Serbia and Croatia, the sources of the antiBosnian campaign, are mere reflections of the various forms of rule prevalent in the contemporary world. Bosnia can no longer oppose them if she shrinks to a mere reflection of the ruling systems of her enemies. Bosnian statehood, now fighting for survival, is facedwith the question of the future constitution of the ruling system and the direction of its development. This points to the need to test the whole structure of government, in order to assess the changes needed. We are principally aware of only two forms of rule in the contemporary world-democracy and dictatorship. In order to define what kind of governmentthe majority wants in Bosnia-starting from the principle that every nation has the government it deserves-we should take a brief look at the various possible types of government structure which have engendered both democracy and dictatorship. Plato, in his Politeia (Republic), explores, from a theoretical standpoint, the question ‘What is the model form of government?’ As far as his conclusions are concerned, it seems their correspondent models have all materialised, at one time or another, in history. For our summary consideration, it is importantto establish the scale between the imagined model and the lowest manifestation of its evolution. This scale ranges, according to Plato, from aristocracy (the rule of the besthwhich for Plato is the model government-via timocracy, oligarchy anddemocracy, to tyranny. T o re-work Plato’s concept in contemporary political language, we could say that aristocracy corresponds today to theocracy,and tyranny to dictatorship or demagogy. Governments are chiefly oligarchic in nature, as manifest in the various modes adopted by a king and his tribe or chosen few. Some of these governments can be called principled autocracies, since transcendent principles are a t least recognised within the frame of these governments, regardless of how often they may be violatedin practice. Principled autocracy is always in danger, however, of becoming, defacto, unprincipled dictatorship. The next step on the evolutionary road from principled autocracy is democracy. This is, according to Plato, the most complete expression of freedom and equality achieved by humanity to date. Democracy is, however, always vulnerable to displacement by dictatorship or demagogy. Since the

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evolutionary trend does not follow a straight path but fluctuates around a central movement, illusory disruptions in the process sketched out by Plato can occur and the chaos of democracy is temporarily replaced by a form of principled autocracy-a lesser evil,it could be argued, than demagogy. Moving on from the rather primitive principled autocracy of Communist Yugoslavia, the road to formal democracy was halted a t a transitional stage in Bosnia, caught between the unprincipled autocracies of Belgrade and Zagreb, both of which were descending rapidly into unprincipled dictatorship anddemagogy. Both intended that this samedescent-steeper and speedier if possible-should take place in Bosnia, enabling Bosnia’s renascent ‘Serbhood’ and ‘Croathood’ to join forces with the two external nation states, while Bosnia itself would disappear. The establishment and maintenance of principled democratic rule in Bosniawas, and is, therefore, the most appropriate form of defence against Bosnia’s immediate neighbours. T o remind the people of Bosniaof ‘the strait gate’27, and its Kur’anic counterpart, the ‘steep way that leads to the heights’28-means to remind them of the ‘general good’ which is realised by followingtranscendent principles. This would ensure the presence of sources of strength, which could be drawn upon in opposing the forces of destruction. This in turn would require fundamental re-examination of lower forms of fieedom-consumerism, shallow moralism, communalism,demagogy-and the re-establishment of order. The people of Bosnia need to be able to recognise and identify the operation of various forms of rule, not only within their own communal environments, but also in the state and its neighbours. We should analyse the position of everygoverning system on theladder of eternal values, for in the context of this scale of values we can see more clearly whether a system is geared towards politicalpragmatism alone, or is genuinely founded on principle. The projects aimed against Bosnia are most readily described by the adjective ‘fascist’. The complex phenomena displayed by the various regimes engaged in the destruction of this country are revealed as simply evil: evil visibly incorporated in external and internal structures meeting all the most important specifications of what wecallFascism and Nazism. The three most significant examples of fascist ideology-that of Italy in the twenties, Germany at the beginning of the thirties, and Spain towards the end of the thirties-developed in conditions of great social change and stress. Although they reflect a perversion in the consciousness of individuals and society, of a kind recurrent throughout thehistory of humanity, their link to specific geopolitical policies and exceptional technological and organisa-

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tional capacitiesdeserves closer comparison with the current Balkan regimes. Bosnia today is in a state of social chaos, and the stresses show no sign of diminishing. The outbreak ofneo-fascism in Serbia and among Serbs throughout the territory of the former Yugoslavia has led to the flourishing of neo-fascism among Serbia’s neighbours, particularly in Croatia and among the Croats. Bosniais caught in the middle, a t the centre of the maelstrom these two regimes have created. Both are working, directly and indirectly, to produce a corresponding neo-fascism among the nations they consider an obstacle to their imperial goals: the Albanians and the Bosniacs. Bosniac fascism cannot reach sufficient strength to deter or prevent the actions of Serb and Croat fascism: it can only, in the long term, enable their absolute victory, sincei t justifies the crimes whichboth arenow implementing against the Bosniacs. The available military and economic power and the predictable behaviour of the world community are very much to the advantage of the Greater Serbian and Greater Croatian projects. Both sides are busily encouraging and compelling the Bosniacs to adopt a position of nationalist exclusivism and to construct their own form of neo-fascism: this prospect is central to the Greater Serbia and Greater Croatia designs to split Bosnia. Bosniacs are being offered-as compensation for their disappearance from most of Bosnia and Herzegovina-various hypothetical alternatives: a ‘Muslim state’, ‘IslamicJamahiriya’, ‘the tutelage of distant countries’, and so on. The parties making these generous offers have openly and privately accused the Bosniacs of inclining towards these very options, and have thus succeeded in justifying their campaigns against Bosnia and Herzegovina in the eyes of world leaders. Many Bosniac leaders, encouraging, perhaps unconsciously, the growth of fascism among the Bosniacs, have spoken of facing a political reality in which preservation of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s unity is impossible. The alternative, which they offer obediently, although without much conviction, is the ‘Muslim State’. This suggests an attempt to hide the obvious incompetence of the state leadership in defending the state entrusted to them. The talk of political reality is used to justify the false claim that the current condition of the Bosniacs is the will of destiny-and that what they are being offered isgenuinely ‘for their own good’. Since the Greater Serbian and Greater Croatian projects of destroying BosniaandHerzegovina’sexistence as a unified state will never die, the danger of Bosniac(or Muslim) fascism will always bepresent. Therefore it is of great political importance to the Bosniacs that they should persist in

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identifylng and unmasking all forms offascistconsciousness and their manifestations in the political reality of this country. The first sign of fascism is the raising of the collective-most often the state-above the individual. This leads to the suppression and persecution of all genuine forms of liberalism and democracy, promoting instead the strict identification of the individual with a single political party (or a coalition of like-mindedparties), a single nation and a single state. Political thinking, in these conditions, follows the call of mysticism: division, persecution and killing become a backgrouud and framework for the messianic role of individualsand their loyalfollowers. No broader-based decision making takes place, although plenty of representations are publicly made to inspire confidence in the illusion that the people are gettingwhat they want and are standing firm in support of their leader. The able fall silent or withdraw, and their places on the political stage are grabbed by the incompetent and the power-hungry. Shown evidence which condemns the actions of the leader, his followersretort, ‘we haveno alternative to him’. Instead of a dialogue of suggestion and advice, the omnipotent leader, backed by all appearances by the entire society, carries every decision. The environment of chaos and social drama encourages the permutation of the majority’s desperate hopes into cheaply purchased support. Their backing is readily secured for the fight against the ‘enemiesof the nation and the state’-the classic and timeless designation of everyone perceivedas disloyal to the leader. A utopian vision of a new state and world order replaces the active ordering of state and society. This classic evolution of systems of rule and their structured incorporation of evil (as we can perceive the in political inheritance of Europe), can be reduced to a three-cornered framework of satanic rule: &run (Korah-‘the rulers of money’); Fir’awn (‘Pharaoh’-the political managers) and Haman (‘The High Priest’-the ideological priesthood). This Kur’anic model demonstrates the predictable order of the downward slide, as societies and individuals evolve. In this mple framework, which ensures the stability of all systems of government, transcendent principles tend to be pushed from the top of the scale of values down to the lowest rungs. The interests of the rulers of money move to the top, acquiring the terminology of state and political ideology on the way up. The rulers of money operate anonymously and under cover: their centre of power and decision is protected. The political managers and ideologues always take precedence in public. The state government seems capable of democratic change, as far as nominated leaders are concerned, but is in fact

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steady and obedient in its manipulation of legislatory, executive and judiciary powers in response to the real rulers. The ideological priesthood-the advocates of political ideology-act as the advocates of the changes produced by the legislatory, executive and judiciary authorities. Once the system of government issolidly structured in accordance with these three forces, they act in a stable manner for a considerable period, but their power grows through the subjection of increasing numbers of people, rendered dependent on the system. The most highly developed ruling system is that which, in the language of modem political theory, we call ‘developed democracy’.The reduction of democracy to dictatorship takesplace through the coalescenceof these three forces, whichin a genuine democracy operate with a measure of independence, into two, or one. The balance is broken, and every form of evil and violence isthe result. ‘As for good government’, said‘Ali ibn Abi Talib, ‘the pious man performs good acts in it, while in a bad government, the wicked person enjoys this until his time is over.’29 Since the transcendent principles of good are reduced, in the model of Karun-Fir’awn-Haman, to the lowest level, the ruling structure attracts only false or mindless supporters-together with those who have departed from principle and who are simply ‘wicked’, and therefore ‘enjoy’ bad government. The system promotes its own survival to the highest level: it quashes any visionary proposals for the future if these are unacceptable to ‘the rulers and managersof the world order’. Bosnia and its people are confronted by the nascent struggles of democratic development-perhapsalreadydoomed to stillbirth. The rulers of money are insufficiently organised to build a system for the protection and development of even their own interests-while state rule and political ideology cannot achieve either stability or effectiveness. The only alternative, in this bleak drama, is that of establishing a programme with clear aims, capable of producing a clear political ideology, a developed and organised system of state management and an efficient financial systemin the service of these aims. Among many dubious courses, the most promising seems to be that of aiming for the highest models of government, the light towards which we grope in the darkness of our present-day situation. We learn that it is our duty toseek the highest, as in the message of Christ: ‘Seek yefirst the kingdom of God, and its righteousness, and all these things will be given unto Or, as the Prophet said, ‘We guided him on the two highways, yet he has still not assaulted the steep; and what shall teach thee what is the

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steep?’31W e are implicitly shown the ideal, or the peak to which the ascent will lead. To reject it is to travel deeper into darkness. Bosnia and its people face a searching question: which principles, which kinds of freedom should they be looking and working towards-and where will they find the source of strength to oppose evil? Whether Bosnia will be totally overcome by evil depends on the answer to this question. For the obsession with lower forms of freedom-obvious in the call for peace a t any price-means nothing but surrender to the forces of evil. Discouraged by the complex tangle of possible ways out of our current situation, we yield to evil as the only reality, convinced that the road to salvation does not exist. W e are told to ignore or forget all our losses, and to accept our current, reduced state as a true home and motherland. The lowest forms of realpolitik prevail today in Bosnian consciousness: shallow projects for the future are seen as representing the realisation of our profoundest desires. But such projects drain rather than stimulate human energies. The dual nature of humanity remains unfulfilled, since we are attempting to resolve the drama without accepting the existence of the ‘Heavenly Treasury’, giving purpose to the ‘earthly exile’. The future of Bosnia depends on our awareness of the highest principles of our earthly purpose, since Bosnia in essence is more than just a reflection of the prevailing trends of modern thinking. The state order in Bosnia, if state governments reflect the ideological environment, will always be a t war with the essential Bosnia. Only if this government can be brought closer to the transcendent principles ofgoodness, demonstrable in a permanent commitment to the promotion and protection of these principles, will there be a possibility of halting the divisive forces now assailing Bosnia from inside and out. Perhaps-while the battle for Bosnia rages-the foundations can still be laid which will enable us to build upon the highest principles of freedom. These foundations will provide means and ways for opposing all forms of government which are in conflict with the pluriform identity of Bosnia. For although Bosnia today is surrounded by enemies of its state order, it is threatened to a greater degree from within by the possibility of developing tyranny. Bosnia, in the totality of its centuries-long tragedy, has been the victim of evil forces-which, we hope, with humanity’s ingrained optimism, have no future. The future of the world depends on the strength of those factors or principles which have brought into being the uniquely pluriform spiritual identity of Bosnia. Awareness of these principles is the ‘strait gate’ which looks to many, at the present moment, too narrow and too distant-so re-

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mote, in fact, that there appears to be little point inpursuing it. The option, of course, is the ‘broad way’ leading downhill. But the minority who are aware of that narrow road to the heights, and who are dedicated to it with every fibre of their beings, are theguarantee of Bosnia’s future.

Modernity and Beyond It isimpossible to separate the latest Bosnian tragedy from modernity. Therefore, whatever interpretation we attempt to impose on the most recent outbreak of slaughter and destruction, it must include a reappraisal of the dominant perceptions of the present era. The latter is based on the search for identity, and the struggle for its recognition. The sacred tradition of Christianity promoted the human self to the centreof both the terrestrial and the celestial drama. It is possible to find a doctrinal basis for this sequence in St. Paul’s epistles, where he advocates the movement from the external to the internal, from the law to faith: ‘The Gentiles, which followed not after righteousness, have attained to righteousness, even the righteousness which is of faith. But Israel, which followed after the law of righteousness, hath not attained to the law of righteousness. Wherefore? Because they soughtit notby faith, but as it were by the works of the law.’32 MartinLuther concurs: ‘Wherefore, when thy conscience is terrified with the law, and wrestleth with the judgement of God, ask counsel neither of the reason nor of the law, but rest only upon grace and the word of consolation and so stand herein, as if thou hadst never heard anything of the law, ascending up to the glass of faith, where neither the law, nor reason do shine, but only the light of faith...’33 It can be claimed that this shift of perspective puts a direct emphasis on human well-being. This alsohas a religious source. ‘It springs from the New Testament and is one of the central themes of Christian spirituality. Modern utilitarianism is one of its secularised variants.And as such it relates to a more fundamental feature to Christian spirituality, which comes to receive new andunprecedented importance a t the beginning of the modern era, and which has also become central to modern culture.’34This can be described as the affirmation of the common life: it has become one of the most powerful ideasof modem civilisation. The duality of this self, which is expressed through the simultaneity of autonomy and heteronomy, found its modernist form in liberalism and secularisation. In the public sphere, independence from heteronomous

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authority has been granted to human individuality. The self is the supreme source of rights. ‘The individual is not the possessor of rights through the state, but by his own nature he has inalienable and indefeasible rights’-in the words of Georg Jellinek, in the conclusion to his exposition on the American Declaration of Rights. He asserts that it does not ‘attempt merely to set forthcertain principles for the state’s organisation, but seeks above all to draw the boundary line between state and individ~al.’~~ The self is, accordingly,the fundamental identity. It is the source of the inexhaustibility of the human enigma, but at the same time is only the first step in solving the riddle of identity. ‘To create one man is the same as to create all men’ and ‘to kill one man is the same as to kill all men’. Every individual self can establishrelationships with others through negotiations. This is the source of trust, determined solely by the parties to this relationship, and not by any mediating source or belief. Humanity’s potential for disregard of transcendent principles is calledfreedom in the modernist project. Its foundation is freedom of choice and beliefin the possibility of general justice. Since the self is conditional, every relationship with the other is similarly conditional. Therefore, every decision made on the basis of trust alone has none of the foundations of a decision made with reference to a transcendent authority acknowledged by both parties-that is, confidence, or shared faith. Confidence is a term specific tothe relationship betweenindividuals mediated by a common external authority: for example, God, or forms relating to the sacred. Thus religion endeavours to harmonise relations between individuals through their common relationship with Perfection. Goodness is manifest in the multitude of its reflections-and this leads to the vexed question of their hierarchy, and the ‘conflict of different goods’. The latter-day emphasis on utility, and the assumption that the acquisition of knowledge knows no bounds, ensure that in the course of the modernity project, trust will increasingly replace confidence. The revealed truths lose their importance and, by implication, heteronomous authority as their source. The project of liberalism presumesthe substitution of the rule of reason for this mediation: reason is assigned the authority to determine the standards of life, well-being and wealth.Only by freeing the individual as completely as possible from every external authority, and by establishing relationships purely on the basis of negotiations and the realisation of individual rights will it be possible to achieve the final goal: ‘the last man’ and‘the end of history’.These assumptions seemto have gone almost unquestioned until

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the final third of the present century. But from that time forward, an obvious and increasingly frequent return to tradition has occurred, as the basis of a different identity from that offered by modernity. The remaining religious structures, most often secularised in themselves, are seen to embody tradition. The reaction to the rationalist relativisation isthe growth of religious fundamentalism.These two phenomena are two sides ofthe same coin. The concept of individual rights, which, applied to others, implies their duty, remains nothing more than ‘freedom of choice’. This opens the way for the imposition of ideologicalconstructions which claim to be sacred and deny the role of negotiations. The scale of values isfortified by postulating the irrefutability of the ideological knowledge andits advocate. Here then we have the essential paradox ofmodernity: the existence of a heteronomous authority has been denied, and the autonomy of the self is used to confirm the prophetic character and the prophetic position of the power holders. The most typical contemporary expression of thisphenomenon isnationalism: its epistemological arrogance; its violence. From the perspective of tradition, nationalism can be viewed as the epitome of false prophesying by falseprophets. The modernist revision of authority has not been accompanied by any corresponding intellectuality. It encourages sentimentalism and moralising, while adopting a grimly utilitarian amtude regarding the ways and means to be used in the struggle for the set goals. The identity of the individual is transferred tothe identity of the collective, primarily the state, as the highest authority. (This is then joined by an increasingly present confrontation between the language of modernity and the language of tradition.) In communist societies, this was the only alternative: the state was identified with the party. Both were interpreted as the incontrovertible expressions of the totalitarian ideology. The autonomy of the self, together with the concept of a transcendent authority, were all denied. The denial of these forms of authority opened a power vacuum, which was promptly filled by a perverted affirmation of the powers of both the autonomous self, and of religious forms. The autonomy of the self was identified with the autonomy of the collective and its demand for recognition, while religion was identified with those of its forms which survived in subjection to the ideology, or as sentimentalist, moralist opposition to it. Such opposition is neitherthe ideological antithesis to the destroyed communist forms nor the traditional substitution for the lost identity. It is now common to see such sentiment and morality used to sway crowds, urging them into acceptance of ethnonational programmes. As we have seen, the direct result is the slaughter of

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others and the destruction of their cultural heritage-for the sake of affirming the groupidentity. We are confronted with the need to understand precisely what constitutes the self. Talk of its ‘autonomy’ is clearly an over-simplification. T h e concept of heteronomy and the concepts offeredby tradition provide a somewhat profounder insight-as suggested by the present return to religion. However, there is no form of religious intellectuality available which would be capable of satisfymgour needs and fulfilling all expectations. The language of modernity hasfailed to offer us the dual concept of the autonomous self acknowledging a transcendent authority, while the return to religion is potentially a return to the religion of ignorance, exclusivity, intolerance, and destruction. Ignorance generally tries to portray itself as knowledge,weakness as power. The religiousrevivalists therefore see themselves as prophets: uniquely wise amid the evil and ignorance of others. They feel obliged to deliver judgements on all that they uneasily perceive as being superior to themselves, on everything above them, and to change such a condition even by force. Thus the essential component of freedom is removed from obedience: humility, which must always be voluntary, is lost. Also lost is the perception that everything on earth may point to the Centre, but nothing on earth can be that Centre. The loss of this perception means the loss of the humility and lack of dogmatism which are the antithesis of arrogance. Lack of dogmatism opens the way to tolerance-and thus to a greater disposition to acknowledge the ways and lawsof others, and, by understanding and accepting those ways, to approach the vision which iscentral to all. Having arrived at this conclusion, we are now faced anew with the question of identity. If this is to take the form of ‘Who am I?’ the question must include ‘Where do I come from?’ and ‘Where am I going?’-requiring redirection of the self within the coordinates set by these questions. Acceptance of the value of life anddignity, the rejection of death and degradation, turn the self towards what we can call Goodness. But this process demands an insight into the sources of morality-together with insight into the nature of the modern identity. The map charting the sources of morality is divided into three great continents. The first is the original, religious foundation of moral standards. The second is centred in the naturalism of the separate reason, which in the present era receives a scientific form. The third contains the cluster of world-views produced by romantic expressionism, the progenitor of most modernist conceptions. These areas are far from separate and independent: influencesand borrowings link them closely.

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Modem identity is essentially determined by secularism, but incorporates plenty of historical influences. The concept of a superior good, formally excluded from the concept of modem identity, although naturally very much present, stems from the natural inclination of the self, and from inherited tradition. A sense of the past is an inseparable part of every identity: it produces fresh perceptions of society and its relationships. A free society is built by free individuals who accept this undertaking on the basis of a contract freely entered into. Such a society is therefore built fundamental by the possessors of individualrights-moderncivilisation’s concept of society. Given its accepted degree and kind of expressionistic self-understanding, it is possible to determine the image of a society as a nation-that is, the roots of the common expression can and must determine, according to this self-understanding, human inclinations and loyalties. Modem nationalism therefore needs its own narrati0n.3~Such narration is always a construction in which, in the process of its self-justification, others are denied and rejected. Although it may contain references to the inviolability of human life and dignity, to general justice, sacred authority and transcendence, it is nevertheless directly opposed to theirtruecontent. Where Bosnia is concerned, the opposing nationalisms endeavour to deny and reject the substance of the forms they attempt to hide behind. Thus the question ‘What is “Bosnia the Good?”’ can only be answered by gaining an insight into thesubstance of Bosnian identity.

Tolerance and Tradition It is a widely held view that differences in culture are no obstacle to a stable society-as long, that is, as one accepts that the self is an autonomous agent, a concept central to the secular-liberal agenda.This agenda seesthe self as empowered with freedom of choice, by which it openly negotiatesits place in the social smcture. Religion is accepted, but it has no right to participate, by dint of some preordainedauthority and sanctity,in the process of public negotiation between free individuals. This attitude is revealed in the division of the social whole into private and public. Smving for identity defined by even a heteronomous image of the self, presupposes tolerance, which implies tolerance of different attitudes.Any conception of the self as non-liberal and non-secularis regarded as a thing of the past. This encapsulates liberal secularism’s sense of superiority relative to Traditi~n.~’ A pluralistic harmony of cultures is possible as long as it remains a secular concept, wherebythe view that the moral code

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derives from freedom of choice or the irrefutable primacy of reason is taken as the supreme good-a good to which cultures themselves are subordinate. Any culture in the true sense of the term, however, is an extension of an irrefutable authority-which, in the case of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, is God and His unity in full transcendence, as proclaimed in human speech through His prophet (or prophets). Here, when it comes to identifjmg the ultimate source of moral decision making-that is, what each understands by self, authority and transcendence-theism and secularism take different paths. It is an undeniable fact that religion is playing an increasingly important role throughout the world, which makes the question of tolerance ever more crucial. W h a t we now need to analyseis the basisof tolerance in Tradition and in religion. Tolerance might be seen as testifymg to a rationalist solution, for those who tolerate have no other choice. This, however, is a purely instrumental, realpolitik view, which lacks a foundation in principle. Tolerance might equally be seen as an expression of an all-pervading relativism:something is tolerated because what makes the tolerated different is unimportant in the eyes of the one who tolerater it. Central to this approach is a direct or indirect appeal to an anthropological world-view, which is the source of the liberalist concept of self:seeing the public sphere as a framework of rights, it tolerates different beliefs and behaviours as the private and essentially irrelevant choices of others. This in turn implies that what is tolerated is unrespected, inferior-thiskindof tolerance canall too easily become transformed into intolerance of others’ rights, that is, into oppression. Faced with this impasse, might religion itself be a means of explaining and defending religious pluriformity? And if so, how? With the increasing globalisation of cultures and the relationships between them, this question is becoming ever more crucial. Harmonious relationships between and within states and nations can only be possible if, a t the very heart of the various Traditions, we can rediscoverthe principles which account for tolerance. It can be shown that the sacred Traditions-here we are speaking primarily ofJudaism, Christianity and Islam, that is, the branches of the Abrahamic tradition-see the human selfas the locus or mirror of sanctity. Hence the path to Reality must pass through the human self. But the self is indivisible from the totality of the world, which reflects the self and which is reflected in the self. Thus the self is linked vertically to sanctity and horizontally to the world. Through the first link, the self can be God’s image, sublime verticality. This means that plenitude is humanly possible, though its Reality cannot be comprehended. Through the horizontal link, human

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beings are open to the outside world, which enables them continually to renew the relationship between inner and outer amidst the constant current of change. This duality-verticality and horizontality-speaks in two directions: from plenitude towards the world of multiplicity and motion, and vice versa. Religion has always known plenitude, the ultimate possibility, to be an attainable human goal. This knowledge is communicated by a messenger or by the founder of a religious form. The messenger or founder is an example which individuals can smve to resemble, though they can never become as one with that person-just as it is said that God is all, but all is not God. Conversely, this focusing of the self canbe proclaimed bythe messenger himselfa concept at the heart of Judaism, Christianity and Islam.There is no messenger but the Messenger. Those who say that they possess this knowledgein its fullness, or that they are his messengers, must not be listened to. Of the Messenger as the one who brings knowledge from above, the Revelation says: No! I swear by that you see and by that you do notsee it is the speech of a noble Messenger. It is not the speech of a poet (little do you believe) nor thespeech of a soothsayer (little do you remember).38

Or: And who does greater evil than he who forges against God a lie, or says, “To me it has been revealed”, when naught has been revealedto him, or he who says, “I will send down the like of what God has sent down?”39

Here Jesus says: Because narrow is the gate, and hard is the way, which leadeth unto life, and fewthere be that find it. Beware ye of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. You shall know them by their fruits!O

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The sacred traditions accept that the Messenger is no longer present today: only the Messenger’s heirs remain, and the whole of human individuality. No person may lay claim to the link with Transcendence which the Messenger possessed, for in so doing, he or she denies the essence ofTradition. So what remains for themessenger’s heirs in each Tradition is for each to make his or her own individual interpretation, none of which can be called final and sacred. Closeness to a sacred example must not be grounds for arrogance. On the contrary, those who are close to the example reveal themselves to the outside world by the fruits of humility and modesty: for man is nothing in the face of God, and God is allin the face of man. This implies the acceptance and confirmation of an epistemological modesty. The act of smving towards a higher level of knowledge means accepting the relativity of what one possesses. And when believers read the holy writ, they do notsee it as the whole of sanctity: it remains open to the infinite, the ultimate possibility which no one individual can attain. Therefore believers cannot pass judgement on others, for they too are conditional in their knowledge and being. By joining their path, which also means joining its sacred founder, they confirm that other paths exist. This is the true source of tolerance, a tolerance that is grounded in principle and upheld by the acceptance that all human knowledge is relative and ever-changing as the self treads the path towards its source. With this acceptance in place, allembracing negotiations can take place where only force is excluded. These can help bring transcendent models closer to earthly reality, for no one can take the place of the Messenger. The reality of today’s Bosnia requires this sort of tolerance. A secularliberal model means that the otherwill only be tolerated provisionally. Once the opportunity presents itself, such a situation always risks degenerating into greater or lesser outbursts of violence. And the driving force of this violence is an arrogant absolutisation of the self, whichturns to cruelty if its freedom is restricted by the community as a whole. If the conflicts within the Bosnian identity are interpreted only from the dominant modernist perspective, there is little prospect of resolving them. Thus itis vital to breathe new life into the language of tolerance which has its source in Tradition. A model of tolerance based on the autonomy of the self and the primacy of reason providesno solution to the key questions that face us, even in those parts of the world where the liberal concept of self is most prevalent. The globalisation of cultures and the relationships between them demands that oneness, a oneness rooted in the sacred Traditions revealed to humankind, become a key issue in relations within and between

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nations and states, so that diversity may be perceived as confirmation of a sacred unity. This question is the c m of the Bosnian drama and has been throughout this country’s history, woven as it is through all the closely knit relationships between the components of her diversity. But it is also a question for the world as a whole, one that will become even more crucial with every day that passes. If this question cannot be resolved in Bosnia, what hope is there for the rest of the world? The question concerns the source of respect for life, and it has two possible answers. The first is the theistic version: human nature isas it is because God created us all. The second rejects this on purely secular grounds, probably backed up by an appeal to the primacy of rational life. But this second position is based on a contradiction, for the individual view is not necessarily the most authoritative. Hence any interpretation of identity is dependent on the relationship between both perspectives, for the state of humanity today requires that both be examined. The reality of murder and destruction denies any individual the right to assume an adequate knowledge ofthe make-up ofthe modem age. ‘Bosnian’ can beseen as a label for an identity built of identities. Each of the identities included in its unity is defined by two crucial elements. The first is general, that is, the acceptance of the sanctity of human life and human dignity; and the second is specific, basedon religious tradition, history, ethnicity, and so on. All these identities are inter-related, like a set of frames arranged within a larger frame. They are also defined by the need for dialogue: no one can exist without the others with whom they are in constant conversation. Starting from the assumption that these identities now find themselves manoeuvred, by popular concepts, into ideological conflict, their frames murky and opaque, reduced to chimeras such as the ‘Bosnian CroadBosnian Serb language’, the complexity ofthese identities founded in Tradition needs to be analysed and explained.As their inner contentis continually striving to separate the unreal from the real, which can only be done through constant dialogue, the revelation of what has been forgotten will enable individuals and communities to work towards the goal by which they will become not only reconciled, but also justified, both a priori and a posteriori. In so doing, forgotten languages need to be learned, for only then can we answer the question ‘Who am I?’ The answer to this question also answers another question: ‘Why am I speaking, and to whom?’ This is the essenceof the human need for orientation in moral space. Without an awareness of this need, the diverse elements are left with only conflict, destruction, and murder.

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NOTES 1 See Ibn Khaldun, Mukaddima (Beirut, 1956-9), p. 53. 2 See ‘An Idea for a Universal History from a Cosmopolitan Point of View’, in Immanuel Kant, On History (Indianapolis, 1963), pp. 11-13. 3 See Alexandre Kojgve, Introduction li la lecture de Hegel (Paris, 1947). 4 This view is characteristic of so-called political realism, advocated in recent times by Henry Kissinger. On his understanding of history see, e.g., Peter Dickson, Kissinger and the Meaning of History (Cambridge, 1978). 5 Samuel P. Huntington, ‘The Clash of Civilizations?’, Foreign Afairs 72 (1993), p. 48. 6 Arabic isZam (‘allegiance’, ‘submission’, ‘complete surrender to the One God’) is a verbal noun of the fourth class of verbs derived from the root s-1-m. ‘The one who submits himself to God’ is mudim, of which the Arabic plural form musZimun is used frequently in the Kur’an. Islam, however, appears only eight times in the Kur’an, but this word is to be considered in relation to the widespread use of the verb aslama with its two interwoven meanings: ‘submit to God’ (an inner act) and ‘profess Islam’, i.e. adhere to God’s Message and God’s Prophet. Islam is the truth of all existence and the way that will bring all creatures back to God (343). The Kur’an (3:19) says: “The only true faith in God is the surrender to His will (el-i~larn).~~ Disposition to that religion is inherent in man; God gave it to him and it has always been there (30:30). God reveals this religion through all His Prophets and Messengers, its essence remaining unchanged, although forms of its presence in the world have changed, reaching their culmination and summation in the Last Message and the Last Prophet of God, which set the seal on the long succession of messages and messengers. Faith in God is, therefore, single, but its expressions throughout history are manifold. It is, given its eternal essence, always new yet within time and space, limited by its exposure to oblivion, changes and corruption. It is therefore every now and then revealed by God in all the glory of its freshness through His messages and messengers. That revelation leaves different holy traces in the passing of time. Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin says: ‘0 God, surely Thou hast confirmed Thy religion in all times with an Imam whom Thou hast set up as a guidepost to Thy servants and a lighthouse in Thy lands, after his cord has been joined to Thy cord!’ (Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin ‘Ali ibn al-Husayn, The Psalms of Islam: AZ-Sahifat AZfirnilat Al-Sajjdiyya, trans. by William C. Chittick [London, 19881, p. 171.) 7 Verse 95:4: “Surely We created man of the best stature.” This signifies man’s original goodness, but also his subsequent weakness, which is the result of his alienation from Principle. Consequently, man encompasses possibilities from “the lowest of the low” (955) to “perfection” attained by “those who believe and do good (95:6). All quotations from the Kur’an are given with the respective number of Surah and verse.

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Quotations from the Kur’an and Haddith (the teachings, sayings and actions of Prophet Muhammad, as reported and collected by his followers)are, as the reader will be able to see in the following text, an integral part of the chosen discourse. Sources of knowledge are receptacles of imparted information, combined with rational exploration and personal experience of Reality. Traditional wisdom teaches that the Truth depends neither on language nor on form: it can be revealed in any language and in any form. These revelations therefore have different meanings in different cultures and a t different moments in time. These are conditional revelations, reaching towards the Oneness of the truth. However, they become an accepted and widely knownpart of the discourse that inspires and testifies. Considering the nature of this text, only one aspect has been chosen out of the multitude of facets of the revelation of truth. The choice of any other aspect would enable progress towards the same goal. 8 49:13. 9 The original meaning of Arabic al-madinah is the ‘place of din’, the ‘place of belief, ‘place of establishing morality’, ‘place of government based on principle’, ‘place of religious law’, etc. Din signifies the content of the morally compelling law and obedience to it. Accordingly, din means ‘religion’ (Greekpistis, Latin religio) in the broadest sense, encompassing everything that relates to the content of its principles and their effects in life, thus including theconcept of ‘belief. Madina is an eternal model of how to organise the world in general and every place on earth on thebasis of ‘submissionto God’ (islam). 10 This is the meaning of Kur’an verse 5:48. The concept of ‘law’ corresponds to the original sbir’ah (or sbari’ab), the literal meaning of which is ‘the way to the waterhole’, or to the place where people and animals go for the principles essential to life. That concept in Revelation denotes the law system that is essential to the social and spiritual welfare of the community. The concept ‘way of life’corresponds to the original minhaj, which denotes ‘open road’, usually in the general sense. These two terms have a narrower meaning than din, which does not imply only laws of a pamcular religion but also basic, unchangeable spiritual truths, which were preached by all God’s prophets, whilst the laws and ways of life they represented changed, depending on the circumstances and cultural development of each community. The Kur’an often emphasises this unity in diversity (e.g. 2:148, 21:92-93, 2352). Although the Kur’an says of itselfthat it is the culmination and completion of the revelation, it a t the same time emphasises and confirms the validity of the law and way of life of the followers of earlier revelations: for those who have a firm belief in One God and the Day of Judgement, i.e. in individual moral responsibility, and who live righteously, “there shall no fear come upon them nor shall they grieve” (2:62). 11 Francis Fukuyama, The End ofHirtmy and the Lart Man (London, 1992), p. 45. 12 Fukuyama (1992), pp.235-236. 13 2:256. 14 Thismemorandum was prepared in 1986 by a group of leading Serbian intellectuals, among whom were theauthor Dobrica CosiC, later president of rump Yugoslavia. It offered a programme for the reconstruction of Yugoslavia on the lines of Greater Serbia.

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15 See Ilija GaraSanin, ‘NaEertanije: Program spoljaSne i nacionalne politike Srbije, na koncu 1844. godine’ (The Design: Programme of Foreign and National Policy in Serbia at the End of 1844), in Boie CoviC, Izvori velikos7pke agresve (The Sources of Great Serbian Aggression) (Zagreb, 1991), pp. 65-77. 16 Jovan CvijiC, Aneksija Borne i Hercegovine i wpski problem (The Annexation of BosniaHerzegovina and the Serbian Problem) (Eeograd, 1908)’ p. 16. 17 Vasa CubriloviC, ‘Iseljavanje Arnauta’ (The Displacement of Arnauts), in CoviC (1991), pp. 106-124. 18 Nikolaj VelimiroviC, Nacionalizam svetog Save (The Nationalism of St. Sava) (Beograd, 1938). 19 See Mustafa ImamoviC, Historija Boinjaka (The History of the Bosniacs) (Sarajevo, 1997), particularly pp. 485-526. 20 This understanding of Serbian nationalisni corresponds to the general definition of nationalism by Ernest Gellner in Nations and Nationalism (New York, 1983). 2 1 See SreCko M. Diaja, Konfesionalnost i nacionalnost Bosne i Hercegovine (Confession and Nationality in Bosnia and Herzegovina), trans. from German by Ladislav 2. FiSiC (Sarajevo, 1992), pp. 87-125. 2 2 Miroslav Brandt, ‘Antimemorandum: BiljeSke uz Memorandum SANU’ (Antimemorandum: Notes on the SANU Memorandum) in CoviC (1991), pp. 209-2 5 5. 23 Brandt (1991), p. 239. 24 Stjepan RadiC, Zivo hruatsko pipavo na Bosnu i Hercegovina (The Living Croat Claim t o Bornia and Hemegovina) (Zagreb, 1908), pp. 7-8. 2.5 Huntington (1993), p. 2.5. 26 Quoted from Paul Chacornac, La vie simple de Rene‘ Guinon (Paris, 1986), p. 70. 27 Matthew, 7:13. 28 90~11-12. 29 ‘Mi ibn Abi Talib, Nehd5u-l-belaga (‘Staza qetitosti’): Govori, pisma i izreke, sabrao es-Sejid ei-serif er-Radi (Nnhj Al-Balaghah The path of eloquence’]:Semons, letters and sayings, compiled by as-Sayyid ar-Radi), trans. by Rusmir MahmutCehajiC and Mehmedalija Hadiid (Zagreb, 1994), p. 69. 30 Matthew, 6:33. 31 90~10-12. 3 2 Romans, 9:30-3 2. 33 Martin Luther, A Commentary on Saint Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians (London, 1833), p. 83. 34 Charles Taylor, Sources ofthe Seg The Making ofthe Modem Identity (Cambridge, Mass. 1996), p. 13. 35 Georg Jellinek, The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of Citizens: A Contribution to Modern Constitutional Histoy (Westport, 1979), p. 48. 3 6 See Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities (London, 1983). 37 T h e term tradition, used as a key word in this discourse, corresponds to the usage of this term by the following writers: R h e G u h o n , Introduction to the Study of Hindu Doctrines, trans. by Marko Pallis (London, 1945), pp. 87-89; Ananda K. Coomaraswamy, The Bugbear of Literacy (Middlesex, 1949), pp. 68-91; Frithjof Schuon, Spiritual Perspectives and Human Facts, trans. by Peter N. Townsend

r

Nates

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(Middlesex, 1969), pp. 9-2-24; idem, Light ontheAncient Worlh, trans. by Lord Northbourne (Bloomington, 1984), pp. 7-57; Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Knmledge and the Sacred (New York, 1989), pp. 65-92.

38 69:40-43. 39 6:93. 40 Matthew, 7:14-16.

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CHAPTER 2

KERNEL AND SHELL

Introduction

B

OSNIACS are vulnerable to persecution and humiliation: this makes up much of their history. Yet, they persist in striving for selfhood. Does this involve a perhaps unconscious acceptance of victimisation? And what are they in fact striving for? Self-dedication to principle demands effort and sacrifice, which in turn require awareness of the reasons for suffering, and the ultimate gain. Those who understand the purpose of their suffering are at least supported by a sense of mission: on the other hand, they are prey to the cruel gamesof history andhumanweakness. The Bosniac people havenot yet formulated a unified response to this dilemma: are they ‘a nation with which the fates play cruelly’l or are they a nation aware of their mission, but unable to transform it into a clear and effective ideology? Culture is the fruit of a long growth: it endlessly repeats the cycle of sowing and of harvesting seedfor a new sowing. History records plenty of efforts to break the cycle of Bosniacculture between seed and sowing. From out of these efforts the whole anti-Bosnian, anti-Bosniac programme has developed: it seeks to destroy the living nucleus of Bosniac culture and its capacity for self-renewal. The Bosniac nation must face this squarely: if our response to ourpresent danger remains that of our grandparents, we cannot hope for the killing to stop. There is an urgent need for the rethinking of our approach. Or rather, it may be more correct in this context to say that

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we need renewal,in order to re-dedicate ourselves to the struggle. W e should look for our renewal in the ancient freshness of Truth, Goodness and Beauty: we lost our links with these principles and forgot the real significance of our position among the nations, and the consequences have been weakness, loss and oblivion. We should respond to the latest slaughter by actively re-seeking the links to our ancient treasury of knowledge and wisdom: if we fail to do so, then we do not even deserve the pity for which we are asking. ContemporaryWestern civilisation is a curious growth on history’s trunk: it is unique among civilisations in having developed exclusively in a material direction, virtually divorced from transcendent principles. This growth is already severalcenturies old, and still on theincrease-while intellectuality* has taken an opposite turn and is increasingly on the decline. As contemporary society continues to develop its material aspects it cannot either halt or reverse the decline of the intellectual: rather there is growing confusion over what intellectuality actually means, and how to define it. Genuine intellectuality, which is discussed here, can be called spirituality. Meanwhile, the term ‘intellectual’ is incorrectly used to describe the contemporary obsession with the development of experimental science, with the goal ofpractical gain. There is nothing new or unexpected about the currentdecline of intellectual thought: it can be traced back throughout the development of contemporary philosophy. The latter has involved, according to RenC GuCnon3 growing obliviousness to genuine intellectuality and the rise of its alternatives, rationalism andsentimentality-apparently polar opposites, butin reality closely linked. Where they are dominant, all intellectual knowledge is ignored or denied-a trend apparent since Descartes. Positivism and agnosticism have been the logical consequence, followed by the modern retreat into ‘scientific research’. As the sterility of rationalism has become increasingly obvious, our culture has searched for ‘something else’, always in the realm of sentiment and instinct. To travel in this direction is, however, to sink below reason, not to rise above it. In the remorseless denial of the spiritual, our capacity to reach for Godwas relegated to thestatus of one of the phenomena of the subconscious. Truth, reduced to perceivedreality, was graded according to its pragmatic use. For what role is left for truth to play in a world interested only in the material and the sentimental? The consequences of this development in the relationship between humanity and the world are multiple. Since religion is the nucleus of Bosnian

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culture we will examine those consequences which are directly relevant to the religious perspective.The primary consequence, however, is clear: modem culture lacks roots; the social order of the contemporary world is not based on traditional principle. From the religious perspective religion and law are inseparable,but modernity has imposeda totally opposite viewpoint: religion is only a social fact andtherefore just one element among the many which comprise the social order. Accordingly, we are virtually unable to recognise the m e nature of the culture we inherited only to reject, since it grew principally from participation in a world other than our own. In the present-day situation of division and subdivisionof religious unity, those who publicly declare themselvesto be believers are nevertheless foremost among the forces for division: religion hasno influence on either their thinking or their behaviour, and iskept away from the real business oftheir existence. Today there is no significant difference between believers and non-believers. Both Muslims and Christians see no reality or meaning in the supernatural and the miraculous: they can no longer interpret the key messages of the sacred traditions, joining de facto in the materialist trend. This subconscious erosion is significantly more dangerous than conscious participation, since the participants are unaware ofits effects. Religion today for the majority of peopleis just an issue of personal feeling, without any intellectual importance. It is generally confused with a foggily sentimental ‘religiosity’ or reduced to pure morality. The role of doctrine, the mainspring of religion, is suppressed. The modem contempt for religion has been dangerously mixed withthe nationalistic manipulation of religiousmembershiphdentity: doctrine is exposed to abuse and placedat the service of anti-religious ideologies.It is interesting to note how eagerly contemporary writers on religion or religious perspectives usethe language of modern materialism-more enthusiastically, indeed, than do the express advocates of materialist ideology. Languageis a faithful mirror of thought, and this phenomenon strongly suggests that the meaning of religion is almost wholly forgotten or lost. Doctrine has been frittered away in exchange for moral and sentimental considerations. The latter may satisfy some, but will be rejected by all who are moved by genuinely intellectual considerations-for such there are still. It is increasingly common, however, to argue, in favour of rejecting doctrine, that the majority are incapable of understanding it, and must not be forced into dependence on an intellectual elite. But this begsanother question: what alternatives do we have to the materialist ‘reign of quantity’? If this falsely democratic principle is maintained, genuine intellectuality will

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lose its power to prevent the imposition of universal material slavery. Suspicion of genuine intellectuality is widespread in all forms of religious establishments today: it is common to most or all religious officials, demonstrable in their-often reckless-allianceswithpolitical structures. The nature of true intellectuality is as alien to them as it is to most modern philosophers. The revival of genuine intellectuality,the most important task facingour day and age,must be accompanied by a revival in the values given to teaching and learning. ‘It is high time,’ saidRenC GuCnon ‘to show that religion is something other than a matter of sentimental devotion, something other than mere moral precepts on the consolations available to souls weakened A significant transformation must take placein our attitudes by ~uffering.’~ towards values if we are to overcome our present state of alienation from Tradition. Otherwise we will be left with a lifeless, rotting inheritance, and be ourselves smothered ‘in the power and glitter of modern civilisation’. But we can still achievethis transformation-with the last few pulse-beats ofour culture: we can still becomereunited with whatwe have lost or forgotten. If we seek any other basis for understanding we will never find a way to become reconciled withTradition, which holds that man is created purely for the sake of Perfection. Science doesnot acknowledge or reach perfection: it is occupied with measuringthe phenomena of the mutable world, whilethe subject which doctrine deals with is permanent and eternal. Yet it is one of the crudest of paradoxesthat ‘the science of religion’ is hostile towards everything which still derives life from genuine intellectuality and the reality of Tradition. The fundamental questions which must be answered for the sake of understanding Bosniac culture include the key issue of symbolism asa method of communications-something which has become alien, or at the most marginal, to modem culture.Symbolismremains the best method of teaching and understanding religiousandmetaphysical truths, but these truths are largely rejected or ignored by modem thinking. Symbolism is fundamentally opposedto rationalism, and all enemiesof symbolism behave like exclusive rationalists. The fact that symbolism today is misunderstood demonstrates the need for more research into themeaning of the symbols of Tradition and the reconstruction of their intellectual content: at present they are dismissed as commonsentimental stimuli. Identifjmg the nucleus of Bosniac culture requires a renewal of genuine intellectuality and the doctrine of Tradition. This is, perhaps, also a precondition for the survival of Bosniacculture, for if it remains unaware ofits

The Diversity of Religions

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intellectual nucleus, nothing will survive but a pure reflection of the militaristic ideologies bent on the destruction of Bosnia and the Bosniacs. This renewal is, therefore, a task now facing every member of our community and every attempted form of group action. By accepting this task we will become redirected towards the secret centre, the heart which is never in any definable place but present everywhere, a treasure house of capacity more infinite than earth and sky. We will gain the opportunity to free ourselves from simplistic ‘understanding’ of the soul and the intellect by using approaches verydifferent from those whichcurrently prevail.

The Diversity of Religions Bosnia embraces a diversity of religions: Muslims, Christians and Jews are integral to the country’s unity. Jerusalem is their holy city: they trace their roots back to Abraham and their perceptions ofthe world are closely linked. We can see, in this diversity of faiths that share the single country of Bosnia-which is theirs just as Jerusalem is theirs-an enigma essential to their wider relationship. Is there any viable interpretation of the ‘unity of diversity’ of Muslims, Christians and Jews which corresponds with the uniqueness of Bosnia? If there is, how can it be demonstrated convincingly and separated from the complex battlefield which Bosnia has become? The differences between thesethree religions are used to cite the differences among their followers-yet why are their similarities not used to unite them? The unity of diversity can beinterpreted to mean that these religions are esoterically alike, but to the external view exoterically unlike. Thus we have several levels of identity: these faiths all look to a single God, but are expressed in a plurality of different expressions in the world of concrete forms. The plurality isvisible-the unity all but invisible. The unity in whichknowledgeandexistence-being-meet,isIntellect-what Meister Eckhart calls the uncreated and uncreatable factor of every human individuality. Eckhart is echoed in Islamictradition in the proverbial sayingthat the Sufi is uncreated.6 Man is both finite and infinite. The esoteric view shows us the eternal perfection underlying every transient form of religion: the external, exoteric components should serve to enrich our perceptions of this unity. However, our perception is being compelled, by modern trends of thought, to confine itself to the exoteric and ignore the esoteric: only that which can be empirically established has any validity. The universal science

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of metaphysics-humanity’s attempt to grasp spiritual principle-is disappearing from view. There are many possible answersto the riddle of re1igious.pluriformitybut not all are solutions. Theology cannot provide a confirmation of unity: it tends to justify the judging and subjectiveI, and suggest the deficiency of the judged and objective other. The next answer is the ‘objective and detached position’. The self of the subject is separatedfrom the object undergoing consideration. From this position all religions are debased in relation to the lofty detachment of the observer. Religion becomes pure phenomenon and is classed with other social phenomena: the class war, ontogenesis and the like. Yet the very subtraction of the self from the thing considered diminishes the value of this approach. The crudely individual self,its original purity overlaid by its mutable identity, is left to judge the validity of knowledge which is wholly immutable and independent of any one of its manifestations. The nextanswer we come to isphenomenology,which places all religionon a specifically human plane, divorcing it from the supraindividual. This approach deniespure intellectuality andthe universal reach of metaphysics, denying also that their origin may be anything other than human. Bosnia as a whole, with its diverse components of Judaism, Islam, Catholicism andOrthodoxy has endured many stresses, designedto pervert the unity of diversity into homogeneity. In the current decade the Bosnian Muslim component has become jeopardised through the process of mass killing and expulsion, rape, and the destruction of their homes and mosques. Those responsible for these crimes have been able to justify them in the eyes of the world, a t least partially, by calling on the brotherhood of Christian Europe. This is symptomatic of the universal processof withdrawal and isolation at all levels, both individual and group: sentimental and emotionalist reactionsare weakening our capacity for, and graspupon, life. We need to understand ourselves better: phenomenological analysis of religion can help us to compare ourselves with others, but cannot solve the riddle of religious pluriformity. The dogma and ritual of every religion can serve as the base for the claim that it alone offers truth: thus form is claimed to be truth. Forms are, however, finite-at best, they offer an analogy to something which is beyond form. When forms are thus closed and limited they compel other forms to become limited and hardened in reaction. If we confine ourselves to the exoteric view, no religion can be more than one of a crowd of contradictory forms and beliefs: but this contradicts the principle of absolutes, and the

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absolute nature of truth. If there are many apparent forms of truth, then in reality these must all be forms of a single truth. Beyond the limitations of form they point to the presence of an overwhelming absolute. Any religion is a sufficient guide to absolute principle-to that extent, all religions are in themselves comprehensive, absolute. Each hasthe potential to transcend all borders and embrace all truths. The form is the letter of religion; transcendence is the spirit.

Tradition Phenomenological analysis of all the religions of Bosnia, and their development in this country, confirms the relationship between their exoteric forms, their organic link to this country and its historical experience. Although the religions themselves are supra-national, transcending time and place, their dogma, morality and ritual have been expressedwithin the compound religious identity of Bosnia and have givencharacter to this identity. In spite of their close relationship, the preservation of their distinctions of form is an importantpart of this identity: phenomenology shows this process at work. Still more crucial, however, is the unity underlying these distinctions, as we find when we travel from phenomenology towards the origin of every religion.The root is unconditional; its forms are conditional: they reveal the root, but cannot affect it. Like all phenomena of the mutable world they declare the absolute, the unity where being andknowledge combine. The states of being and knowing lose all distinction, all duality when they arrive at the unity symbolised by the multitude of phenomena. Here the symbolised and the symbol meet and are one. The exoteric components of religion serve as guidesto the doors of heaven: the means to the end. T o know them, however, isthe first step: we journey from the exoteric to theesoteric, from the sign to what it signifies. The destructive effect that ideology hason religion is due to thefact that the exoteric aspectsof religion are all that ideology requires.Or rather, they are a means to a different end: instead of pointing to the esoteric, they can be turned round and made to point back to the ideology itself. Their presence implies the blessing of heaven on the purposes of the ideology: they are no longer capable of implying anythlng further. At its best, ideology providesthe self with a sense of liberation and limitless potential: wehave the concept of the freedom of the individual, of autonomy and its accompanying rights. However, all sense of other human

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states or purposes is lost:there is nothing beyond the individual which could act as a guide or offer knowledge ofthe self. Acceptance ofthe principle that the Intellect is everywhere present, enables humanity to confirm and strengthen itsascent of ‘the ladder of worlds’, to move from the conditional towards the Absolute. Tradition prescribes and enables this acceptance. A structure can be described as Traditional, if, to a greater or lesser extent but always consciously and voluntarily, it declares its dependence on doctrine, which has its foundations in Intellect. Tradition as doctrine may be purely intellectual, or religious when it includes many extraneous elements. Everything which is exoteric in religion-dogma, morality, ritual-has its roots in an esoteric unity. Therefore, if we find the exoteric form alien or incomprehensible, we should look beyond it to the esoteric origin and essence of the religion, instead of allowing ourselves to become distracted by the difficulties of form. For the follower of each religion, its forms are the outward signs of the road towards the Absolute; they offer a living connection with Truth. However, the exoteric form which has no link with transcendent unity remains a landmark rather than a signpost-even this, however, is better than wandering in a void. We are enabled to turn towards the source of meaning; thus theconditions are created for us to accept the Absolute. This process revealsthe presence of two expressions or levels of unity. The first dwells in forms which are authentic, in that they enable transition from the symbol to the signified. The second is the transcendence of the signified. In Christian esoterism, Christ is the symbol or manifestation of God, the Logos or Word of God. Exoterically viewed, Christ is the starting point of the two thousand year-old drama which spread from Palestine throughout the world, with all its historical, theological and phenomenological effects. Similarly, in Islamic esoterism, Muhammad is the most perfect symbol of God’s praise or Logos; from an exoteric point of view he is the centre of specific political, theological, and phenomenological developments. When Christ tells us that there is no road to God except through him-a claim also made by Muhammad-the apparent contradiction of these two statements is illusory. The presence of unity points to eternity as a human potential: without acceptance of unity it is impossible to transcend the finite, and the flawed and imperfect becomes the only reality. However, humanity was created for the sake of perfection and eternity: tradition enables us to be, in ourselves, in touch with the infinite, which is neither mediated nor conditional. The infinite speaks to humanity in ‘scriptures’ which are finite, and in thesymbols found in theworld and in ourselves. Eternity lies open to

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us: Intellect, present in doctrine, enables us to transcend ourselves and the world, to find the infinite in the finite. Intellect is present in all things, but reason as we know it is only present in humanity. Through the presence of Intellect, every symbol in the universe and in ourselves has its connection with unity. Through reason we establish our relationship with quantity and movement: it can never bring us beyond the measurable, no matter how comprehensive its generalisations may sound. There is nothing universal about reason; but Intellect is eternal. The single confirms the multitude; the presence of many revelations is the process of a single revelation. This expresses itself in finite, concrete forms, which are no more than symbols of eternity. Acceptanceof one commands the acceptance of others. Failure to accept is the implicit or willing denialof the contents of all sacred forms, denial of their relationship to the Spirit. The truth of the esoteric content of every religion istoday no longer accessible to the majority. The esoteric is offered to us through the forms and actions of the exoteric: once the existence ofthis kernel isdenied, the empty shell is easily broken. The fragments of exoterism are reducedto ‘fundamentalism’-which could better be described as literalism, or sentimentality. Once the living kernel is tom from the shell, the shell ceases to signify anything beyond itself, but can be set up as an idol, whosecult is the persecution of other religions and their followers. We have the paradoxical creation of heterodox religion: religion which denies and seeks the destruction of orthodox religion. We need to change our perspective, to accommodate the vast range of exoteric manifestations of religion through the acceptance of their single, esoteric base. And not only our perspective needsto be changed: to change our attitudes within the physical world is also to change them in the spiritual. The spiritual heart, the organ which receives revelations, corresponds with the eye ofthe physical body: Absolute Principle, which radiates light, is symbolised by the sun; Intellect is symbolised by light itself; the reality of God is what we seek by this light. The spiritual transcends the individual: the will of the individual is limited and passive in comparison. We cannot understand spirituality or religion merely by comparing exoteric forms and attempting to synthesisethem on the basisof their similarity: to do so would be superficial since it would confine us to the level of forms. Such a comparison could be of value to the extent that we would become better informed about the exoteric, but only if we bear permanently in mind its esoteric content.

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Forms can be used for evidence for and against similarity and difference: they can serve equally to forge relationships and to break them. To understand religion and its unity we need to understand that harmony can produce diversity. This harmony is spiritual: the single kernel a t the heart of every religion, the nucleus which gives religion life.7

Corruption Religion has three components which stem from different origins: dogma, moral law and cult or ritual. The first is the intellectual component, the second is social, while the third overlaps with both. The stability of a religion depends on the hierarchic relationship and balance betweenthese three components. Since the esoteric aspect of religion-that part which is founded on pure intellectuality-is the least readily accessible, we have dogmaas the systematised andstructured version of the underlying metaphysics. Dogma is the letter which must not be separated from the doctrinal spirit which created it. Although it can be readily seen as intellectual, since it deals with profundities, it is notin itselfpurelyintellectual, but necessarilyincludes nonintellectual, sentimental elements. This state of affairs is reflected in the use of the term ‘faith’, which can be distorted to mean blind acceptance of dogma. Faith is very different from certitude, which is a purely intellectual state. Sentimentality prevails still further where morality is concerned. Although morality has its foundations in religious dogma, it is primarily shaped by societal norms. Meanwhile, ritual has an intellectual aspect, to the extent that it symbolises doctrine, but is social, since i t involves a form of behaviour in which allmembers of the religious community must take part. Whenever the social and sentimental aspects of religion prevail over the intellectual, dogma and ritual lose their true role, and religion declines to socially accepted morality. Morality itself can playone of two roles:it can be a part of dogma, since the latter enshrines its principles; or in philosophical mode it can be seen as independent-a diluted form of the Absolute. Both morality and religion are vulnerable to sentimentality, which today has succeeded in virtually overwhelming intellectuality. The next step is the reduction of religion to the level of nation and state. Wherever this process takes place, intellectuality vanishes, to be replaced by political ideology, which forces religion to perform a specifically anti-religious role. Today, this distortion is all too common. Phenomenological analysis of this rising antireligion, focused on each religion in turn,gives a bleak view of the future.

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Islam through Phenomenology Understanding the presence and effects of Islam at any one time or place requires an insight into the principles and purposes of the Islamic mission, and the environment and conditions in which they are being observed. Islam placesthe relationship between God as the Creator and humanity as the creature a t the centre of its world-view. The nature of this relationship is what defines man’s salvation or fall. God is the Creator of all, whose signs can be seen in everything created, yet who is unique and incomparable. At the centre of creation is humanity, itself both internally and externally a symbol. God has placed symbols communicating the divine nature ‘in the horizons and in human selves’.* Humanity has the right to salvation: all other rights are God’s. Humanity’s realisationof this right depends on submission to God’s laws. Humanity, by submission to God’s laws, realises perfect freedom. As God’sslave, humanity recognisesand understands God’s symbols in the environment: everything good is ascribed to God, and is perceived as goodin proportionto its nearness to God. God sends humanity prophets and messengers who instruct them in the Truth, thus leading them from ‘the depths of darkness towards the light’9. The best among humanity is the foremost prophet of God, and, through a series of such prophets, God’s guidance and instructions are passed to humanity. All prophets declare a single truth to humanity, acting both as evidence of God’s truth and interpreters of God’s symbols ‘inthe horizons and in human selves’. According to Islamicbelief, theprophet Muhammad stands at the end and beginning of the series of God’s prophets, the Light and Seal of Creation. He confirms the truths of all the previous prophets and corrects blunders and false constructions previously made. His arrival turns the whole world into a mdjid,lO a place where humanity’s relationship with the self and the world can be formed on the basis of God’s Message and the Example of the Messenger of God. All people are called to this masdjid, and the fundamental goal of Islam is to ensure that all have the right to respond freely and to belong to this masdjid of the world. The concept of this undertaking has taken various forms during the expansion and interpetation of this message: this is the frame in which the presence of Islam in Bosnia should be understood. The examination of Islam’l should trace its vertical threads through history down to the present day. All prophets of God, from Adam onwards, were within Islam-that is, in submission to God. Just as Christian tradition points to the Word and the Light as the beginning (in the opening chapter

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of the Gospel of St. John, the principalgospelof the ancient Bosnian Church), in Islamic tradition the Creation was also preceded by Light, the light of Muhammad. All prophets-one hundred and twenty-four thousand of them according to Islamic tradition-were aware of this principal light, transmitted through them during the course of time to shine out in the birth and life of Muhammad, the son of ‘Abd Allah (the slave ofGod). This essential Islam has left its imprint in multitudes of languages, times and places. It retains indestructible life and newness, since it reflects the mercy of God: ‘There is no God but He, theLiving, the Everlasting. Slumber seizes Him not, neither sleep.’** The history of Islam belongs to the wider history of all sacredtraditions. These traditions are, in a narrow sense, the historic trends sparked by the various revelations of this light. Our approach to Islam should also be lateral, to include the phenomena which are joined to Islam at the root, but have taken various directions: Islam is a religion of messages and prophecies, and all its forms recognise this inheritance. We should also incorporate the sociological standpoint, examining varioussocial groups and conditions while taking account of Islamic relations towards world unity, balanced against the attitudes of national entities and individual groups. Whichever of these approaches is adopted it will speedily confirm that Islam, like its fellow religions, defined as perfection and the road towards perfection, evades scientific definition. All scientific approaches to Islam, therefore, must necessarily be incomplete, while nevertheless necessary on that account. Meanwhile, there is no complete phenomenological portrayal of Islam: this is therefore the approach used by this book to interpret Islam in Bosnia.13 We willmove from examinationof outward forms to the deeper layers of the human response to God’s instructions and guidance, and finallyto theinnermost nucleus of Islam. Islam is deeply concerned with the relationship of the external to the internal, the form to the content. According to Islam, the diversity of the world reflects the Unity of God: humanity has always had the capacity to recognise and comprehend this unity. The world is a Book of God, laying God’s Message open to humanity in clarity and fullness. This Book, composed of myriad letters, is in all its forms the sign of the Creator. The truth of the World and the Book is measured by what they symbolise. Thus the D m Absconditus (‘And equal to him is not anyone7l4)is the D m Revelam. The D m Absconditus leads people through His messages and prophets to the True Road, and then they know him as the D m Revelam (‘God who Declares Himself Is and ‘GodWho speaks‘16).

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Humanity learns howto find the roads that lead upto thelevel of becoming the convinced slave ofGod. All forms of approaching God require first that the illusion of the individual self should beshattered, and commitment to God made. Whoever serves God acts as God’s viceregent, the guardian and advocate of Goodness.Those who actfor themselves alone, makingthe blunder of independence fromGod, act as the tool and advocate of evil. Any part of humanity which has acceptedthe reality of livingin the world as an umma, is under obligation to attempt the transformation of the world into a medina, whererelationshipstowards other human beings are defined by Tradition: ‘by religion and by religious laws’. The world will shape itself around ‘the best nation ever brought forth to men, bidding to honour and forbidding dishonour, and believingin God’.” The phenomenological approach to Islamwhichwehavechosenis the method proposedby the Sufi of Baghdad, Abu’l-Husaynan-Nuri (d. 907), and similar to that of his contemporary al-Hakim at-Tirmidhi.I8 Based on the Kur’an, Nuri’s concentric formula works inwards fromthe external forms of holiness towards the most internal coreof religion. In this model there is no God but God, and the heart is simultaneously the centre and the sphere in which the unification of the human I with God’s I can take place. It is composed of four principal concentric circles, embracinga core or centre: (l) the breast ( d r )is connected with Islam;l9(2)the heart (kalb)is the place of faith (im&”the heart enables internalisation of purely external usage of religious forms, andis therefore the organ of the purely spiritual aspects of religious life; (3)the inner heart @’ad) is the place of intuitive gnostic knowledge (m’rzja21),whereGod’sknowledgecanbeapproached‘from us’,Z2 with nothing to mediate between; (4) the most internal core of the heart (Zubb) is the place ofunity (ta~hid~~)-thisis the place of experiencingthe One who is, was, and will be frometernity to eternity, as being both visible and attainable. The circles are made up as follows: the first circle comprises the sacred subject, the good act, the good word, the good scripture, the good individual, the good community. The second consists ofGod, the Message, Salvation; the third is submission, faith, love; the fourth is D m Revelam, holiness, truth; and the fifth, the central, D m Absconditus.

I. The outer circle, or the world of external forms, covers three areas: (1) sacred matter, sacred space, sacred time, sacred numbers, sacred acts; (2) the sacredword; the spokenword (that of God or hischosen prophets); Tradition, teaching, learning; the language of prayer to God (asking, thanking,repenting, recollecting, whispering);

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(3) the written word-the Messenger or Book ofGod; (4) the righteous man and the righteous community. II.The second circle, the first of the inner circles, is the world of religious imagination, meditation, perception, regarding the invisible being and the visible and invisible actions of God: (1) the concept of God; (2) the concept of creation (cosmology and anthropology), including concepts of the original states of the world andhumanity; (3) the concept of the Message, as the nearness of God’s will as revealed in history and the soul; (4) the concept of salvation; (5) the concept of the afterworld andthe conditions within it.

m. The third circle represents the world of religious experience, that is, what happens deep in the soul, as opposed to fantastic or rationalist concepts of God; the religious values which are tossed aside in the conflict between humanity and the sacred, and the accomplishing of sacred acts: (1) respect (for God and His Holiness); (2) fear; (3)faith andtotal trust in God; (4) hope; (5) love, desire for God, surrender to Him, returning to God’s love. Together with these values are grouped the values of peace, joy, the desire to share and take part, and special religious experiences: inspiration, miraculous appearances, the recognition of a call, enlightenment, seeing and hearing, ecstasy, strange physical powers.

TV.The real world of religion in the chosen model corresponds to the innermost circle. This centre is God’s Reality, which can be encountered in all external forms, inner perception, and experiences of the soul in a twofold sense: (1) Deus Revelatus, or God Who has His Face towards mankind, as perfect holiness, truth, justice and love, mercy, salvation; (2) Deus Ipse or Deus Absconditus, experienced asperfect unity. in human forms ofexpression, God’srealitycanneverbemanifest thought and experience.All levels ofour experience can be described only as

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emanations from God’s Unity or as returning to God. The created is the sign of the Creator, and its reality-which is always of a lower order than the Creator, since the Creator is always higher in relation to the created-is only found in Him. The phenomenological analysis of Islam in Bosnia must take account of the fact that, from the Islamic standpoint, Bosnia’s unity of diversity is an uninterrupted current, both in respect of the forms of religion and as regards their inner content. For Islam there is nothing in space or time which is outside God’s rule, God’s revelation and God’s guidance.Therefore Islam sees manifestations of its own essence in all holy traditions, perhaps distorted by history, but never destroyed. In the Bosnian inheritance of sacred traditions, Islam readily acknowledges blood ties,just as the followers of the Church ofBosniasaw in Islam the fulfilling of something they already had-not a denial of what they believed.

The Science of Symbols The foundation of sacred tradition is the science of symbols.24 Modem civilisation has promoted ratio to the highest level, and humanity as a whole is ‘categorised’ accordingly. Intellect-man’s capacity for relationship with the remote and supra-rational-is losing the place it once held in every sacred tradition. Intellect in its original significance is accordingly a target for modem hostility, since it is concerned with the truth which transcends the world and so denies the rationalist view that the only world is the world that can be measured and defined. Religion is seen as a mere aberration of the subconscious, and defined as‘a product of social conditions’. In this environment, Tradition’s truthscannot beaccessed,since contemporary man is all but incapable of seeing any meaning in sacred science and sacred art. Both believers and agnostics share the same view of symbols and their role: nothing inside the world need be interpreted as pointing to what is outside it. Symbolismhas been relegated to the lowest rank in the hierarchy of those issues which are seen as concerning humanity today, yet it is the most important in our search for a possible transformation of the consciousness which makes us the captives and victims of ‘nature’. The issue of symbolism is of fundamental importance for humanity. Without symbolism there can be no understanding of the origins or the purpose of man’s presence in the world. ‘The seven heavens and the earth, and whosoever in them is, extol

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Him; nothing is, that does not proclaim H i s praise, but you do not understand their extolling’, comments the K ~ r ’ a n ‘I . ~was ~ hidden Treasure, and I loved to be known, and so I created the Universe.’26 The message is clear: everything ‘in the horizons and in human selves’ has the significance of a symbol celebrating God. ‘Naught is there but its treasuries are with Us, and We send it down, but ina known measure... It is We who give life, and make to die, and it is We who are the inheritor^.'^' Thus, the archetypes of everything existing in the world and among human beings remain with God, ‘and unto Himall matters are returned’?* Since nothing can be pure being, nor have meaning in itself, everything ‘in the seven heavens andon earth’ belongs among the multitude of symbols which testify to the Heavenly Treasure. Humanity, in falling, lost the capacity to recognise ‘God’s praise’in every symbol. The First Man’s seizure of ‘the forbidden fruit’ is symbolic ofthis failure: he tookpossession ofwhat was merely a symbol, instead of recognising ‘God’s glory’ in this same symbol. He mistook a sign for the destination. Thus he lost the capacity to approach the higher truths. His heart, as the organ for direct recognition of these truths, became darkened. But the symbols found in the world and revealed in ritual, indivisible from sacred science and sacredart, retain their potential to remove the eclipse separating soul and heart: the possibility offered by God’s prophets and the Good. The rope of salvationis thrown to humanity, its fibres pulsing with the life of higher worlds. This series of worlds, ranked from lowest to highest, enables the gradual transformation of the symbols offered by the earthly world into fuller symbols of God, by which humanity climbs towards, or returns to, the First and Last. In this ascent our fallen selves are renewed, returned to the state of the First of humanity. The proverb ‘The world is a great man and man is a small world’29 reminds us of the interrelated nature of symbols. ‘That which is below is as that which is above, and that which is. above is as that which is below.’30 Singleness, unity or indivisibility of Being is the first principle emphasised by metaphysics. It contrasts with the conditional nature of all states of existence except pure Being. Conditionality means interdependence, and this includes the cause-consequence chain which binds the infinity of created states. The science of signs, or symbolism, is the language which explainsoften with geometric strictness of definition-the causal sequence. The interpretation of symbols and signs is the origin and foundation of religious teaching, but has been eclipsed and lost to the West since the Renaissance. Humanity’s loss of awarenessof the central organ, which links

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us to the real axis of the world, means our imprisonment on the surface of only one level of existence. The whole of Being, from the smallest to the greatest of its manifestations in space and time, participates in general principles, whose eternal and unchangeable archetypes are stored in the Treasury. Nothing ‘in the horizons and in human selves’ (Kuian) exists outside these principles. The eternal and unchangeable essence of every symbol, revealed in the world of material phenomenain an empirical form, is stored in God’s intellect. From this it follows that all phenomena, from the countless multitudes of existential levels,are interrelated. This comprehensive relationship takes the form of universal harmony, reflecting the principle unity of the world’s manifold phenomena: it is on this relationship that the science of symbols is founded. This science is able to define the forms and relationships of all symbols, no matter which sacred tradition is taken as its focus. It sets in motion the process of denying the unreal and confirming and acknowledging the Real, synthesising the phenomena of existence in systematic comparison. Each synthesis shapesthe unique identity of every individualtradition among the multitude of sacred laws and ways.The role of symbols isto re-inspire humanity, to revive awareness that we have the capacity to overcome every boundary and limitation: to recognise the presence of the Ineffable in every objectin theliving world. Ritual and symbolsare aspects of this fundamental nucleus of sacred science. Both lead the disciple on to the ladder of accepting the Most High, transforming everything in the horizons and the self into the rungs of the ladder, a sequential scale spanning all existence. Thus all degrees of existence facilitate humanity’s union with the higher states of Being. The whole world is ordered according to the corresponding attitude within the human soul. N o crack is left between the First and the Last, the Outer and the Inner. The good human being isthe most perfect symbol of God.31 Every phenomenon is, to a greater or lesser extent, a symbol enabling this spiritual realisation. The most fundamental of these symbols are the sacred forms and Names of God, contained in the Message or revealed in the speech of the One who was in Himself an image of the Message. Next we have the variousphysicalmanifestationsof the sacredrelationshipsacred scriptures, the temple. These are reflected in all efforts to ensure that the Speech ofGod is ‘heard’ andthat thescripture of the word is ‘read’. Bosniac identity is rooted in the symbolic elements of its sacred traditions and can therefore only be fully understood through the science of symbols. The disappearance of this science from the visible remainder of the Bosniac

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inheritance has driven the Bosniac people to participate unconsciously in their own division anddestruction. From day to day they act in parallel with the declared enemies of this identity, possessing no greater understanding of the symbols of their own sacred science and their sacred art than do the latter. However, Bosnia’s surviving Sufi tradition has maintained the link with this heritage, as the symbols dealt with in this and the next chapter show.

Speech into Script Speech is the origin of the image: behind every image is the speech which created it and which remains essential to it. It therefore seeks a separate dimension for its transformation into the perceptible. Speech is realised in the scriptures, which embody and preserve the praise of the One who cannot be reached by the mind alone. In Arabic script an individual letter represents every sound: these letters have no pictorial origin but are formed by the kalem, the split reed with a double point. Using this, the writer shapes the letters, singly or intertwining. The split reed symbolises the outpouring of knowledge from the act of the first creation, the role of which was to reveal God. This script travels horizontally, at the level of existence, journeying from the right, which is the area of action, to the left, that is, towards the region of the heart. Thus writing demonstrates the journey from the external towards the internal. Writing can be compared with weaving: both suggest the crossing of the horizontal earthly axis with the vertical axis of heaven. In weaving, the warp threads are vertical: the shuttle unites them as it travels to and fro, carrying the weft thread horizontally. The repeated movements of the shuttle resemble the cycleof night and day, months and years, while the still and upright warp corresponds to the polar axis of the globe. This axis is single but is repeated by each of the warp threads, just as the now always remains single, although appearing to be multiplied infinitely throughout time. The horizontal movement of writing corresponds to change and growth, while its vertical strokes represent the essential stability of Being. The horizontal components of writing are divided and separated along the horizontal plane, but the vertical components are united in their parallel, upwards movement, just as human identities are separate, but their sacred paths climb uniformly upward. The horizontal movement of the writing desires to level and disperse the essential forms of different letters. But

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the upright spear-strokes of these letters break the flow of writing. The upright elements are united, confirming the one and only Being; and the horizontal elements are divided, in the sense that they spread out into a multitude of separate units.32 The endless repetition of the alifand lam is echoed along the horizontal flow by the repetition of abundant and various curves. This repetition of form is reminiscent of a tree, recalling the image used bythe K ~ r ’ a n . ~ ~ T h e world is like a tree, whose branches and leaves develop from one and the same trunk. The letter of the revealed book is like a leaf. Just as the leaf connects to the branches, letters are connected into words, then into sentences, and finallyinto the oneand wholeTrue Book. This springs from the first words, which are indivisible from the Intellect, the Light or the Word: thus their tranformation into the written letter preserves the original link with the first sounds ever heard. The words of Creation embody the paradox of perfect openness towards the non-perfect. It seems excessive to record them, since they are straight from the indestructible Treasury of God. Only a limited number of these symbols were revealed to the M ~ c h - P r a i s e d .But ~ ~ the Kur’anic image of the pen, which inscribes the destiny of all beings on the tablet of Life, reveals the permanent pattern of movement reaching outwards from the Secret, with the purpose of enabling humanity to hear and see at least some of the signs ofGod. The pen symbolises the Holy Spirit or Intellect. Therefore knowledge of listening and writing can only aim towards Perfection by way ofthe human focus through which God interpreting all.36 The writing of the Message is, therefore, a direct form of participating in the revelation of Unity to the world. This kind of writing becomes sacred art, for all the world’s symbols leadfrom, or return to, the original ‘naming ofphenomena’ thus reflecting God’s Act.Thus sacred science and sacredart are indivisible: they alone reveal the Truth as the First and Last, the Outer and Inner. ‘He has knowledge of everything.’ The relationship of God’s speech to scripture is symbolised in the expression ‘Light upon Light’. T o limit that Spirit is to lose it. The black script on the white parchment is the ‘Light upon Light’37-but if it lacks living connection to the voice of the First and the Last, the Outer and Inner, it is darkness, sealing off the exits out of the lower world. The Kur’anic claim that the Prophet received the essential Message is underlined by the fact that the Message did not spring from any skill in reading andwriting3*-for theProphet was illiterate. But reading and

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writing the Message are the foundation of its science, the centre of God’s order. ‘Recite: In the name of the Lord who created ... who taught by the pen.’j9 Writing down the Message is an act of faith in perfection. Thus we have the sacred art of writing the Message, which is also a road to receiving the Word and which simultaneously purifies and raises. Our sense of the beauty of the voice and the richness of language, the conviction that they are the guarantee of all that has sprung up in response to God’s ‘Be’, have been produced by the beauty and richness of the script. The urgent sense that the Message must be written down led to the understanding that the script is itself an element of what it conveys, and that it must recreate, through visual experience, something which corresponds to the previous experience of listening. In art which relates to faith we should try to discern what can be defined as sacred art in the strictest sense, and what is religious but not sacred. This process of discernment means recognising the differences between the forms of art which express their transcendent archetypes, and those which are, to a greater or lesser extent, divided from that archetype. The presence of sacred art guarantees the reliability of every sacred tradition. ‘For a religion to be considered intrinsically orthodox-and extrinsic orthodoxy hangs upon particular formal elements which cannot apply literally outside their own perspective-it must rest upon a fully adequate doctrine of the Absolute; then it must extol and actualise a spirituality that is equal to this doctrine and thereby include sanctity within its ambit both as concept and reality; this means that it must be of Divine, and not philosophical origin, and thus be charged with a sacramental or theurgic presence manifesting itself particularly in miracles and-though this may surprise some-in sacred art.’40 The role of sacred art is comparable to the role of the Message in producing effects in human souls which help lead them in the direction of Truth. It restored to new generations something of what was revealed to earlier generations by the presence of the prophets. God says to the Prophet ‘Surely thou art upon a mighty morality!’41This sense of the highest is expanded by learning and writing the Kur’an: its voice and scripture revive the internal being of humanity and help ensure that the actions of looking and listening are all brought inside God’s will. Humanity, the physical and spiritual, takes up once again its destined role of mediator between earth and heaven. Every individual reflects Perfection, but every individual reveals the various aspects of Perfection differently. Every soul receives the imprint of God’s call in a different way. The Message renews this imprint, reviving the

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relationship between God and humanity as it was on the First day.4* This suggests why sacred art should be imper~onal.~~ The artist who most perfectly reflects Holiness, and who is most completely submitted to it, knows that the result of his labour is not actually his. His ‘artistic work‘ ascends Jacob’s ladder of return.* Creation cannot be divided from revelation, for God creates in order to be revealed. The writing of the Message returns its writer, reader and reciter to the Beginning-which in a wider sense means the End; theExternal and the Internal. God’s Essence is best imaged in duality-Magnificence and Beauty. Every aspect of Magnificence and Beauty reveals itself in further duality and thus in infinity. This double manifestation corresponds to the two states to which all forms are subject: ‘attraction’ and ‘radiance’. One of the names of Magnificence is ‘That which gathers’4Sand of Beauty, ‘that which expands’.46 God is Magnificent in relation to the world which reveals Him. The archetype of this relationship is the duality of Creator-Creature. ‘Ai’s tale of the bat helps illustratethis duality: the bat overturns all our perceptions; its anomalous status between beast and bird, night and day, reminds us that we cannot lightly assumethat we have grasped the meaning of God’s symbols. ‘Anexample ofHis delicate production, wonderful creation and deep sagacity whichHe has shown us is found in these bats which keep hidden in the daylight although daylight reveals everything else, and are mobile in the night, although the night conceals everyother living thi11g.’~7 Although holy speech and holy scripture are a t the centre of Bosniac culture they are signs which are open to be read by all.They limit nothing: rather, they offer interpretation, for those who listen and look, from the temporal towards the Eternal, from creation towards the Uncreated. They express Perfection, but do so within the conditionality of the causal sequence. Every light may bedark, if it is not a sign ofthe perfect Light; every speech dumb, if it does not reach the First and Last; every vision blind, if it does not find the imprints left by the question ‘AmInot your Lord?’ scattered throughout existence. Thus we understand how the bat came to be the sacred creature of Bosniac culture.48Of all symbols it best reminds us of the mystery of God, of the unity all-present within the diversity of creation. Every inscription of the Message incorporates an eternal inversion. The science of letters can never be ‘the interpretation of all’: this is symbolised by the finite darkness of the letters on the page, surrounded by a white expanse symbolising endless light. The beating of the heart in perpetual contraction and expansion leads back to the voice which is the source of the world, its images and names.

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NOTES 1 The quotation is taken from a well-known speech of Hassan to Sheikh Ahmed:‘The

most complicated people on the face of the earth. Not on anyone else has history played the kind of joke it’s played on us. Until yesterday we were what we want to forget today. But we haven’t become anytlung else. We’ve stopped halfway on the path, dumbfounded. We have nowhere to go any more. We’ve beentom away from our roots, but haven’t become part of anythmg else. Like a tributary whose course has been diverted from its river by a flood and which no longer has a mouth or a current; it’s too small to be a lake, too large to be absorbed by the earth. With a vague sense of shame because of our origins, and guilt because of our apostasy, we don’t wantto look back and have nowhereto look aheadof us. Therefore we try to hold back time, afi-aid of any outcome at all. We are despised both by our kinsmen and by newcomers, and we defend ourselves with pride and hatred. W e wanted to save ourselves,but we’re so completely lostwe don’t even knowwho we are anymore. And the tragedy is that we’ve come to love our stagnant aibutary and don’t want to leave it. But everydung has a price, even this love of ours. I s it a coincidence that we’re so overly softhearted and overly cruel,so sentimental and hard-hearted, joyful and melancholy, always ready to surprise others and even ourselves? Is it a coincidence that we hide behind love,the only certainty in this indefiniteness? Arewe letting life pass by us for no reason, are we destroying ourselves for no reason, not in the same way as Jamail, but just as certainly? Why are we doing it? Because we’re not indifferent. And if we’re not indifferent, that means we’re honest. And if we are honest, then let’s hear it for our madness!’ (Mesa Selimovid, Death and the Dervish, translated by Bogdan Rakidand Stephen M. Dickey [Evanston,19961, pp.4 0 8 4 9 . ) 2 In this book the terms intellect and doctrine (teaching) are used in their original sense, which differs considerably from the one that is most commonly used nowadays. Intellect (Arabic al-‘aql, Latin intellemu), which is often translated as mind, has more levels of meaning. It can denote a general principle of all intelligence, a principle that transcends the limiting circumstances of thoughts. Reflection of the General Intellect in thoughts can also be called ‘intellect’; in that case it corresponds to what was called reason in ancient times. The heart corresponds to the supra-rational intuition in the same wayas the brain corresponds to thoughts. The fact that present-day people place their feelings, rather than intellectual intuition, in the heart proves that emotion is for them at the centre of the individual. Dom’ne (teaching) (Arabic al-‘akida, Latin domina) is systematically organised and active knowledge of religious truth, based on the interpretation of signs-images, symbols and parables, arranged on thehorizons and human selves. Such a doctrine leads, via the stations of wisdom (fear, love, knowledge), to discernment in terms of dividing, and to cognition in terms of uniting. 3 RenC GuCnon, SymBoles de la Science sacrie (Paris, 1962), p. 9. 4 Guenon (1962), p. 12. 5 As the Revelation bases its message about the world on recognition and understanding of the sign (ayah),the word ‘symbolism’ corresponds to the ‘Science of Signs’, discussed in more detail in another work by the present author: 0 n a u h znaku (Onthe Science ofsip),(Sarajevo, 1996).

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6 The Sufi is the human equivalent of Intellect, since his whole task is to prevail over the world of forms and travel from multiplicity towards unity. This enables him to see one within many. For him all forms are clear: they reveal to him their nature as signs of the Ineffable. H e knows the truththat thereis no clearer sign of God than that which man incorporates. His nature confirms his creator. Human nature generally, and human mentality in particular, are incomprehensible outside religious terms. Religion defines them directly and fully. Understanding both the structural and the non-structural elements of religion means understanding religion in its pluriformity-on the level of gnosis, the religio perennis, in which the external barriers created by dogma are resolved. 7 For a fuller study of the issue, see Frithjof Schuon, TheTranscendent Unity of Religions (Wheaton, 1984). 8 4153. 9 65:ll. 10 The Prophet said: ‘The earth has been made sacred and pure and a mosque for me.’ H e also said: ‘The earth is a mosque for you, so wherever you are at the time of prayer, pray there.’ In another tradition he said: ‘The whole earth has been made a mosque for us.) The traditions have been recorded in Al-jami’-us-sahib (Sahib Muslim), I, 194, (Riyadh, S. a.), pp. 264-265. 11 T h e term islam is used here in its fourfold sense: 1) universal submission to God and God’s laws; 2) the last Revelation of God with its centrality and comprehensiveness; 3) civilisation that was generated by the Last Revelation; 4) politicalreligious viewswhichplace notions of human society on opposite sides of a scale-on one side is whatever is submitted to, and governed by, God’s Law, on the otherside is that which is submitted to, and governed by, secular laws. 12 2:255. 13 This phenomenological model is based on theworks of Friedrich Heiler,Das Gebet (Munich, 1923), and Erscbeinungsformen und Wesen der Religion (Stuttgart, 1961). See also Annemarie Schimmel, Deciphering the Signs of God: A pbenmenolopjcalappoacb to Islam (Edinburgh, 1994). 14 112:4. 152:llS. 16 31:27. 17 3:llO. 18 Paul Nwyia, Exe‘gEse coranique et langage mystique(Beirut, 1970); see also al-Hakim at-Tirmidhi, Bayan al-frq bayna’ s-sadr wa’l-qal6 wa’l-$’ad wa’l-lubb (Cairo, 1958). 19 39:22. 20 49:7. 21 53:ll. 2218:65. 23 2:163-164, 3:17,4171, 1651, etc. 24 Sign (Arabic aya, Hebrew otb, Aramaic &hi, A , Syriac atba, Greek semeion) has a wide range of meanings in this text; that range encompasses sign in its narrower sense and symbol (Greek symkkm, Latin symbolum) in the broader sense. It is worth noting here that symbol is impossible to define, since breaking through per-

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ceptions and uniting extremes into a unique view ispart of its nature. Words cannot convey its true value. It has an exceptional ability to unite unconscious and conscious influences in one expression, as well as instinctive and spiritual forces that clash or are growing into harmony in man. Sign in the modem understanding is not the same as symbol, since a sign can be arbitrary, so that thedeterminant and the determined remain strange to each other, while symbol represents a connection between the determinant and the determined. The symbol is therefore more than the sign: it refers from the other side of meaning and depends on interpretation. Since the Revelation uses sip (aya) for the entire range of phenomena of universal existence, this term is being used in this text in accordance with the attitude that every phenomenon is a sign that serves spiritual materialisation or completion of man’s centre and comprehensiveness in the entirety of creation. For different kinds ofsigns in God’s messages,and ways of interpreting them, see Rusmir MahmuttehajiC (1996). 25 1744. 26 Muhammad Baqir Majlisi,Biharal-nmar, LxxxvlI (Tehran, 1301-15), p. 199. 27 1S:21, 23. 28 3:109. 29 This Sufi saying is quoted in Titus Burckhardt, Introduction a m Doctrines isoth-ip e s de I’Islam (Paris, 1969), p. 77. 30 The words are from the Emerald Ta6let of Hermes Trismegistus. They form part of an alchemical document which can be traced through the Middle Ages to Arabic sources such as Jabir, who claimed he was quoting from Apollonius of Tyana. See Whitall N. Perry, A Treamry of Traditimal Wirdom (Cambridge, 1991), p. 302. 3 1 Titus Burckhardt, De I’Homme universe1( Paris, 1975), p. 4. 32 Titus Burckhardt, Art ofIslam (London, 1976), p. 47; see also Martin Lings, The Quranic art of Calligraphy and illumination (London, 1987), p. 17, etc. Convincing interpretations of the role, development and techniques of calligraphy in the sacred art of Islam can be found in Yasin H. Safadi, Islamic calligraphy (London, 1978); Annemarie Schimmel, Calligrnphy and Islamicnrlture (London, 1990); Nadjib M.Hirawi, The Art of Bibliopegy in Islamic Civilization: A Collection ofArtides on Penmanship,Ink Making, Papers, Gilding nndBook Binding (Mashhad, 1993); Wheeler M. Thackston, ‘The role of calligraphy’, in Martin Frishman and Hasan-Uddin Khan, The Mosque: History, Architectural Development and Regional Diversity (London, 1994): 43-5 3. 3314:24-25. 34 17:l. 35 See Nahj Al-Balaghah (1994), p. 166, and Muhammad ibn Isma’ilal-Bukhari, Sahib al-Bukhari (Beirut, 1985), Lx;7w:37. 36 24:35. 37 Ibid. 38 7:157-158. 39 96:1,4. 40 Frithjof Schuon, Islam and the Perennial Philosophy(London, 1976), p. 14. 41 68:4.

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42 7:172. 43 See Titus Burckhardt, V i z Wesen Heiliger kknst in den Weltreligionen (Freiburg im Breisgau, 1990). 44 Genesis, 28:12. 45 Arabic aI-Qabid. 46 Arabic al-Basit. 47 NahjAl-Balaghnh, pp. 124-125. 48 See Emilian Lilek, ‘Vjerske starine iz Bosnei Hercegovine’ (‘Religious antiquities fromBosniaandHerzegovina’), GIasnik Zemaljkog muzqa (The Herald of the Country Museum), 3-4, VI (Sarajevo, 1894), pp. 367,646.

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CHAPTER 3

DUALISM RESOLVED

Introduction

T

HE polarised model of ‘we’ and ‘they’ is inherently unstable: its dualityis the source of negation, homogenisation, or division. ‘They’ are always in the wrong; ‘we’ are always right. The individual and group self is exteriorised.The sense ofthe inner self is lost, the sense of the other is distorted into alienation and hostility.In the context of this relationship, religion can only serveby virtue of its exoteric content: its esoteric nature is worse than useless. Since forms are limited in themselves, but infinite in number, exoteric phenomena, as we have seen, cannot be reconciled if isolated from their esoteric content. The denial and destruction of the exoteric forms of one religion in the name of another religion is justifiable only through denying the esoteric foundations of both. Wherever this conflict of forms is present we see a loss ofrespect for, and awareness of,the esoteric in religion, or-touse the phraseof the Evangelist-the Holy Spirit. All forms of religion present in the world testify in their different ways to the Holy Spirit: its denial, therefore, carries its own guilt. Christ tells us: ‘Whoever speaks against the Son of Man, it will be forgiven him; but whoever speaks againstthe Holy Spirit will have forgiveness neither in this world nor thenext.’l The three religions of Bosnia-Christianity, Judaism and Islam-can be seen as different but doctrinally complete exoteric expressions of one and the sameReality. Their single forefather, the prophet Abraham,has an

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endless diversity of offspring:thus his name means ‘father of multitudes’ in a more than strictly genealogical sense. Faced withthe transience of worldly forms, blown hither and thither by the Spirit of God, Abraham saw permanence in mutability, unity in multiplicity, peace in motion. He renewed his earthly existence through finding a unity which was his forever. He remembered what humanity had forgotten, and reunited himself with what humanity had let slip. Thus he achieved a balance of the outer and inner, through a complete perception of unity. Two branches have sprung from him: both speak of this rediscovered unity, but in tongues whichhave nothing to do with the unalterable structure of dogma, morality and ritual. That structure incorporates the risk of obliviousness to its underlying purpose, but the latter canneverbewhollylost. The oral tradition handed down from Abraham still flourishes in both branches: that stemming from Ishmael, and that stemming from Isaac. This link with unity achieves wholeness in the Torah, revealed by God to Moses, the source of all exoteric manifestations of Judaism. As a law, it is complete. In all times and all places not ‘one iota, one tittle of the letter of the law’* is missing. This law provides the bridge to the esoteric source. It was elaborated and developed in the multitude of revelations given to the prophets who succeeded Moses, and throughout the history of the Children of Israel, but the Mosaic Law remained the starting point and central focus. Thus the unity of Abraham incorporates duality-his absolute relationship with Unity achieved two expressions, each complete in itself. The first was the Letter, the second the Spirit; the first Outer, the second Inner. Their balance is reflected in the temple’s focus upon the Holy Name-this is the fulfilment of exoterism in perfect mutuality with its esoteric source. With the ‘tearing of the curtain of the Temple’3 and the destruction of the Temple, all that is exoteric in the law is absorbed in Christ as the Word of God. Christ is at the same time fully subject to the exoteric law, yet is its fullest esoteric expression: inChrist, the Wordwas made Flesh. Thus duality arises: Judaism as the letter and law, and Christianity as spirit and faith. This duality, like any other, cannot ensure its own survival as a balance of multitude and unity, peace and motion. Judaism does not accept Christ, and Christianity rejects much of the law: a barrier has arisen between letter and spirit. T o balance the two, a synthesis is needed-but this cannot be achieved through rejection of either. And here Providence offers another expression of divine unity: Islam. Islam can act as a balancing factor, since i t consciously ascribes the multitude of expressions of the divine to a single original source. Islam’s prophet can himself be the balance:

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he has the simple name of ‘the much-praised’-Muhammad-a name which makes no claims and no threats; he explicitly acknowledges the truth and validity of both Christianity and Judaism-the ‘peoples of the Book‘. Thus the multitudinous offspring ofAbraham meet in a balance of Judaism, Christianity and Islam,in group andindividual pluriformity, around the esoteric essence common to all. This is the religious unity of diversity, the harmonia Ahahamica. The exoteric multitude continues to be not only possible, but necessary, since it provides the orthodox religious forms with a variety of perspectives whichstand in the way of the perversion of each and any religion into an idol. Hast thou not seen that Godknows whatsoever is in the heavens, and whatsoever is in the earth? Three men conspire not secretly together, but He is the fourth of them, neither five men, but He is the sixth of them, neither fewer than that, neither more, but H e is with them, wherever they may be; then He shall tell them what they have done, on the Day of Resurrection. Surely God has knowledge of everything.4

Bosnia is one name for the awareness of this balance-it is thus of paradigmatic importance for theentire world. All its individualelementsJudaism, Christianity, Islam-are necessary to one another. The denial of any is the denial of all. Their integrity as external entities is reinforced by the internal essence of all. The final century of this millennium has plunged Bosnia into a bitter struggle, her internal balance and unity the target of external denial and attack. The evil chose its targets comprehensively: the fragile yet durable pluriform structure of Bosnia has sustained assaults so violent that its survival is a matter of question. Judaism, Christianity and Islam have all suffered: Judaism was reduced to a fraction of itself by the mid-century genocide; the latest outbreak chose Islam for its primary target. Muslims are in danger of losing all sense of the reasons underlying the unity they once championed. Yet if the loss becomes complete they will lose all recognition of the meaning of their own culture, its synthesis ofexoteric and esoteric, its place in therelationship between Christianity and Judaism. To revive this awareness, the following exploration of symbolic duality is an attempt to illustrate the essential presence of the harmonia Ahahamica,

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the ready cohesion of symbols and thought between the three traditions in Bosnia’s unity of diversity. This principle can be found in all Islamic art and other modes of expression-each of which has its own readily discernible relationship to the Holy Spirit. The most well known expression is found in Sarajevo-Bosnia in miniature-with its collection of synagogues, churches and masajids, gathered around one and the same centre of life. Although exoterically diverse, these temples all call upon a single source, which provides all phenomena in time and space with meaning. Now, when too many forms of Bosnia’s unity in diversity have fallen, we should recognise the possibilityof their renewal throughthe revivalof knowledge of the relationship between the exoteric forms. Only then can they have meaning and the potential for mutual reconciliation. The inexorable spread of the desert which is devouring Bosnia, ‘its horizons and its selves’, shows itself most obviously in the laying waste of Bosnia’s masajids. The deniers and destroyers know nothing, or have rejected what they knew, of the esoteric meaning of the masajid. Nor are they aware that their ignorance is a key issue in itself. Unless this is addressed there can be no movement away from this state of darkness and loss. The mas+d, like alltemples, all expressions of religious intellectuality, communicates awareness of the worlds of multitude and motion which confirm unity and peace. For this is the very purpose of its existence. The question of ignorance is part of the riddle of speech. Its root is Silence, which is in itself limitless and whole. This in turn communicates through its reflections. Its primary proof is speech-whichis, however, limited and finite. It proceeds from Silence, but cannot confine it. It is itself a part of multitude and motion, growth and death. The voice is only one of its manifestations-it communicates more through images, scents, tastes, textures. Since finality is no more than a facet of eternity, its manifestations are symbols in themselves. The renewal of an understanding of religion and its intellectual doctrine demands that we turn and re-turn to themeaning of the symbols in the world and in ourselves. This requires a combination of skills: those of listening, speaking, writing and reading, always in the understanding that these skills all have their roots and meaning in the Intellect and the Soul: listening, speaking, writing, and reading the world and ourselves all leadus to the Absolute.

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T h e Five Signs of Duality The Word and the Apple The Word is both the essence and the secret of everymember of humanity, closely related to the Spirit and Light. Since it precedes creation, it is uncreated, and without it creation is impossible. Within the world the Word maintains an unbroken connection with God: it comes from Him and returns to Him. It is sent to Earth to uncover the secret Will of God, but a t the same time remains in the Treasury as its own archetype. Returning to God, it ends its mission. ‘In the Beginning was the Wordand the Word was with God.’5 The Word is not only speech,a grammatical manifestation, but reason, the mind and the intellect. It is the symbol of clarification andinterpretation, in language, in human nature, and in the ceaseless creation of the world. It is truth and the light of being. The Word symbolises both the thinking being and the being which teaches and reveals to another. In the Kur’an we three times meet the term ‘Word of God’.6 God speaks to humanity through the prophets.’ He spoke directly to Moses,8 who was chosen to pass on God’s Message and Word.9 God does not speak to the people ‘except by revelation,or from behind a veil’.1° Like the Bible in Christian tradition, the Kur’an is the ‘Word of God’. And here we have the source of the controversy involvingall Book-centred religions: since speech relieson form and movement, andGod is not subject to either, is this Word of God therefore merely something created? The claim that the Kur’an is the uncreated Word of God is part of the foundation of faith. ‘When God makes hisWord appear in a body, said Ibn Taymiyya, ‘He does not create anything in that body; i t is He Himself which speaks,as He did in the bush that revealed to Moses: “I am God and there are no other gods but Me’,.’’ 1 The voicespeaking the word, and the writing into which the scribe transforms it, are human; but the Kur’an remains God’sWord: the Kur’anic scriptures are a physical manifestation, for the sake of human needs, but the Word of God is always in God’s Essence. God’s speech, whether taught, written or held in theheart, is never dividedfrom its Origin. The presence of God’s Word in human affairs is repeatedly symbolised: ‘Though all the trees in the earth were pens, and the seven seas after it to replenish it, yet would the Wordsof God not be spent.’**The tree signifies the secret presence of the eternal in thetemporal, and the capacity to return by spiritual ascent. All phenomena ‘in the seven heavens and on Earth, and

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all that is between them’ are nothing in comparison with what they signify. The Secret Treasury remains the indestructible and eternal guardian of the perfect archetypes of the visible images, symbolised bythe Heavenly Pen.13 But the verses about the tree speak of its branches as being in heaven and its h i t appearing in every age:14 the Word, in its being, origin and purpose, is a fruit within the world, accessible to humanity, but also within and part of Eternity. Together with the symbol of the tree, we have the related symbol of the sun. The Word is light, according to both St John’s Gospel and the Kur’an: ‘We have sent down to you a manifest light.’15 God adds: ‘We made it a light, whereby We guide whom We will of Our servants.’16 The statements of the Kur’an, are not the simple communication of thoughts-rather they are, in some way, beings, powers, even talismans.The Muslim soul is interwoven with the sacredmodels: it walks,works, rests anddiesin them. Through them the soul feels and knows God’spresence within itself. These models express the soul’s desire for perfection and eternity: through them it continues to search for, and reach for, ‘the fruit of life’. The symbol of the apple was frequently carved on to Bosnian stecaks and gravestones. On stecaks (upright memorials), the apple appears as the central decoration of a field, or occasionally as part of a decorative border. Apples can replace rosettes in the designs which showa half moon, or appear alone on the horizontal surface ofa stone slab. They can alsoappear on the upper, sloping surface of a ‘roof-topped stecuk, or at the point of a peaked stone.17 Similar apple designs can be found on one, two, three or four sides of the oldest gravestones, most often accompanied by the half moon, the sword, the staff and the bow and arrow.l* The apple design appears frequently in embroidery and also on saddles, representing the symbolic transition of the globe through travel, and it is almost always present a t the pinnacle of a minaret. The presence of the apple at the highest point of the minaret shows how fundamental the symbol of the apple is in Muslim culture. By taking the forbidden apple, humanity lost Paradise. The sign of the Word brings humanity out of time into Eternity, since we carry its imprint in ourselves. The minaret is the symbol of the One and Only, the First and Last, the External and Internal. The highest knowledge can be achieved by uniting the elements identified through discernment in a comprehensive and unified vision of truth. The process of passing from the sign to the signified, from the symbol to what it symbolises, is that of discerning the I in the I. This is the process of reaching for the fruit of the Tree of Life, symbolised by ‘the

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Good Word’. The search for knowledge is the restoration of the Apple of Knowledge to the Tree of Life. The five gold apples at the pinnacle of the Mosque of Ghazi KhusrewBey, in Sarajevo, suggest the desire of God’s disciples to transform their presence in the world into fruits of the Tree of Life, thus achieving the height of human potential. Thus we understand why, in the Bosniac tradition, we so often encounter the comparison of the Prophet to an ‘Apple of ~01d’.19 The apple is the fundamental sign of sacred science and we meet it on different levels: humanity’s fall began with the taking of the apple, which can be understood as an attempt to take possession of a symbol instead of looking through and beyond it towhat it points to. It reveals the fruitfulness of God’s word, its taste and scent: the fruit of the Tree of Life, or the Tree of Knowledge-for to gain eternal life is to gain knowledge. Inside the apple is the shape of a five-pointed star, formed by the seeds and their membranes. This hidden fivefold symbol suggests the five hidden senses, encapsulated in the ‘membrane of the heart’. This secret fivefold sign, which can also be seenas a symbol of human seed in the world, reveals the presence of the eternal in time, the Soul or Word,in the created body. On the road to the unification of the I with the I man passes through the five stations of wisdom: fear-flight and attack-through love, peace and passion to the fifth station, knowledge. Knowledge reveals itself in interpreting or discerning, before the heart becomes the centre which covers all and unites all. The apple symbolises everyearthly human desire: God’s prohibition to Adam and Eve regarding the apple of paradise is a symbolic warning of the purpose of the created world and the destruction which takes place when that purpose disappears from knowledge. This in turn incorporates another warning: against coming too close, snatching at life and knowledge, or journeying too far from either. The apple is the sign of this knowledge and of the need for finding a balance between the state of grasping and that of flight.

The Rose and the Vine The question of what genuine intellectuality really is, a question posed by the strong presence of sacred science in Bosniac culture, is really a question about thesignificance of sacredsymbols-an issue light years away from our current perceptions of our own spiritual background.

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The central courtyard of the traditional Bosnian house is open to thesky. It is thus balanced in a vertical relationship between everything growing up towards, or descending from, the heavens. Everything in this vertical relationship has its own meaning and purpose. The natural symbols almost invariably found in the Bosnian courtyard are the rose and the vine. Who, among those examining our culture today, can interpret the symbols except those willing to take a spiritual approach, to attempt to distinguish the unreal from the Real, and to focus on the Real. This act of discernment is not confined to any one religious tradition: it is the essence of all metaphysics. Focus can only be achieved, however, in the frame of divine tradition: the aim of the spiritual approach is to concentrate on the Real, and this cannot be achievedthrough purely humanistic methods. ‘The guarantee of a spiritual method is that it be received from a spiritual master; the guarantee of spiritual mastership, besides doctrinal orthodoxy, is the initiate chain going back to one of the great founders of religion (for example, to the Prophet Muhammad-r uvutnra, as the Hinduswould say. It is the duty of the disciple to obey hismaster; it is the duty of the master to prove hisattachment to the of initiation chain.’20 The teacher transmits a spiritual influence which springs from the foundations of Tradition and descends through Tradition from God: this is the key to deeper understanding, to constant focus on the Real. The mark of the teacher is awareness of the conditional nature of forms. Only someone whoseknowledgesupasses form knows what forms include. No genuine teachers woulddivorce their teaching from the given Tradition, for the genuine teacher knows its meaning and seesthat it stems from God. When this knowledge is lost to spiritual vision, neither the rose nor the vine remain in the courtyard, nor does any related symbol remain. When the capacity to understand them disappears, the vine of cultural life shrivels to a bare stem: the remnants are lost in the subsequent process of societal division and collapse. In Bosniac culture, the light carried by Muhammad-reminiscent of St. John the Evangelist’s Light which ‘shineth in the darkness and the darkness comprehended it not’-is the first thing created, and therefore Muhammad is beloved and blessed among God’s creatures.21 Loving Muhammad and following his example enableshumanity to comprehend the truth that there is no reality except Reality. As the first thing created, the light of Muhammad permeates all: it is the vine which has its root in Being. Without this light, Reality cannot be approached. Therefore, next to the testimony that ‘there is no God but God’, the precondition for approaching God is the testi-

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monythat ‘the much-praised is His slave and His Prophet’. The rosereminiscent of the ‘mystic rose’ ofChristian tradition-is the sign of God’s love for Muhammad and Muhammad’s love for God: its scent recalls the blessing on Muhammad as the much-loved, much-praised. Those who surrender to this love become branches on the vine in the vineyard of paradise, of which God is both the founder and the gardener. All members ‘of the best community created’ are linked, as members of this vine, to one another and to the prophets: all prophets and messengers ofGod have sprung out,as branches of the vine, from one stem. The world of Islam-submission to God-is linked to the vertical axis of ‘heaven-earth’. In moving towards this axis, humanity is redirected from the horizontal world of reason towards the vertical world of the intellect or soul. From being merely a fivefold sensual presence on the surface of the earth, humanity is transformed into a six-sense perfection, signified by the sixpointed star, the Sealof Solomon, whichre-establishes humanity in the perfection of God’s Treasury of archetypal symbols. The Kur’an tells us: ‘And W e sent down out of heaven water in measure, and lodged it in the earth; and we are able to take it away. Then we produced for you therewith gardens of palms and vines, wherein are many fruits for you, and of them you eat.’22 ‘To the conscious there is supreme fulfilment in store, luxuriant gardens and vineyards.’23 ‘And of the fruits of the palm and the vines, you take therefrom an intoxicant and a provision fair. Surely in that there is a sign for a people who ~ n d e r s t a n d . ’ ~ ~ In the Old and New Testaments we also find numerous references to the vine and the vineyard. God is portrayed as raising and protecting a single people; this is a symbolic prefiguration of ‘the community of the good’.2s God’s people are symbolised in the redeemed and transplanted Vine, raised from the depths to the heights, where it receives water from the heavens and gives abundant fruit. Jesus describes how God calls all peoples to this vineyard26:they are summoned to come at different times, but will all be equally rewarded: the last will be first. Christ describes the forgetfulness and rebellion of the workers in the vineyard: the rebels persecute and kill the servant of the Lord and refuse to acknowledge the true Lord of the Vineyard. ‘What shall therefore the Lord of the vineyard do? He will come and destroy the husbandmen, and will give the vineyard unto others. And have ye not read this scripture: the stone which the builders rejected is become the head of the corner?This was the Lord’s doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes.Q7 Christ further says ‘I am the true vine and myFather is the husbandman. Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away, and every branch

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that beareth h i t , he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit. Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear h i t of itself, exceptit abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me. I am the vine, ye are the branches. He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much h i t : for without me ye can do nothing.’28 By its stem and branches the vine symbolises the totality of existence: God’s Love revealed and known. Lacking connection to the stem, as the root and treasury of all existence, words mean nothing: their existence springs from God’s Love. Enabling the vineyard to preserve its relation to the stem, and the root of existence, the Light of the Husbandman flows ceaselessly through all, descending through the heart that offers up the most praise. This giver of praise, the Much-Praised, is the manifestation of God’s Love, his coming prophesied by Christ.29 ‘And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever.’ ‘The Comforter,30which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I havesaid unto‘WhentheComforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me... He will guide you into all truth. .. He will show you things to come. He shall glorify me: for he shall receive ofmine and shall shewit unto The Kur’an echoes this message: ‘And Jesus son of Mary said “Children of Israel, I am indeed the Messenger of God to you, confirming the Torah that is before me, and giving good tidings of a Messenger who shall come after me, whose name shall be Ahmad (the MostPraised).”’33 The vine in the courtyard symbolises the testimony that there is no god but God, and the rose, that the Most-Praised is the most beloved. The news of the Light is passed on by all prophets and by the good, and the evidence of their universality is found throughout existence. Coming in from the courtyard and enteringthe house, the realm of greatest purity, we take off our shoes, for this is the place where prostration (sa4ada) can take place. Every house is a mas@d, and the masdjid blazes the light of love ofthe Messenger and of union with the stem of the Only Reality. Thus, in Bosniac culture, born of a union between the Islamic tradition and ancient forms of Christianity, we recognise all the signs of God and of the shuttle which has woven all together-‘There is no god h t God, and the Mmh-Praised is His slave and His prophet’.

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The interior of the house is softened and warmed by the carpet, an essential item of the Bosniac inheritance. Its colours and designs have their own significance: the most popular colour is red, the colour of the rose, and the most popular pattern is the vine. Tradition teaches that the Prophet often talked about heaven: it seemed to his companions that he was seeing heaven as he spoke. On several occasionshe moved his hand about in empty space, and when his companions asked what he was doing, he said to them: ‘I saw Paradise and I reached out for a cluster of its grapes. Had I taken it, ye would haveeaten of it as long as the world e n d ~ r e t h . ’ ~ ~ The emblems of the vine and its grapes are found engraved on numerous s t e c a k ~Mak ~ ~ ; Dizdar tells us in his poemThe Vine and Its Branches36: For I am the vine and ye Are the fruit Present here is He Who is ever ready for word and deed Whose Word once heard doth heal Whose Deed doth bite like white Hot steel Since ages past He awaiteth me He waiteth and Him I surely see Idescend towards Him down the line Of this white Vine

The Staff andthe Moon Another symbol frequent upon stecaks and old gravestones is the emblem of the staff.37 This symbol is perhaps one of the most universal in the whole diversity of sacred Tradition. The staff has several possibleroles and meanings: it is a weapon, the support of the shepherd and the pilgrim, the axis of the world. There are knots in the wood, recalling its original relationship to the tree, or symbolising the degrees through which we come to knowledge. Moses’ staff is the sign of prophethood and the supremacy of the Truth which he declared, over the truth which derives merely from’knowledge of the measurable world. God orders Moses to throw his staff before Pharaoh,

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and it turns miraculously into a snake which devours the magical serpents38 of Pharaoh‘s magicians. The staff is a sign of the spiritual teacher; it symbolisesrelianceleaning-on the spiritual guidance which teaches the disciple how to accept the Real. This symbol shows spiritual guidance as the true authority and power, ‘leaning’ on principles: the staff becomes the sceptre. Intellectual authority, like structural authority, is symbolised by the staff held by the leader. When the Israelites argue over their leadership and hierarchy, God makes the staffs of allthe elders of the tribes ‘dormant’ before the Ark ofthe Covenant, except Harun’s, which blossoms,bringing forth almonds.39 This is, according to tradition, the same staff which Moses used to beat down leaves for the cattle to feed on, while he was herding for Shu’ayb40 (‘Jethro); and with which he divided the sea when he led the Israelites out of Egypt.41 He used the same staff to raise up twelve springs from the rocks when his followers complainedof thirst.42The traditions teach that the staff of Moses was first cut from a myrtle bush in paradise. Adam carried it to Earth; Shi’it inherited it, and next, through Idris, Nuh, Salih, Ibrahim and his familyit descended to Shu’ayb, the father-in-law of Moses. Shu’ayb gave it to his daughter, and through her it came to Moses. It will, together with Solomon’s Seal, appear again before the end of the world, when the Mahdi43 (The Messiah) comes. Bilal (a disciple of the Prophet, and the first muezzin) carried a staff before the Prophet on his road to the place where prayer was held for two great festivals. During prayer, the staff was driven into the earthand served as a sign of Mihrab, which reveals the direction towards the Kaba, the cubic Ark of Mecca. After the liberation of the entrance to Mecca, the Prophet performed ritualistic bathing and prayed eight cycles; next he put on his mail shirt, then his helmet and sword, and finally took his staff in his hand. On Kasva, his camel, he rode straight towards the Black Stone and touched it with his staff as a sign of respect, saying ‘God is the Greatest’. After this he performed the ritual of walking seven times around the Kaba, and next he turned himself towards the idols which surrounded the Ancient Temple. Pointing his staff towards each of them he said ‘The truth has come, and falsehood has vanished away; surely falsehood is even certain to vanish.” Every idol fell on its face as his staff passed over each in turn.4s Before entering eternity, the Prophet gave this staff to ‘Ali, his spiritual successor, as a sign that he was passing the leadership to him.46 Thus, the staff is the sign of submission to principles, the source of this inherited spiritual leadership. People marked out by the symbol of the staff

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are present in all regions, symbolising the foundation and purpose of God’s gift to humanity of ‘viceregency on Earth’. The staffs in the hands of the Djed (‘Grandfather’-the head of the Bosnian Church), and Gost (‘Guest’-envoy of the Djed) of the Church of Bosnia, and of the leaders of the Bosnian Sufibrotherhood, symbolise the Unity which rises above allthe different orders of existence, among those who have, no matter what their faith, dedicated themselves to travelling by ‘the narrow gate’, and ‘the hard way’. With the aid of the staff, the symbol of spiritual guidance and teaching, they can distinguish God’s signs among the phenomena of the world: it is alsoa sword to prevent the fatal usageof God’s symbolsas idols and gods. The last Djed of the Bosnian Church handed his staff to the Shaykh of the Bosnian Mevleve (Mawlawi) brotherhood: this took place at Hodidjed, not far from Sarajevo. The staff was preservedfor five centuries in the takiyya a t BentbaSa, but disappeared when this was destroyed. Hidden from the world, the Staff suggests the eternal but hidden presence of spiritual guidance. The many staffs engraved on the stecaks and the oldest gravestones call humanity to acknowledge the authority of God, while confirming humanity’s viceregency on Earth. Any power which chooses to ignore this call leads its followers downhill into deeper darkness, further and further from principles and the capacity for perfection. The taking of the symbolic staff of leadership should be preceded by looking with the eye ofthe heartand by the initiation of changeswithin the soul, ending the eclipse between the soul and the heart produced by humanity’s Fall. Therefore, the images of the staff are usually accompanied by the symbol of the crescent moon, sign of renewal and change: again, found the on stecaks4’ and and above the entrance doors of traditional Bosniac houses.49 The moon does not have its own light, but rather receives and reflects the light of the sun. In doing so it passes through various changes, endlessly repeating the cycle from death to fullness and from fullness to death. In the same way, the human heart receives the light of God’s Throne: but, due to the Fall, this light cannot pass fully into the soul. The ‘renewal’ of the human self means returning to its original nature, in which the heartpasses the received light to all parts of the self, when man knows once again how ‘The seven heavensand the earth, and whosoeverin them is, extol Him’.So The moon is a symbol of time, which is, in fulfilment, at one with God. Therefore thepassing of lifeis not final, but is a change in which the person makes a transition to the new world. The moon, like the sun, is one of the signs of God’s power.S1 Since God created it,s2 it reveals his grace.s3 God

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gave it to humanitys4 to enable us to measure timeSS by its phases. On Judgement Day, when the heavens are torn,56 the moon will darken and melt into thesun.57 The ‘Dome of the Rock‘s8 temple at Jerusalem is topped by a crescent moon. Since this masdjid is an octagon encircling the site and remnants of Solomon’s temple, the presence of the crescent moon signifies the beginning of a new cycleof time, after which the world will receivethe Seal of the Prophet. On the Bosniac stecaks, rosettes can be seen reaching out from the top of the crescent moon:59 the rose, symbolof love, showsus the new cycle of the world beginning with the advent of the Much-Praised.

The Sword and the Web The sword is a common image on the oldest gravestones, accompanying the staff, the crescent and the apple, on stones throughout Bosnia.60 The Bosnian SufiSheikh Kaimija says of the sword : The sword corrects men And makes them submit The faithless are the demonsof the desert And God’s wrath will fall upon them.61

And he adds: The violent and the hypocrites follow Satan Those who follow thetruth will draw The sword and cover the hillsand plaim6*

Words from the Kur’an are engraved on the sword.63 Water from a swordblade is traditionally said to have a soothing effect,and pregnant women used to put swords under theirpillows.64 The signs of the sword, staff, crescent moon and apple contain the fundamental messages of sacred Tradition. Through their renewal within our modern relationship to tradition, some of the riddles of existence maybe solved. Islam istraditionally viewed as the religion of war and warriors, hence the connection between Islam and the sword. This perception is confined to the external, and the values of the symbol are ignored. The battle is in reality that of Islamic spirituality, a metaphor we find in all traditions. In the Gos-

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pel according to St. Matthew the Messiah says ‘I have come not to bring peace but a sword.’G5 If the purpose of war is to bring about peace with justice, then war can conceivably be a lawful demonstration of justice at work-but far more significant, from the viewpoint of Tradition, is the war waged inwardly. The aim of both is to impose a state of peace and harmony within and without: in the individual andin the surroundingenvironment. Since the world is a unity of diversity, in which every different entity witnesses to Unity, the creation of harmony between separate members of this Unity is the final goal. This requires submission to the Unity which is the Creator and Guide of this diversity.Submission (al-islm) is inseparable from the desire for peace and tranquility (ul-salam). Submission to God’s will produces peace, and those who submit are under obligation to build that peace. This is shownin the Prophet’s teaching: ‘We have returned from the small good warto the great good war.’6G War in the world, if waged for the sake of justice, is the small, good war, but the war inside the self is the great, good war. Its emblem is the wooden sword which the Muslim preacher holds in one hand while he speaks. The sword also signifiesthe power of the word, or forms the uprightbeam of the scales which represent justice. The sword is one of the most fundamental of symbols, and the extent to which its role is creative or destructive depends on how closely it is linked to the unchangeable centre in which the diverse forms of the world meet and are reconciled. In the role played symbolically by the sword in discerning the false from the real, it is compared to the eye of the human heart through which God looks. In this eye are united the First and Last, the External and the Internal. In the Apocalypse we also find symbolic usage of the sword: ‘out of his mouth went a sharp two-edged sword, and his countenance was as the sun shineth in his strength’.67 The sword signifies the radius, one of the most fundamental signs of sacred tradition: the link between God’s Principle and its manifestation or creation. Every human being is aware of being a t a certain point of time and space, a point suspended on one of the rays of God’s mercy, like a raindrop on a web. Starting from any one of these points, it is possible to move in a way which is neither pushing forward, nor thrusting back, but is a movement uniting the separate rays, like the shuttle weaving through the warp. Equally valid, however, is the desire to follow a single thread as a reliable and recognisable road: this is the desire to follow a single trusted tradition. Humanity can find and recognise, in any tradition, the symbols which are signs directing us towards the Truth.

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The perfect symbol for this multitude of threads on which humanity is suspended is the spider’s web.This image represents the created world: the web is ofthe essence of its creator. The circles of the web, uniting the radii, represent the order of different worlds or the different levels of being. The distance between each circle andthe centre indicates its degree: the greater the distance, the furtherapart the radii supporting the circle. The threads of the spider’s web are images of God’s mercy: they connect the centre with everything in existence. The further the level of existence liesfrom the centre, the lower the world, and the rays of God’s mercyare further and further apart. The lowest world iscreated existence. If everything in it is accepted as a symbol of higher levels, it is possible to travel by the threads of God’s mercy towards the higher worlds. The spider’s web also prefigures the warp and the weft of weaving. The warp threads unite those levels which are furthest from the centre and connect them into thecentre, in an image ofthe Primary Principle. The web is, accordingly, yet another image of the ‘Radiation of Being’. The spider’s thread, as the symbol of the spiritual journey, of spiritual arrival, can be compared to the Cosmic Tree, Jacob’s ladder, the bridge over hell, and a multitude of other images. The use of metaphysics demandsa powerful and stable centre of demonstration, returning constantly to the cause which is not sequential in itself, but reveals itselfin the consequential nature of the world, since nothing has reality except in God. But since this uncaused cause is not accessible, every effort to comprehend the world will be in itself cause-consequential. Illustrating this metaphor, the spider’swebshowsus the relationship of the universe to its centre. It demonstrates the dual relationship of general existence: the essential unity transcending all divisions. The nature of this relationship is symbolically expressedin the spiral-yet another emblem appearing on stecaks and gravestones. The spiral demonstrates two dimensions of movement: upward or downward movement around the axis is combined with approaching or departing from the centre. European philosophy and Islamic exoterism stand in a similar relationship-thatofdivisionbetween the circumferent circles,and decreasing proximity to the centre. But Islamicesoterism persists in its original relationship to theradius, andto the separate levels of being.68 Exoterism promotes the view that the worldisclosed within its own conditionality. It thus has conditional perfection, giving rise to the belief that it was created perfect like its creator. The mistake is in the comparison: only God can be perfect. But the world is nevertheless not totally condi-

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tional, since everything created carries the Will of the Creator. The cobweb offers a vision of Being which ‘spins’the thread of the world from the Self to Whomthe world returns once again. This balance of life and return embodies the possibility which God has offered to the world. Nothing can be omitted from this cycle of creation and return. Dizdar wrote of the Hodidjed fortress: ‘There are many princely houses in which the owl is now the watchman and the spider keeps the door.’@ The Kur’an comments: ‘The likeness of those who have taken to them protectors apart from God, is as the likeness of the spider that takes to itself a house; and surely the frailest of houses is the house of the spider.”O But, according to Bosniac tradition, when somebody troubled or suffering sees a spider making a web, this can be taken as a sign of joyful changesto come.71 The twofold meaning of the symbolof the spider appears in a second Bosniac tradition: the story of the miraculous protection of the Prophet in the cave of Thawr. The wild roses, which sprang up in front of the cave suggesting that nobody hadpassed them; the dove, resting on the rock nearby as if undisturbed by any presence; and the spider’s web which sealed the entrance were enough to turn aside the swords ofthe pursuers.72

The Temple and the Tomb

To continue this brief but concentrated account of Bosniac culture and its spiritual core, we should next discuss the role played within this culture by ‘people near to God’ (awliya, the Good), their generosity (karama), and how to approach nearer to them (murad).A modern researcher into the Bosniac inheritance, a firm believer in the absolute sufficiency of rationalism, when discussing how the list of the Sarajevo awliya was drawn up a t the beginning of the nineteenth century, wrote as follows. ‘This is not a t all about the fundamental elements of Islam; it is rather a case of manifestations which primarily have the character of national faith and some of which are even in total opposition to Islam as a monotheistic religion; all these phenomena can be found on the little doors to the Muslim society introduced by Sufis or derv is he^.'^^ This short quote does immense service to those hostile to our culture. Bosniac culture, seen from outside and inside, cannot be separated from its relationship to the mausoleums and the graves of the awliya. If we identify these as alien to ‘the fundamental elements of Islam’, then it follows that Bosniac culture is contradictory to the Islamic world-view. If these cultural

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manifestations are direct consequences of a ‘national faith’, these national beliefs must be non-Islamic or even anti-Islamic. If the Bosnian order of ‘Sufis and Dervishes’ are seen as responsible, then it also follows that the tasawwzd the traditional Sufi or Dervish teaching, is also alien, or opposed, to Islam. But we will suggest that the multitude of graves and mausoleums which lie a t the heart of Bosniac culture are only in discord with Islamic teaching in theview of an out-and-out rationalist or literalist. It is true that the Prophet says ‘the most beautiful tomb is one that vanishes from the face of the earth’;74 andthe Kur’an adds ‘All who are upon it (the earth) are fleeting, and there abides only the Face of thy Lord full of majesty and genero~ity.’~S The multiple presence in Bosnia of the mausoleums and graves of the Good apparently contradicts this teaching. Apparently-for if we examine the graves and mausoleums of the Bosnian Good, we can produce a coherent explanation of, and justification for, their existence, which is in no way contradictory to Islamic spirituality. When a lord built himself a mausoleum (as Ghazi Khusrew-bey chose to do inSarajevo, Ferhad-pasha in Banja Luka, Sinan-pasha in CajniEe, Karagoz-bey in Mostar, and many others elsewhere), this would have been a t least partly due to a wish that visitors to the graves should pray for him and testify to his dedication to God-made visible in the magnificence of the edifice. But, to the community of believers, the graves of the Good rather than the more magnificent tombs of the rulers, are significant. The Good are the real rulers of the earth: power and Goodness are God’s, and human beings possess them in accordance withtheir proximity to God. This proximity, revealed in the rejection of every form of slavery to oneself or others, with the exception of slavery to God, includes its possessor in the chain of the prophets and the Good,who pass on Tradition to their followers. The first thing created, in all Abrahamic traditions, was Light: this Light was recognisedand transmitted by all prophets andmessengersof God. When Muhammad entered the world, according to Islamic tradition, time reached a climax: those whom he called found and followed the road towards liberation from the evil forms of slavery by his example and light. Everything of his is blessed, including his grave inMedina. Those who recognise and accept his call are bound into the living chain of Tradition. By their lives they testify that ‘Thereis no god but God and the Much-Praised is his slave and His Messenger.’ Thus the speech of Truth is revealed to humanity in ordinary words: Purity, Beauty and Goodness are given concrete forms. Nobody can deny these forms for long, and they arethusthe clearest ‘evidence’ ofG 0 d 7 ~available.Their contemporaries and followers recognise

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them and know them for what they are. Their words and actions give a recognisable shape to Goodness, Beauty and Purity, which draws humanity towards them, to the Tradition which they teach, and thus to God. W h a t visitors to the graves of the Good are looking for is something of the spiritual influence of those who were fiends of God and thus the receivers and transmitters of God’s blessing. From its earliest history, Bosnia has been overspread with the graves of war heroes, the most highly revered and respected of the dead. At an earlier period, these were most often the graves of those who died in conflict perceived as a battle against the deniers of the Truth. ‘And say not of those slain in God’s way, “they are dead”; rather they are living, but you are not aware.’77 These are the fighters who testify to the truth inthe good war. But the Prophet spoke of the battle waged against the weakness of one’s own soul as the great good war. Its soldiers have gained a victory over ‘the earthly denial of truth’, the h i t s of which they have handed on to others. Those who approach their graves are symbolically approaching the grave of the Prophet: to come closer to understanding the secret life ofthe Good. Rulers in general take care to build their memorials themselves. Disciples,pious members of the community, or even rulers, haveraised the gravestones and memorials of the Good. In Bosnia we encounter the memorials of spiritual leaders who formed links with the Prophet as members of a long line of spiritual teachers (Mustafa EjuboviC, Hasan Kafi PruSEak, Hasan Kaimija, Hasan Zukit, Sirija Sikirib and others). Their stones attract generation after generation symbolising the unbroken current of spirituality. T h e forms chosen for these memorials suggest the graves of the blessed from the earliest history of Bosnia (in the BrateljeviCi cave at Kladanj,78the Shaykh’s takiyya at VareS29 the memorial of Comes Curialis Batalo a t Gornje Turbe;80 the takijya a t Rataj8*and others.) Gost Radin ButkoviC left a donation in his will of 1466 ‘for the temple and for the grave where my bones are and lie’82-his action prefigures that of Bosnia’s Islamic rulers who built similar places of prayerto house their bones. ‘The cities’ of graves, Bosnia’s ancient cemeteries, are often deep inside the communities of the living, and no images of darkness or sorrow are present. Around the graves of the Good the faithful traditionally gather, to remember and pray. From belief in the miracle of the lives recalled by these graves, and from prayer and remembrance in their neighbourhood, springs calm and serenity. There are two distinctive forms: the turban-topped headstone and the mausoleum. The latter usually consists of a base, columns and cupola, sym-

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bolic of the miraculous reconciliation of the four-dimensional world with the world ofperfection. This balance reconcilesearth and heaven, fleshwith spirit, showing the perfect human being to be ‘the most perfect act of God’. The oldest Bosniac gravestones contain symbols of the upright axis joining heaven and earth, forming a bridge via which the Spirit, Mercy and the Word descend to humankind. The descent of God‘s Word into the human heart is the greatest gift of heaven: bythis same axis, human words rise up to God, carrying humanity with them from darkness towards the Light. On the stone axis of the gravestone stands a turban, the sign of our temporary lordship on Earth. By accepting that ‘there is no god but God and the Much-Praised is His slaveand His Prophet’, we become viceregents, ruling ourselves and the earth in the Name of God. When we leave the earth, we resign all forms of temporal power and go alone to God. The turban, which in life was a sign of such power, becomes the empty shell of the departed. The crescent moon on the old gravestones reminds us of the permanent waxing and waning of the soul’s capacityto conquer evil in itself and reach a state of absolute peace-in which it glows, like the full moon, in the Light of God’sThrone. Light is salvation. It is single, although received and reflected by countless multitudes of souls andearthly forms. The awliya, the Good, area clear lamp lighting the world.83

T h e Face: Five Stages The sacred art and science of all religious traditions suggest that humanity of God. There are unand the world are physical-corporeal-symbols countable multitudes of these symbols, concentrated in humanity, but dispersed throughout the world. The mutability and impermanence of the symbols within humanity and the world witness to permanence. Humanity searches for signs of permanence in these symbols, turning the face towards the Face, until the first becomes a clear reflection of the second. This reflection becomes perfect when the First and the Last, the Outer and Inner, are shown to be one and the same. Every tradition is composed of doctrine, charting the route which leads to the Face of God. The relationship between the face and the Face is revealed in the languages of Tradition, their unity, source and purpose. Through seeking the roots of each of these languages, the founding concept of each culture, the Faceisreached-for ‘everything vanishes except Him’.

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The Face This relationship between the face and the Face is the duality which seeks resolution in unity. For the face to gain reality it must understand the Face, through an intermediary or model. ‘For now we see in a glass darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then I shall know even as I am known.’*4 There is no face but the Face: turning the face to theFace is preceded by listening and looking-answered in the Listening and Looking of the One who is sought. Therefore the first stage of the journey is acceptance that ‘to God belong the East and the West-whithersoever you turn there is the Face ofGod’.*S In this acceptance is the testimony that ‘all things perish except His Face’86 and that ‘all that dwells upon the Earth is perishing-yet still abides the Face of the Lord’.*’ The human face is a manifestation of God’s: turned towards God it receives God’s Light; it reflects God’s radiance and bliss. All which man can see and hear is not God, but belongs to God. Every step humanity takes towards the Real is a seeking of the Face, as the omnipresent and eternal. ‘They give food for the love of Him to the needy-the orphan, the captive: we feed you only for the Face of God; we desire no recompense from you, no thankfulness; for we fear from our lord a frowning day, inauspicious.’** Or, as Christ puts it in His parable of the Day of Judgement: ‘Depart from me ye cursed into everlasting fire.. . For I was hungered and you gave me no meat: I was thirsty and you gave me no drink: I was a stranger and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not; sick, and in prison, and ye visitedme not.’89 The final goal is the finding of the Face: all feelings, thoughts and rituals are directed towards this purpose. The deepest regions of humanity receive and reflect the Light; its denial is darkness. Turned towards the Light is he ‘who gives his wealth to purify himself, confers no favour on any man for recompense, only seeking the face of his Lord, the Most Highygo.Turning the face to the Face is the only answer: ‘It is not piety that you turn your faces to the East and to the West.’9* Human attempts to realise the possibility ofperfection can be measuredby their success in bringing us nearer to the Face. The goodness and beauty of God are the turning of God’s Face to humanity. Ibrahim (Abraham) ‘was shown the kingdom of the heavens and the earth, so that he would be among those who know from ~ertainty’.~* Abraham looks towards the stars, moon and sun, seeking his Lord in them. Confronted with their transient beauty’ he cries out: ‘Oh my people! Far be it from me to ascribedivinity, as you do, to aught besides God. I have

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turned my face to Him Who originated the heavens and the earth, a man of pure faith.’93 AI1 speech about the Face is essentially dual, paradoxical: for this speech is, finally,the Face Itself.

Heaven and Earth The most obvious and all-pervading duality is that of heaven and earth. It contains both human horizontality and verticality. Being tied to the surface of the earth holds man in ‘unbounded closure’. In principle, the totality of earthly motion knows no bounds, for any journey can return one to one’s starting point. But these two points, the starting and the finishing point, are not the same, whether on earth or in heaven. On earth, when one comes full circle one crosses into another time, hence an ending always brings one toa completely open beginning. This circle, however, implies the presence of a vertical dimension which pierces the earth’s surface. Motion in a limitless number of directions over the same spherical surface, therefore, no matter how many right-angled departures, turns and returns one takes, is an attempt to exist in the vertical dimension from earth to heaven, to release oneself from earth and turn onto the upright path. This is the path of ‘the fairest stature’.94 The upright path links humankind to the totality of being. This means that the earth’s surface signifies the lowest plane of existence, but simultaneously the starting point for an ascent, through a multitude of states, towards the I of Whom every individual human creature is a true image, in which all His Names are gathered and His Names are the most bea~tiful.~s In every other individuality only a limited number of these names are gathered. The opposite of this upwards motion is a downwards one into a tighter bond with matter, into an ever murkier opacity of self as an image of Perfection. The axis of this ascent and descent passes through the human heart. Here, at the centre of our being, lies the point of contact between earthly existence and the heavenly ray which passes through all the planes of existence, from the Ineffable, from Unity, down through the heavenly worlds, as far as nothingness, the lowest plane. This ray is the thread which links together all the worlds. The human heart is where it disperses into all the directions contained in our plane of existence. The heart, therefore, is the centre of our plane of existence, but is also the link with all other states of being: the actualisation of the human self means seeing the whole plane of

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earthly existence and the fact that it faces heavenwards. Thus all earthly phenomena are peripheral relative to the centrality of the human heart, and all these peripheralities only confirm the heart as their gathering-point. Hence the heartcan be seen as the central principle, the essential I, the site of the constant interplay between externalisation and internalisation, the nexus of the web that links humankind with the totality of Being. But this would be nothing if it were not linked to the seventh ray or the seventh heaven. For all planes of existence havetheir source in unity, which is confirmed by multiplicity, by all the worlds, and to which all returns, as to the peace of the seventh day or the seventh heaven. Moving through existence in all six directions-left and right, forwards and backwards, up and down and u p - o n e realises oneself in the seventh ray, the ray whose sign is the centre or the meeting place. In itthe separate forms of multiplicity disappear, but their underlying shapes and eternal possibilities remain. This is the return to primal unity, as told by the totality of signs in the outer and inner worlds, and unity in turn confirms the Ineffable.

Sun and Moon Heaven and earth, as the prime duality, bear witness to primal unity: in the beginning, heaven and earth were one.96 But, as both contain the image of unity, they are the first link in an endless chain of dualities which confirm their nature, until it finallymerges into the unity which they proclaim. However endless this sequence may seem, it retains its link with primal unity, and does so via Intellect. Intellect permeates every individuality from within and without. It is independent of the phenomenal world, and is dependent only on the truth to which it is tied. In the phenomenal world, Intellect is what separates: the myriad phenomena bear witness to Intellect. With respect to Truth, Intellect is what unites: Intellect bears witness to Truth. Inthe totality of existence, Intellect shines with what it receives from within. In the heavens as seen from earth, its sign is the sun. From the sun, the myriad phenomena gain heat and light. Heat corresponds to love, the joy that comes from seeing the beauty of the infinite in finite phenomena-but also to the cruelty of fire, when it is assumed that these phenomena have any reality beyond Reality. But Light is Truth, for God is the light of the heavens and the earth.97 In ultimate light, knowing merges with being to become one and the same. Therefore the sun in the outer world is the coun-

104 DUALISMRESOLVED

terpart of the heart in the inner world. Through them, the heavenly ray leaves for, that is, contacts, the higher planes. Thus the Intellect corresponds to the heart, the contact point between truth and its image, the point where the curve of the wave which reflects the sun onto the surface of the world touches the ray which spreads into its visible image. The signs of Unity are arranged throughout the outer and inner worlds and are thus in full harmony with what the heavenly ray brings into the human heart. There canbe no disharmony between those in the outer world and those in the self, between first and last: ‘Thou seest not in the creation of the All-merciful any imperfe~tion.’~~ The dualities of apparent disharmony can be bridged in the human heart: ‘God is the First and the Last, the Outward and the Inward’.99 All individualities receive the light of the sun: it exists in them as something given from without. They reflect the sun’s light. The sign of this is the moon, whichtakes its light from the sun and passes it on, into the realms of earthly darkness. Its light is reflected, cold, bearing no heat. It is the lightof reason, the state of dispersion and separation, unity as confirmed through multiplicity. It corresponds to the human brain, the highest level of material existence. In it, light reveals itself in a form which can deny Intellect, which isits one, unchanging source. When this reflected light attempts to find its confirmation in a world beneath itself, that is, beneath the brain, it tries to produce a world of separation, falsely declaring itself to be the ultimate good, the supreme master. Thus it reduces man to a level beneath that of his highest bodily point: he becomes only what lies beneath his cranium, which robs him of his keystone, the opening throughwhich the seventh ray passes and self-realisation flows. In the beginning, man was created in the fairest, most upright stature, but now must choose whether to walk worthy of this stature, or to lose it through self-abasement: ‘We indeed created man in the fairest stature, then We restored him to the lowest of the All the phenomena in all the worlds are nothing without the presence of the seventh ray, the outermost and the innermost. All that lies beneath the cranium is only this ray’s material extension through the self. Via the heart, the individual can come into contact with higher planes of existence, with the myriad states of Being, which leadto the centre which lies in Unity and the Ineffable, as witnessed bythe avowal that there is no god but God.

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Stars and Mountains When human individuality is completely illuminated by Intellect it acts as a temple in which the unity of boundedness and infinity, that is, of movement and peace, is mysteriously resolved.Then the cranium becomes an image of the firmament, with the column of sun passing through its highest point. The whole of the plane of existence isdirected towards this column (and not only that: the column is rooted in its plane, as an image of the scale of existence). And so individuality reveals itselfas that which is created for perfection. In it, the outerworld confirms its essence as self, so that individuality is simultaneously above and below. In the heavens, the star which separates one and the same light is an individuality which proclaims that first and last, inner and outer, have one and the same nature. Thus the star represents the unity of sacred communities as a model of the earthly order and its potential. And so the separation of heaven and earth is resolved along the axis which returns all darkness to light, all tension to peace, all wrath to grace. Then the mountains can be seen as inverted goblets, and from within as upright chalices open for the inpouringof heavenly grace.And they are also hearts, for human hearts are bowls, in the words of the Imam ‘Ali ibn Abi Talib.lo* Thus the lowest point, the nadir of the bowl, reveals the mountaintop. Lowness in height and height in lowness meet in the mountain. This is the unchanging centre, the nexus of upwards and downwards motion, for His Face is lit by eastern or western light, and hence is neither east nor west. Therefore the mountaintop is the sign of the earth’s sacred communities. It is the point where all paths meet, just as the myriad signs in the outer world meet in the self, in the heart. The mountain’s centre is its peak, where all its greatness gathers into one and the same point. This singularity without space or time is where space and time have their origin, with their countless profusion of paths both white and red.lo2 The mountains signify, through their peaks, humanity’s potential for ascent, by following the path which corresponds to humanity’s creation, the path of the ‘fairest stature’, that is, verticality. Climbing the paths towards the summit leads one to the earthly heights. Onlythere canhumanity’s purpose-and that ofall in heaven and earth-be perceived for what it is, that is, the confirmation of the unity that remained hidden until the moment of creation: ‘I am the hidden treasure: I wished to revealMyself, and therefore I created the world.’1°3 Climbing from the confines of earth towards the mountaintop confirms that nosingle plane of existence is the last.

106 DUALISM RESOLVED

Every plane contains its own heavenly gate, which remains closed to those who deny God’s signs and behave overweeningly towards them.1°4 Reaching the highest point of one plane of existence enables one to pass through the heavenly gate into the world of sacred communities whose images exist on earth: in the words of the Prophet, ‘my companions are like the stars’.loS When individuals pass through the heavenly gate, the unbroken link between first and last, outer and inner becomes manifest. They come into plenitude through the unity of knowing and being: they become stars whose light is only from within. And then they spread this light, losing nothing in the process. They remain forever one and the same, for nothing can be added to or taken from what is. In the mystery of one and the same light they become separate and manifest everywhere beneath the heavens. Thus they become both unity and its confirmation-stars, or transparent hearts. These are the holy, the good. They are one, though seenas separate, the pure light of the seventh ray.

Trees and Animals Wherever humankind may descend as it moves away from the first fact of creation ‘in the fairest stature’, nowhere is the call of grace and the caller’s name unheard. And when one’s inner world is shrouded with clouds and the darkness of night, when hearts go rusty and hard, the outer world remains filled with signs. Trees are a vertical duality of overgroundandunderground, of upwards growth and the downwards pull of gravity. They rise towards the heavens like words: a goodly word is like a goodly tree.lo6 T h e unity of upwards motion branches out intoseparateness, bearing fruit on its outermost twigs. Yet the fruitcontainstherestoration of primal unity through the dualities of rise and fall, departureandreturn,motionand peace. T h e constant rhythms of this motion confirm both unity and verticality. Birds alight and fly from the branches, stressing the link between the heavens and the earth, and the unceasing speech of truth. Every individuality is linked to this speech: ‘We have fastened a bird of omen upon his neck.’lo7 But the lowlands, where the darkness is densest, where all directions seem like paths, divert humanity’s gaze from the foothills and the high peaks, and our hearing from the heavenly speech of the birds. When our gaze rests only on the downwards view from the roads of the earth, the centre disappears from sight. All that remains is horizontal motion across the boundless

The Face: Five Stages 107

reaches of the earth. But the animals on its surface point out the way. As they walk before man, who has lost Ariadne’s thread, the seventh ray, they point to thepresence of the centre, even in this lowest plane of existence.In all their motion, as shown by their tracks, where the rear feet tread in the prints of the forefeet, they remind the traveller of the centre, of the Kaba, surrounded by the shifting desert sands. Travellers can only move forward by following these tracks, but the tracks also allow the travellers to raise their eyes. Then the verticality of trees appears again all round them, attesting to invisible depths and clear heights, and thus guiding them back towards the mountain path and the peak. Then the road opens towards the centre, the high in the low, towards intellect and reason as the two planes of received and reflectedlight. Thus humankind, in all the branchings of reason, still finds the golden apple, the long-lost, long-repudiated fruit on the tree of knowledge and life. The traveller reaches the peak of his or her potential to return to the perfection from which he or she had wandered. This is guaranteed, whatever the state one might have attained, for, as the Creator attests, ‘my grace surpasses my wrath’.This is also symbolisedby the apple on the pinnacle of the minaret.

Submission andFreedom And when humanity reaches the highest possible point of one state of existence, we realise that wehave reached the lowestpossible point of the next-the heavens of this earth are as nothing to the earth of a higher Heaven. Thus, when we reach the highest point of any plane of existence, we can only attest to our lowliness in the face of the vista that opens out before us. Only then are we able to grasp the speech of the signs which lie below and recognise them for what they are, and only then will the gates open into thenext stage of Being. Every act of ascent has submission a t its core, through all the myriad planes of existence, until one’s individual I merges with the ultimate I. Thus the created and theUncreated appear in the individual, and the created gains reality as a sign and confirmation of the Uncreated. This is a process of steadily circling, of gradually moving closer, as shown by the attestation that there is no god but God. During the climb, the created content of one’s nature is shown to be in thrall to the Uncreated. Everything in all the worlds serves to further this state of submission. The higher

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the world, the greater the need for submission, for the seeker’s goal isnone other than perfection, and the seeker’s only attestation is ‘there is no god but God’. Accepting anything lower means denying the truth that one is born ‘in the fairest stature’. Were perfection unattainable, one would be nothing. And so only one thing is higher than all the heights of the world, and that is human submission. Unlike every other phenomenon, it does not flow out of the unmediated relationship between the limitless Freedom of the ultimate I and the conditional freedom of the individual I. Humanity has been granted ‘trust’,lo8which means that one’s conditional I has the power of negotiation-and not only with other people and other phenomena in the world, for we also havethe means to negotiate with God. Thus the individual’s conditionality finally disappears asone returns everything to God, but begins before that, in the admission that one will be truly one’s own. ‘Truly’ by denying duality: ‘no partner hath And ‘one’s own’ in bringing one’s individual I towards an I which has never existed. Hence submissiveHim there is nessisfreedorn,I1O for the ultimate I isboundless:‘like naught’lll and ‘equalto Himis not any one’.l12Here oneclothes oneself in all of existence asa confirmation of Unity: Hast thou not seen how to God prostrateall who arein the heavens and all who are in the earth, the sun and the moon, the stars and the mountains, the trees and the beasts, and manyof mankind?l13

And this is true freedom. Only in full submission to Him who is similar to none, to Him who is comparable to none, canman attain freedom. Without this submission,one cannot become free of oneself or theworldinstead, one remains a prisoner. And submission to anything other than the ultimate I means being unfree. But submission to God means being free. This is the only way: that of freedom from imperfection and subjugation to perfection. Its opposite is subjugation to imperfection and freedom from perfection. ‘I have not created jinn and mankind exceptto serve Me’,114 says the ultimate I. Thus the autonomous I cannot lead to perfection without its duality with the heteronomous being resolved.This means perceivingunity through two of its manifestations. The first is that ‘no partner hath He’.IlS The second states that:

Notes 109

Three men conspire not secretly together, but H e is the fourthof them; neither five men, but H e is the sixth of them; neither fewer than that, neither more, but H e is with them, wherever they may be.116

And this is the realisation of the face in its orientation towards the Face, of which the interpretation speaks: ‘who knows himself, knows his Lord’.

NOTES 1 Matthew, 12:32. 2 Zbid, 5:18. 3 Mark, 15:30. 4 58~7. SJohn, 1:l. 6 2:75,9:6,48:15. 7 2:253. 8 4 1 6 4 and 7:143. 9 7:144. 10 4251. 1 1 Ibn Taymiyya, Fatawa V, Tis’inijya, (Cairo, 1329), p. 265. 12 31:27. 1 3 96:l-5. 14 1424-25. 15 4:174. 16 4252. 17 Marian Wenzel, Ukrasni motivi na stetcima (Ornamental motifson tombstonesfim Medieval Bosnia andmwounding regions) (Sarajevo, 1965), p. 133. 18 See Mehmed Mujezinovid, Zslamkcz epigra3ka Bome iHercegovine (Islamic epigraphy in Bosnia and Herzegovina),I (Sarajevo, 1974), pp. 92, 134; II (1977), pp. 12, 15, 16, 18,22,92,113. 19 Safvet-beg BaSagiC, Mevlud (Mawlud)(Sarajevo, 1924), p. 72. 20 Frithjof Schuon, ‘A Letter on Spiritual Method’, in Titus Burckhardt, Mirror of theIntel1ect:Ersays on TraditionalScienceandSacred Art (Cambridge, 1987), pp. 251-252. T h e letter was wrongly attributed to Titus Burckhardt. 2 1 See, e.g., Abdurahman Nametak, Muhammed Rddi: Monogr@ja itekstovi (Muhamm d Rwhdi: Monograph and texts) (Sarajevo, 1981), p. 81; Jasna $amid, ‘Kaimijeva kasidana -ari iz njegovog djela Varia’at’ (Kaimi’skasida in -ari from his work Varidat), Prilozi za or+mtalnu jlolop~u(Contributions t o OrientalPhilology), 35 (Sarajevo, 1986), p. 70; Ismet Kasumovid, ‘Traktat o transcendentnom ljudstvu Ali-dede BoSnjaka’ (A tract on the transcendental humanity of Ali-dede Bosnawi), Prilozi za orzzentalnr~f;lolagiiu,3 1, (Sarajevo, 1981), p. 103; Salih Trako, ‘Ibrahim Zikrija iz UZica: Komentar Sulejman Celebijina djela Vesilet en-nediat’ (Ibrahim

110 DUALISM RESOLVED

Zikrija from UZice: A comment on Sulayman Celebija’s work Vesiletu’n-nediat), Anali Gazi Husrar-begme biblioteke (AnnaZs of the Ghazi Khusrew-bey’s Library), XIX I (Sarajevo, 1985), pp. 165-173. 22 23~18-19. 23 78~31-32. 24 16:67. 25 This is a reference to the syntagm from the Kur’an (3:l IO) about ‘the best nation’: ‘You are the best nation ever brought forth to men, bidding to honour, and forbidding dishonour, and believing in God. ’ 26 Matthew, 2O:l-16. 27 Mark, 12:9-11. 2 8 3 0 h , 15~1-5. 29 [Praise belongs to God’ is a key statement in communication by signs. Praise transcends each phenomenon. It is a way from perfection and towards it. It can be identified with comfort and the comforter. From Praise a man becomes the praising and the praised. And t h i s is his or her highest achievement. 30 This famous passageby St. John the Evangelist, predicting the coming of a ‘Comforter’ or ‘Advocate’ is echoed by numerous writers. According to the Repeated LAW (18:1S), God ‘will put Hiswords into his mouth’, and, again according to the Gospel of St. John (16:13), he ‘will not speak by himself, but will only speak what he hears’. In that Gospel the word used is Parakletos. It has long been suggested that the Greek translation of Jesus’ words from the original Aramaic could involve a distortion of the word Periklytos, which has a literal correspondence with the Aramaic name Mmhamana. Perikfytos and Mawhamana have the same meaning as the Arabic name Mwhammad (‘Most Praised’). The name Ahmad is directly related to the name Muhammad: Ahmad is also one of the Prophet’s names. It is again the highest degree of adjectival comparison-‘the most praised’. Since the original of the Gospel has not been preserved, and since we have only fragments of Greek translations a t our disposal (and these translations are the result of different readings and censorings), we could assume that forbidden and destroyed versions of the Gospel explicitly mentioned the prophet Ahmad Muhammad. For instance, Decretum Gelasiannm de libris recipiendis et non recipiendis, which is ascribed to Pope Gelasium but which mainly reflects the views of the Nicaean synod from 382, which took place during the reign of Pope Damasus (304-384), contains more versions of the Gospel that were forbidden and lost, One of them is the Gospel OfBarnabas, the one preserved version of which talks about the coming of the prophet Muhammad. There is also an opportune fact that Pope Honorius (died 638), who was a contemporary of Muhammad’s, was excommunicated by the Church-a fact which cannot be understood out of the context of the problem that faced Heraclius and his contemporaries. 3 1John, 14:26. 32 lbid, 15:26. 33 61:6. 34 Sahib Al-Bnkhari, X V I : 8. 35 Wenzel(1965), pp. 203-204. 36 Dizdar (1999)’ p. 67.

Notes l11

37 See Ivan Rengjeo, ‘SimbolikaStapa na stdcima’ (The symbolism of the staff on tombstones), Hruatski p k m i n m (Croatian mmmtainew), W N (Zagreb, 1943), pp. 61-68; Mehmed MujezinoviC (1977), pp. 12,43; Sefik BeSlagiC, NiSaniXViXVIvyeka U Bosni i Hercegovini (Muslim tombstonesfjom the XV and XVI centuries in Bosnia and Herzegovina) (Sarajevo, 1978), pp. 57-58. 38 7:107,26:32, etc. 39 Numbers, 17:26. 40 20:18. 41 26:63. 42 2:60,7:160. 43 Al-Tirmidhi, Bab at-Tafir on Sura 27; Mnsnnd Ahmad, ii, 29.5, according to The Entychpaedia of Islam (Leiden, 1986), I, p. 680. 44 17:81. 45 Martin Lings, Muhammad: his li$e bnsed on the earliestsmmes (London, 1988), p. 302. 46 Ash-Shaykh Abu Ja‘farMuhammad ibn Ya‘qub ibn Ishaq al-Kulayni ar-Razi, Und al-Knfi (Tehran, 1374/1955), I, TV, 38,629-9. 47 Wenzel (1965), pp. 145-146. 48 MujezinoviC (1977), pp. 12, 16, 18,22,92; BeSlagiC (1978), pp. 57-58. 49 W e can find such signs above the courtyard door of the SariCa house in Stolac. 50 1744. 51 41:37. 52 Ibid. 53 22:18. 54 14:33. 55 105, 36:39. 56 82:l. 57 75:s-9. 58 According to the Tradition(Sahib Muslim,I, 194) Masdjid al-Aqsa in Jerusalem is the second mm4id in the world, built forty years after Masdjid al-Haram in Mecca. Considering traditions about Masdjid al-Haram (at-Tabari, Ta’rikh arRzmd zua ‘l-Mukk, I, 408), we can see that the construction of Masdjid al-Aqsa is related to Adam, and then to Abraham and his descendants (see also in I Annals, 22). Later, Solomon built a temple on that place, which, after having been destroyed and reconstructed several times, was in ruins by the time of the prophet Muhammad. Therefore, Masdjid al-Aqsa is a place that symbolises man’s taking an oath to God, a place that was chosen by God and revered by man. T h e Rock (Arabic m-snkhrah) is the centre of Masdjid al-Aqsa. Inside the Rock there is a cave referred to in many traditions about prophets. h oath trunk was placed in i t when it was the centreof Solomon’s temple. God’s decree that theRock be a sign can be linked with numerous passages in Biblical books. It thus stands at the beginning of the line of prophets, when its choice is linked with Adam, and a t the end of the line, when it is sealed by the feet of the prophet Muhammad. Masdjid al-Aqsa is the space around the Rock that is consecrated by God’s choice. It cannot be defiled by any construction or building work. 59 Wenzel(1965), pp. 145-146. 60 BeSlagiC. (1978), pp. 57-58.

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61 SamiC (1986), p. 69. 62 Samii: (1986), p. 72, 63 Ciro Truhelka, ‘LijeEniStvo PO narodnoj predaji bosanskoj i PO jednom starom rukopisu’ (Medicine according to the Bosnian folk tradition and to an old manuscript), GlasnikZemaljskog muzqa (The Herald of the Country Museum), 4, I (Sarajevo, 1889), p. 99. 64Truhelka (1889), p. 104. 65 Matthew, 10:34. 66 Ahmad ibn al-Husayn al-Bayhaqi, Kitab as-Sunan al-Kubra, Zuhd; according to Arent J. Wensinck, A Hand6ook of Early Muhammadan Tradition (Leiden, 1927). 67 Revelation, 1:16. 68 See Frithjof Schuon, In the Tracksof Buddhism (London, 1968)) pp. 26-27. 69 Hamdija KreSevljakoviC, ‘Prilozi povijesti bosanskih gradova podturskom upravom’ (Contributions to the history of Bosnian townsunder Turkish rule), Prilozi za onjentalnufzlolog~u(Contributions to Oriental Philology), I1 (Sarajevo,1952), p. 115. 70 29:41. 71 Lilek(1894), p. 654. 72 Lings (1996), p. 119. 73 Alija BejtiC, ‘Jedno videnje sarajevskih evlijai njihovih grobova kao kulmih mjesta’ (A viewof Sarajevo Awliyasand their tombstones as cult places), % h i za mjentalnu fzlologiju (Conrributionrto Oriental Philology),3 1 (Sarajevo, 198 l), p. 11 1. 74 Quoted in Burckhardt (1976), p.93. 75 55:26-27. 76 Nahj AI-Balaghah, p. 244. 77 2:154. 78 Muhamed HadtijahiC and Hivzija SuljkiC, ‘PeCina U BrateljeviCima kod Kladnja kao kulmo mjesto’ (The cave in BrateljeviCi near Kladanj as a cult place), G h i k vrhovnog islamkog staqeiinstva (The Herald of theSupremeIslamic Ofice), 5 (Sarajevo, 1979), pp. 473490. 79 Muharned Hadfijahii: and Hivzija SuljkiC, 70.3jedno bogumilsko-islamsko kulmo mjesto’ (Another Bogumil-Islamic cult place), GlasnikVrhovnog islamkog starjeiinstva (The Herald of the Supreme IslamicOfice), 3 (Sarajevo, 198 l), p. 2. 80 kiro Truhelka, ‘Bosanska narodna (patarenska) crkva’(Bosnian Folk (Pateren) Church), Pov;jest hrvatskih zemaljaBosne i Hercegovine (History ofthe Croatian LandF of Bosnia and Haegovina), I (Sarajevo 1942), pp. 767-793. 81 Vlajko Palavestra, ‘Celija U Rataju’ (The Cell in Rataj), in Gomje Podrinje u doba KosaEa (Upper Podrinje in the time of KosaEa) (Sarajevo, 1977), pp. 55-65. 82 Ciro Truhelka, ‘Testament Gosta Radina; Prinos patarenskom pitanju’ (TheTestament of Gost Radin; Contribution to the Paturin problem), G h i k Znnaljskog muzqa (The Heraldofthe Cormtry Museum),Xxm (Sarajevo, 191 l), pp. 371-375. 83 Every man is created in perfection and because of it. It is given to him by the Creator. H e has freedom of choice between evil and good. Salvation is one and only, while the possibilities of choice are innumerable. A multitude of paths lead towards salvation, and these paths testify to unity in diversity. A universal way of salvation is secured by no name people give to it (2:111). It is conditioned by acknowledgment of the sacred kernel of every tradition. Sacred rites, doctrines and

Notes l 1 3

arts are numerous, and they all lead to the salvation of each and every one that deduces and strengthens the understanding of God’s Oneness from them, and in doing so he surrenders to His will, and by living righteously he realises this submission. The Kur’an says (2:62): ‘Lo! those who believe (in that which is revealed unto thee, Muhammad), and those who are Jews, and Christians, and Sabaeans, whoever believeth in Allah and the LastDay and doeth rightsurely their reward is with their Lord, and there shall no fear come upon them, neither shall they grieve.’ 84 I Corinthians, 13 :12. 85 2:115. 86 28:88. 87 55:26-27. 88 76:8-10. 89 Matthew, 25: 41 90 92:19-20. 91 2:177. 92 6:75. 93 6:78-79. 94 95:4. 95 7:180. 96 21:30. 97 24:35. 98 67:3. 99 57:3. 100 95:4-5. 101 NahjAl-Balaghah,p. 244. 102 35:27. 103For this Tradition and its nature see William C. Chittick, The Sa$ Path of Knowledge: Ilm al-Arabi’s Metaphysics of Imagination (New York, 1989), p. 66. 104 7:40. 105 Rashid al-DinMaybudi, Kashfal-ansar, vol. 1 (Tehran, 1952), p. 561. 106 14:24-25. 107 17:13. 108 Arabic amanah. 109 6:163. 110 In Bosnian, as in other Slavic languages, at the root of the word f i e e d m is the word self; together with I: slaboda-svoj-ja. Similarly, the word Slav itself isrelated to the word ‘slave’. 111 42:ll. 112 112:4. 113 22:18. 114 51:56. l15 6:163. 116 58:7.

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CHAPTER 4

THE CYCLE OF SLAUGHTER

Introduction

B

OSNIA can be viewed as a mesh woven of separate strands, all leading to one and the same centre. Bosnia’s Muslims, Catholics and Ortho-

dox,while often sharing one another’s customs, retained separate identities-but their common sense of responsibility towards the Absolute made them all members of a shared unity of diversity. The very differences between their ‘ways of life and laws’ served to stimulate and strengthen this sense of responsibility: the spider’s web wovenout of common awareness of the divinepreservedBosnia from potential destroyers for centuries. She remained whole in spite of the stresses produced by the arrival of ideologies based on the conviction that man is capable of building laws alone, and is entitled to establish ‘the sovereignty of his groups or nations’. For laws deriving from national membership alone are no longer laws-in that they are no longer components of an integral structure protecting the rights of the weak against the strong. Bosniacs, the most numerous people of Bosnia, have the greatest stake in defending Bosnia as unity in diversity. Since they are scattered across Bosnia’s neighbours, as well asthroughout Bosnia itself,they have an interest in all forms of unification which do notendanger Bosnian unity. Their consistent response to the political currents initiated by the collapse of Yugoslavia was to request that Bosnia should be preserved as a separate cultural and political entity: this was clearly an essential precondition for their own sur-

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vival. The danger ofBosnia’sfall broughtthe complex layers within Bosnian society to the surface and suggested the need to revive the traditional values of Bosnia’s diverse culture in their own and the country’s battle for survival. The Bosniacs awaited the final results of the fall of Yugoslavia asthe only nation in the entiregeopolitical area which did not possess a single national institution. The Islamic community, as a multinational organisation, was totally subject to the ruling political forces, and hadno independence whatever in the management of religious business. The majority of the educated population were secular, generally atheistic individuals who were part of the ideologisedsystemof state government. Religiousofficials were likewise dependent on state government and tried to harmonise their understanding of Islam with sociopolitical trends, even to the point of ignoring Islamic principles. The only genuine spiritual structure of the Bosniac people was the small surviving Sufi brotherhood, squeezed to the bottom of Bosniac society, but remaining spontaneously linked to Islamic teaching and the Bosniac inheritance. The Greater-Serbia campaign against Bosnia, which rapidly found allies among the Croat nationalists, placed Bosniacs a t the centre of its target. The ideologies of greater Serbhood and greater Croathood exclude all political and other rights of the Bosniacs, justifying this as ‘the defence of Europe against Islam’. The systematically produced and disseminated propaganda portrayed Bosniacs as ‘the fundamentalist peril’. Simultaneously, the relentless and wholesale process of‘ethnic cleansing’ drove the Bosniacs towards adopting a defensive posture of religious and national exclusivity-a suicidal posture, since it enabled the greater-state forces to produce convincing evidence to justify their campaign against the Bosniacs. The campaign to destroy Bosnia required that religious principles should be reduced to national axiologies. Thus the fragile yetstrong Bosnian ‘spider’s web’ of acceptance of the diversity of sacred followings would be broken. The systematic destruction of the Bosniac nation was carried out through killing, rapes, expulsion and the destruction of the Bosniac cultural inheritance. From 31 March 1992 until 30April1995, approximately 140,800 people were killed, 1,242,000 were made refugees1 and 1,124 mosques were destroyed or damaged.2 The indecisiveness and hypocrisy of the West contributed to these crimes, while the so-calledIslamic world showed itself powerless to exert any important influence to prevent the erasure of the Bosniac nation. Bosniacs were faced with the stark choice of defence or

The Secret Letter 117

surrender: for the most part they decided on defence-perhaps one of the most courageous decisions ofour decade. The defence of Bosnia required the building of a multinational ideology and the development and nurture of a specifically Bosnian intellectual and spiritual culture, incorporating elements of all three religions. The immediate result wasan increased focus on religion: its role was perceived as something more than a bland compound of sentimentality and morality. The fight for survival united almost all layers of Bosniac society and energised debate on the various paths of spiritual renewal. Bosnia, by means of its bloody drama, has succeeded in becoming a focus of interest and attention among observers and researchers. The result has been the production of many historical, sociological and political interpretations of the causes and consequencesof this drama. This particular example was inspired by a sense that the internal causes and consequences of the Bosnian drama have by and large escaped most contemporary observers. Bosnia’s identity is composed of a culture directly based on principles, and it cannot be accurately portrayed or understood through an exclusivelyrationalist and secular approach. The inspiration for the approach here demonstrated was the concept of using a specifically Bosnian-Islamic view ofthe causes and consequences of the Bosniac genocide, in relation to the tasaww u ! as its spiritual nucleus.

The Secret Letter The forms deriving from the name of Bosnia: Bosanac, Bosanka, Bosancica (a Bosnian man, woman and child) allcontain an extra letter ‘a’, which does not exist in the basic form. The Sufi tradition points to this secret presence of the first letter, the all-symbolic Alpha, as a sign of the true mission of Bosnia, and of the latent nature of this mission. But before we examine the content of this teaching more directly, it would be helpful to investigate some largely ignored elements in the history of Bosnia’s spirituality, on the way to an understanding of the secret of Bosnia’s unity in diversity. It is generally accepted that in the first half of the fourth century the Alexandrian bishop Arius was undergoing exile in Illyria. Some researchers go further, locating his exile in the regions of Bosnia. The Arian bishops had significant influence inSrijemandSlavonia,whose histories intertwine closely with that of early Bosnia. In Srijem, between 351 and 359 four ecclesiastical assemblies were held, and four orders of faith were established

1 18 THE CYCLE OF SLAUGHTER

known as the F m u l a e Sinnianae. In the fifth and sixth centuries, a Gothic kingdom was founded in the south of Bosnia and on the Adriatic coast, where Arian Christology was promoted.3 The discovery ofthe great Gothic church at Skelani, near Srebrenica, dating back to the fourth and fifth centuries: like that of a series of similar findings from the earliest period of Christianity in this area, provided dramatic evidence of the Arian presence in and around Bosnia. Similar findings have been made in other parts of Bosnia: in Siprage near Kotor VaroS, VaroSluk near Gornje Turbe, Majdan near Varcar-Vakuf, Dabravina near Visoko, and elsewhere.5 At the centre of Arian teaching is the question of the relationship between God and Jesus. This shakes, divides andunites people in their desire for salvation. Without insight into Arian understanding of this question we cannot hope to obtain any insight into the totality of faith and its various forms over time. Arius himself says: ‘God Himself, therefore, remains mysterious. He alone has no equal, none like him, none of equal glory. We call Him unoriginated in contrast to him who is originated by nature ... we praise Him as without beginning in contrast to him who has a beginning, we worship Him as eternal in constrast to him who comes into existence in time.’6 Discussing the relationship between Jesus and the Creator, Arius maintains, ‘They arealtogether infinitely dissimilar from each other in their levels of glory.He (God) is set apart in Himself and is in every waywithout a participator.’7 Basinghis interpretation on the scriptures, Ariusdeveloped a total Christology and soteriology centred on the Saviour, as being in perfect submission to the will of his Creator. His holy life demonstrates the perfect creation, and is therefore the road to salvation for all followers of Christ.8 A r i d cosmology is ordered accordingly. This introduces the concept of an eternal test to the centre of religious science,with the two extremes of principle and its opposite. The pre-existence of Christ is, for Arius’ followers, something created9-yet it is the guarantee of his Godly nature, and thus of the non-created. The imprints which the Christian controversy has left throughout history-an eternal monument to the debates of the Bishops Arius and Athanasius-have encouraged and stimulated the desire of various communities to establish their right to their own interpretation. In all historical analyses of Bosnian spirituality, numerous facts have been omitted. The entire concept and history of ‘the Bosnian mission’ is received with hostility by advocates of absolutist investigative methods, whose definition of truth is strictly materialist and whose portrayal of events tends to be one-sided. Emphasis-

The Secret Letter 119

ing those facts which uphold the concept of an unbroken spiritual current, appearing in various historical forms, contributes enormously to a better understanding of the spiritual phenomena ofBosnia. It isall themore needed since these are the facts most often passed over in the effort to interpret Bosnia’s history as the motivation for the current savagery of the anti-Bosnia campaigns. Where Arian Christology earlier took root, Islam was also accepted, becoming a tradition and inheritance prior to the Ottoman occupation in the fifteenth century. In the regions of Srijem and Slavonia, the presence of Islam has been dated back to the ninth century, evidenced by the excavation of relics of Islamic culture.1° The earliest historical records of BoriC, the first Bosnian Ban known to historians by name, are also of significance in constructing a model of a unified and consistent spiritual current. BoriC was ofSlavonianorigin-furtherevidence of the early historical connection between Slavonia and Bosnia, important for the recognition of the spiritual relationship engrained in the spiritual inheritance of Bosnia. Usora and Soli are regular factors in the historical fate of Slavonia. The opponents lined up on the Hungarian side against Emmanuel Komnen, the Byzantine emperor, included the Bosnian Ban BoriC, and the residents of Slavonia, in alliance with PeEenites and Kalissian forces who were mainly Muslims. Both these tribes were present inSrijem and Slavonia’l and formed settlements in Usora and Soli. The Hungarian king Emeric writes in 1196, ‘We also ordain that the Ismailites and the PeEenites (hymaelite vel byssenii) or people under whatever law, in the square of Osijek and in all harbours, which belong in the same brotherhood (the monastery of Cikadora), pay customs.’12 Kalesija, between Tuzla and Zvornik, reminds us today of Kalisija in Soli, while the village of PeEenegovciunder Motajica brings to mind the PeEenes; and Gornja and Donja BiSina, the BiSina stream near Derventa, and the settlement of BiSina near Nevesinje, are reminders of the Byssenii. Intriguingly, Ban BoriC bequeathed his property in the village of Esdel in Slavonia to the Templar m0na~tery.l~ The Templar order was founded in l1 19, taking its name from the Temple in Jerusalem of the Masdjid alAqsa.14 The Templars considered this masdjid to be Solomon’s temple and linked the structure and secrets of their order with Solomon. Although plenty of controversy surrounds the Templar order, it is more or less established that the Templars originated as a military and chivalric community of believers,structured in accordance with the principles of faith, under the influence of Islam, Islamic teaching and ~ t r u c t u r e s . ~ ~ Torder h e preserved within itself the fundamental issues of the science of Christ, the se-

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crets of salvation andthe Saviour, remote from the authorities and the public. Questions remain about the fundamentals of their faith-and the extent to which they were guilty of the charges made against them: of grandiose secret plans, intentions of building a Templarist state, efforts to reconcile Judaism, Christianity and Islam. There are plenty of questions left unanswered about theinfluences which formed the order, theinspiration taken from the Cathar movement, and the presence of older, non-Pauline elements of Christian teaching. There is also the more material issueof what happened to the magnificent Templar treasure, whichdisappeared without a trace. Furthermore,there is the mystery of the Templar rituals, the secret idol, which the Templars worshipped under the name Bnphomet, and the arcane knowledge available only to theleaders of the order.16 From Jerusalem, the Templarsspread throughout Europe, their structure and ritual remaining shrouded in secrecy. The order was finally prohibited and was apparently destroyed in 1312.

Christ and Christology The followers ofBosnia’s diverse religious traditions haveanswered the same questions differently throughout their history. Arian Christology claims that Christ is not God buta created being. The fundamental position of Arius is the Unityand Uniqueness of God, who is self-createdand immutable. His ‘Son’ is not self-created, and therefore cannot be God. Since God is Unique, He cannot be divided among, or related to, any being or beings. Therefore, again, the ‘Son’ cannot be God. Since God is immutable and the ‘Son’ is mutable, as the Gospels portray him in their accounts of his conception, development, and death, Christ cannot be God: therefore, he is God’s creature, called into existence from nothing. The ‘Son’ cannot have direct knowledge of the ‘Father’, sincehe is finite and ofa different substance. The counterpart to this Christology is incorporated in theNicaean creed, which defined the nature of Christology both for Orthodoxy and for Catholicism. This credo says that the ‘Son’ is the homoozlsion to pama (‘of one being with the Father’). The Son is all that the Fatheris: he is totally Godand thus were laid the foundations for insoluble conflict between the interpreters of God’s Message. The Bosnian Church was founded on dedication to the right to pursue a different road in answering the riddle of Christ. The geographical position

Pmakletos 12 1

of Bosnia, like a central flame of unity attracting all forms of acceptance of the Truth, suggests why so many expelled followers of faiths which were in conflict with the ruling systems of the time found shelter within Bosnia. The oldest records about the ‘Bosnian Krstjani’, as they called themselves, or Paturins, as they were called by their enemies, contain evidence of the hostility shown by the neighbouring powers to the Bosnian pursuit of unity in diversity.At the Bilino Polje, 1203, before the papal legate Ivan de Casamaris, the Bosnian Krstjani were forced to swear that ‘anybodyof whom we do not know for certain that he is not a Manichaean or some other heretic, we will not accept to live with us’.17 The papal legate wrote after this, ‘Obliged to undertake the work of investigating those former Paturins (pondam patarinorurn) in Bosnia, I was in Hungary at the wish of the king for several days.’l8This king considered them heretics, and obliged Ban Kulin to pay a penal tax ‘if he consciously keeps or defends in the country any of these or otherpeople condemned for heresy’.19 Pope Honorius III wrote in1221 that ‘In the kingdoms ofBosnia are openly studied poisonous sciences to the terrible damage of the side of the Lord. The heretics like Lamis with bared breasts suckle their young. Heretics, like foxesfrom the forest thickets try to destroy the vineyard of our Lord,and their hiding place should be invaded and overthrown. But also those who accept them and protect them should not be left unpunished.’20 Accordingto the records of the Bosnian Krstjani, attitudes were similar on the part of the representatives of the Orthodox Church, from their eastern neighbours. The Orthodox Council, at the end of the fourteenth century, condemned the ‘many heretics ofBosnia and Hum (Herzegovina) ... they callthemselves Krstjani ... they do not kneel to the sacred icons and the cross’? They were, for the Orthodox Church ‘heretics’, ‘Hagarians’ and ‘servants the of Devil’.22

Parakletos Our earliest information about the inhabitants ofBosnia concerns their struggle against the powers of the Orthodox East and the Catholic West. Bosnia had its own separate Bosnian Church, with its own Christology and a unique structure: thisremained firm inopposition tothe structures and Christologies of Orthodoxy and Catholicism. The small differences between the three Christologies arethe source of Bosnia’s unique identity-an identity fiercely defended by the Bosnian Krstjani, who were willing to die for the integrity of their interpretation and its unique relationshipto the other traditions.

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The biggest mystery of Bosnia is the question of what came first in the internal faith of the Bosnians. This question cannot be approached purely on the level of the external. A deeper explanation is suggested by the Sufi tale of the two kings. Interpreting the existence of the stecaks, this tradition tells of the long and indecisive battle between two kings, each of whom eventually decided in secret to destroy the graves of his antagonists, since their different beliefs could not be destroyed. T o obstruct one another in this latest design, they had stecaks carved and placed on all graves as protection. Eventually they met, and agreed to go on placing a stecak on every grave until the Resolver of all conflicts should come.23 Historians are confused by two facts: the Bosnians were persistent for centuries in following the teaching of the Bosnian Church, until, with the coming of the Ottoman Empire, the majority promptly accepted Islam and the church itself vanished. The surviving Sufi inheritance of Bosnia, however, preserves some of the background to these facts. There is abundant historical evidenceto show that the Bosnian people’s persistencein keeping to their own spiritual road was considered‘heretical’and wasusedby neighbouring powers to justify their attacks on Bosnia. From an early period, therefore, dedication to their own church was accompanied by the anxiety of the persecuted to keep the inmost aspects of their tradition safe from persecutors-coupled with a paradoxical openness towards the teachings of other religions. The spiritual genealogy of the Bosnian Sufis descends from Isa (Jesus), the son of Mary, to Muhammad, the son of ‘Abd Allah, enclosing in a perfect circle, bordered by the petals of the rose and the branches of the vine, the two most fundamental signs of Bosniac spirituality.The original members of this circle werethe bearers of livingtradition, handed down from Isa the Bosnian Church. through the long line of ‘Grandfathers’-‘Djeds’-of The Djeds handed their spiritual treasury to the Sufi Shaykhs, who believed their knowledge and genealogyto be descended from the Prophet Muhammad, who received his knowledge from the angel Jibril (Gabriel), who in turn spoke the word ofGod. In the surviving books of the Church of Bosnia the word ‘Paraclete’ is used to signify the coming of one who will fulfil and bear witness to the mission and nature of Jesus, and who will explain the questions currently dividing the followers of Jesus.24 This expectation is explicitlydescribed, in a fragment hidden in the secret treasury of the monastery of Krka. The fragment is strongly reminiscent not only of the Kur’anic and biblical descriptions of Christ’s reference to the Holy Spirit or Messenger who will

Perakletos 12 3

confirm His Message, but also of John the Baptist’s prophecy, from the Gospel of St. John: ‘He it is, who coming after me, is preferred before me, whose shoe latchet I am not worthy to untie.’ The words ofJesus T o his disciples: ‘One will come after me From the right hand of the Sun in the East Iam not worthy T o place the dust of his clothing Against my cheek. He will receive you all As his disciples And inheritors. The Paradise of G o d Is in his kingdom. Amen, Amen. Let his name be The Holy Spirit, Paraclete, From theknees of Abraham. Whoever will not accept him He will smite with the sword.’25

Describing Bosniac beliefs, Paul Rycaut stresses that many of those ‘who strangely mixed Christianity andMuhammadanism together were soldiers ‘who live in the border areas of Hungary and Bosnia ... they still believe that Muhammad is the Holy Spirit which Christ foretold, and that the descent of the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost was the likeness and form of Muhammad, interpreting that in all places the word Parakletos means their Prophet’J6 This article of faith, concealed for protection against the governments of the neighbouring states and the ‘true-believing’ churches, was represented symbolically, according to Sufis, by the letter ‘a’ in the Bosnian mysteries. It shines out in Christ’s Kur’anic prediction of ‘a Messenger who will come after me, whose name shall be Ahmad’.27 External state and church establishments believed the internal Bosnian identity was vulnerable, and gave themselves the role of correctors and saviours of the Bosnians from their heretical errors. Several crusading armies

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were sent to crush the Bosnian heresy, marching under the banner of faith, which often concealed more genuine motives of expansionism and violence. When we examine the motiveswhich brought the Ottoman sultan Mehmed 11to Bosnia, there are strong suggestions that his arrival wasin no way an interruption of the spiritual current of Bosnia, but rather reinforced this country’s permanent connection to the core of all spiritual teaching. Before he came to Bosnia as a sultan and leader of a Muslim army, historical recordsZ8show that Mehmed visited Bosnia for a lengthy period as a Dervish. His close relationship with Toma, the predecessor of the last king of Bosnia, dates back to this period.

The Transition According to Sufi tradition, secret Dervish brotherhoods were present in Bosnia for centuries before Sultan Mehmed arrived. Their task was to integrate their message into the language and the country, but to remain independent of official establishments. The debates about the differences in external forms helped obscure the reality of their inner likeness and relationship. They believed their task was to renew consciousness that everything depends on the Truth while the Truth depends on nothing, according to the call of God: ‘Weshall show them Our signs upon the horizons and in themselves, until it is clear to them that it is the They were smving to see their own hearts as the house of God: T h e Messenger of God said that there is no path to knowledge of God but knowledge of self, for He said ‘He who knows himself knows his Lord.’ He also said ‘He who knows himself best knows his Lord best.’ Hence he made you a signifier. That is, he made your knowledge of yourselfsignify your knowledge of Him. This is either by way of the fact that He described you with the same essence and attributes with which He described Himself and He made you His vicegerent and deputy in His earth; or it is that you have poverty and need for Him in yourexistence; or itis the two together, and inescapably

Thus the Sufis came to all houses and towns, for they knew that everywhere they went they must stand before the Face of Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain t h a t build it: except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but invain.32

The Transition 12S

And God’s house and city are the earth and the heavens, the sun and the moon, the stars and the mountains, the trees and the animals: all are prostrate before Him. The man who willingly prostrates himself is the image of the Absolute: therefore, any place on the earth is his masdjid: ‘The earth is a mosque for you, so wherever you are at the time of prayer, pray there.’33 By accepting this invitation, humanity is directed toward the Anointed and the Much-Praised as the most sublime possibility. Taking the path towards them, we reach the banks of the river: from there we can cross to the other side, followingthe stream back to the spring, or down to the estuary. By this transition one finds ‘the place’ where the traveller’s or the shepherd’s staff becomes the seventh ray, the axis of the world, the treeof life andthe thread on which the worlds are strung. A multitude of worlds are opened, vertically and horizontally linked to all other levels of being. At Brodac, in one of the gorges of the Miljacka river, where a number of hermits have had their caves, overlooked by crags where eagles nest and surrounded bylilacs and jasmine, a hospice,known as the Mawlawiyya Takiyya, was built at the end of the fourteenth century. Here, the staff of the Bosnian Djed was kept, as the sign of the power bestowed through dedication to the Anointed and the Much-Praised. On the wall of this takijya a queen bee was painted, the sign of the spiritual leader who is followed by all travellers on spiritual paths. This hospice was called ‘the place of the Dervishes, the house of those who are on God’s road’.34 In February 1492 this takijya was endowed by Isa-bey IshakoviC, and an inscription made:

... that He sent the right instruction and the true faith through the Praised One-may the Supreme God have mercy and bless him!-in order to bring it so to the victory over all other faiths in spite of the opposition of the false ... That God accepts the sincere repentanceof His slaves, that He forgives them bad deeds, for His mercy takes precedence overHis wrath; He forgives and He is merciful... In the village of Brodac, near Sarajevo, he built a zawiye, or Dervish house: three buildings, a stable, a walled courtyard, and during his lifetime he established a foundation which endowedit to serve as a hospice for the faithful:students, dignitaries, soldiers, passing travellers.3s This takijya stood above the stepping-stone path across the water: those who dwelt there sought and interpreted the way the worlds turn around the centre of the self. Along with the holy scriptures of the revelation, the book of the Dervish order,the Mathnawi, was their central narrative. ‘They solved the secrets of the honourable Mathnawi, the book of witnesses of

126 THE CYCLE OF SLAUGHTER

human virtues, in search of the way through the ravine of the ephemeral towards the Eternal.’36 Many signs of their efforts in this search have appeared throughout the ~enturies.~’ This book, and the rites of remembrance, turning and whirling, were received as fulfilment of the Bosnian faith in the coming of the Parakletos. This name corresponds to the GreekParyklitos, the Aramaic Mawhamana and the Arabic Muhammad. These all mean ‘much praised’: Thus AhmadMuhammad-Mustaji is in English ‘TheMost Praised-The Much Praised-The Elect’. Awareness of this name is present throughout the history of humanity’s search for perfection. There is also testimony to this in theMathnawi: The name of Mustafa was in theGospel, the chief ofthe prophets, the sea of purity. There was mention of hischaracteristics and appearance; there was mention of hiswarring and fasting and eating. A party among theChristians, for the sake ofthe Divine reward, whenever they came to that name and allocution would bestow kisseson that noble name, and stoop theirfaces towards that beauteous description. In this tribulation of whichwe have told, that party were secure from tribulation and dread, secure from the mischiefs of the amirs and the vizier, seeking refuge in the protection of the Nameof Ahmad. Their offspring also multiplied: the Lightof Ahmad aided andbefriended them. And the other party among the Christians were holding the Name of Ahmad in contempt, they became contemptible and despised through dissensions caused by the evil-counselling and evil-plotting vizier. Moreover, their religion and their law becamecorrupted in consequence of the scrolls which set forthall perversely. The Name of Ahmad givessuch help as this, so how does his Light keep guard? Since the Nameof Ahmad becamean impregnable fortress, what thenmust be the essence of that trusted spirit?38

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T h e meeting between Sultan Mehmed al-Fatih and the Franciscan Fra Angel ZvizdoviC, at Milodraie in May 1463, concerned the activities of the takijyz. At that time, the Bosnians were clashing bitterly over the various interpretations of the Messiah's teachings, the mystery of unity in diversity denied by conflicting individualities. The language of submission was perverted by hatred. From the meeting between the sultan and the friar originated the Book of Vows, reflecting the love of both the Much-Praised and the Messiah: Let no man hinder or obstruct either the above-mentioned (Christians) or their churches. Let them live in my dominion. And for those who have fled, let them be free and secure; let them return and live without fear in the lands of my dominion within their m o n a ~ t e r i e s . ~ ~

Evli Celebi also visited this house, in the year 1659. This is what he wrote: The Mawlawiyya Takiyya is situated on the bank of the Miljacka river, a t a place beautiful as the gardens of paradise. This is the foundation of Djalal alDin Rumi. It has a hall for the rites of the Dervishes, a room for conversation and from seventy to eighty spacious Dervish cells with a veranda where the Dervishes play musical instruments, with a kitchen and an eating room. Their chief is a learned Dervish whose supplications are answered by God. The head of its music players, the calligrapher Mustafa, has the most beautiful handwriting.40

ReSidBoSnjak participated in the prayers, whispered meditations and holy rituals of the members of this house-and was also a witness of its reduction to ashes. H e wrote, in its memory: In the well a t the heart, a fountain played, And around stood buildings such as paradise has not. This was surely paradise-its rooms were the courtsof paradise, The earth was pure, as of a higher world,the water likethe Holy Spirit, The air sweet and soft: This was the house of the Mawlawi, But surely a place where the angels might nest. The floor of marble shone like a mirror, Those who looked within might see themselvesreflected. Its masdjid shone as a Holy house-in this place the Good said their prayers.4'

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Verticality and Horizontality In religion, the earth belongs to God but was given to humanity, insofar as we have the potential to reach for perfection and make our hearts the house of God: ‘My heavensand My earth do notembrace Me, but the heartof My believing servant embraces Me.’42 Each placeon earth is a heavenly source, springing from the centre and returning towards it. As the creation of the Uncreated, each place remains linked to the Vertical. This is the relationship between Reason and the Intellect: the first encompasses the totality of phenomena and motion, through the light of Intellect which springs from the uncreated centre; this light is endlessly reflected back. The evidence available suggeststhat almost all settlements in this country retain some link to the ancient presence of the Sufis.43Among those Sufis still remaining, the connection with verticality was sought and renewed. They continued to recognise the tradition of anointment-to be anointed is to be praised, and so therefore to live in such a way as to deserve that praise. This is humanity’s ascent toward perfection. ‘Nothing in the cosmos’, said Ibn al-Arabi,‘is without a share of the divine form, but the cosmos as a whole is in the divine form.’@ He also said: ‘Know that the divine beauty through which God is named Beautiful andby which He described Himself in His messenger’s words, “He loves beauty”, is in all things. There is nothing but Beauty, for God created the cosmos only in His form, and He is beautiful. Hence all the cosmos is beautiful.’4S Taking into account that ‘there is not a thing thatdoes not glorify Him in praise’46, the whole cosmos is the Much-Praised: everything within it is potentially present in the humanself.Muhammad or Ahmadsymbolises theFirst and the Last, the Manifest and the Non-Manifest in the cosmos and in the human self. The names of God, dispersed all over the cosmos, are concentrated in man. The path towards the truth reveals, in every phenomenon, its potential to enable transition from the circumference to the centre. For example, all stones originally, and ultimately, are jewels which receive and transmit the Light: a heavenly sign of the sacredness of the earth when perceived by the pure heart on a right path. In the absence of such a path, stones, like all other phenomena, are dark and formless lumps, cold and hard signs of a disintegrating universe. The stone which bears the imprint of Abraham’s foot beside the Kaba, and the Black stone in its wall are, as Ali-Dede, the Bosniac, said, heavenly jewels. They were sent down to earth a t the same time as Adam but were darkened by the touch of the false, the deniers and the hypocrite^.^' The luminous nature of the symbols contained in the ho-

Vwticality and HorizontaIity 129

rizons, in the world’s horizontality, reveals their connection with the nonindividual and supra-individualCentre. Through this presence in the world, as the Sufis believe,the self becomesopen to the heavens; the heavenly door remains closed to those who deny God’s signs.48The revelation of Eternity in individual phenomena is Beauty; its attraction is Love. So know that the state of Love is more sublime than all states and degrees, for God’s Love flows through all the states and the manifestation of all things happens through God’s Love. Therefore, every state and position before Love and then with Love becomes the state and position after Love. Thereby it is becoming more complete, for Love is the root of Being and of the Much-Praisedpeace be with Him!-which is the main reason ofthe world. Out of the reality of this leader sprang everything that has been created, so that God the High is the High degree of Love who gave the basis of all degrees to the Much-Praisedpeace be with him!-who is the basis of everything that exists. Therefore, the Much-Praised-peaceandmercybewithhim!-is the form of God’sLove. Therefore God the High says: ‘Say: If you love God, follow me, and God will love you, and forgive you your sins!’49 Thus God’s Love is bound with. those who love the Prophet. And you, too, if you wish to look upon the Beauty of the truly beloved being, direct yourself to God’s Love, for according to the meaning of God’s words ‘I was the hidden treasury and I love to be known (...)’, a union through the manifestation of God’s Love has been made possible.50

From this perspective, the whole of Bosnia becomes Beauty. Everything in the world-mountains and springs, plains and trees, caves and waterscommunicates the stations of wisdom and the path of ascent toward them. The path disappears with the breaking of the tie between verticality and horizontality, and the unity of the world is broken: Guide us in the straight path, the path of those whom Thou hast blessed, not of those against whom Thou a r t wrathful, nor of those who are astray.51

Bosnian Sufitradition offers us three examples of such symbolic interpretations of the horizons and the self. In its narrow gorge lies Brodac, the passage across the Miljacka. The stepping stones in the water made it possible to cross to or from the Brodac Takiyya. Passing from one side to the other demanded full concentration on the surfaces of the stones: this meant being fully bound to the horizontal plane by absolute focus upon it. With each step forward the previous stone was left and forgotten and attention fully directed to the next. This contraction of the self, in fierce concentra-

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tion on the plane of multitude and motion, was resolved in relaxation, unity and peace when the other side was reached. This resolution of tension prefigured the act of turning towards the vertical and renewing the links between horizontality and verticality, or between the earthly and the heavenly elements of being. The spiritual teacher who draws all people, attracting the deepest elements of their being, is a link in the chain which includes the Anointed and the Much-Praised. Such a teacher claims no merit, but is present as a gate through which one can pass. Good teachers receive the staff of their predecessorsandkeep it for their successors, bearing constant witness to the presence of the vertical axis. The chosen place must be recognised wherever it is found: the spiritual teacher knows the lotus and is in its centre: ‘Verily, the hearts of allthe children of Adam are as one single hea1-t.’5~ Tradition tells us that if this bond between horizontality and verticality should be broken the Brodac Takiyya would disappear, the staff would be hidden, the queen-bee would vanish, and the passage across the water be lost. (This takijya has been reduced to rubble many times-most recently in the year 1957. Together with the tombs of its spiritual masters, the Brodac Takiyya was razed to the ground and a road now passes over it, as well as the feet of passers-by. The staff has been re-hidden and we are once again passing through a period of discord with respect to ‘the Name’.) The Blagaj Takiyya, chosen by heaven as the place of the rock and the spring, is another example-enshrined in the speech of tradition, but forgotten since this speech fell silent. This takijya is also reached by traversing water: the flow of water from the rock suggests the revelation of the inner, the descent via the vertical, the seventh ray or the axis of the world. Words rise and descend on this axis: the upward and downward soaring of the eagles,whose nests crown the rock, reveals the supra-individualand nonindividual in every symbol of earthly presence. The flight of the birds resembles the flight of angels, the flight of words: to enable flight, the bowl of the heartmust be emptied. Sufi tradition speaks of the coming of a dark age, in which the eagles of Blagaj will disappear and the flight upwards through the horizons will be forgotten. (The eagles disappeared during the latest war, poisoned by men who long ago forgot how the symbols ofthis place should be read.) Two stones marked the site of the Aladia Mosque in FoEa: a big meteorite standing at the entrance, and a stone hemisphere as part of the pulpit. Tradition describes how the builders of the mosque found the meteorite one morning, after angels placed it there to confirm heaven’s selection of

the place.S3 The stone hemisphere, when found, was shining with the luminosity of a jewel: the light disappeared when touched by a false worship~ e r . (This 5 ~ mosque was razed to theground in the latest war. The meteorite at the entrance and the hemispherical stone from the pulpit have disappeared.) The life of Tradition is eternal: it is part of the world, and its stream passes though the spiritual masters. They have left their signs in books, buildings and art, but what is essential has always been transmitted to their heirs. In this way, the scroll of knowledge is permanently unrolling, revealing the presence of the Master, as a Bosnian Sufi prophecy shows us: ‘The disappearance of the staff from the takijya of Brodac, of the eagles abovethe takiyya in BIagaj and of the two sacred stones of the N a d h Mosque in FoEa will mark the most difficult period in the search for theName. But it will be found, for the multitude of languages does not serve any other purpose but one. The letters of the name will be known again and read in the staff, the eagles and the stones.’

‘Heresy’ Where the members of supra-nationalist structures are distributed over several ‘legal’nation states, all of which are firmly bound to individual religious centres, the issue of boundaries always arises. In Bosnia, both of the major church communities see the state to which their members belong as clearly outlined. However, there are no appropriate state borders. The solution, valid in Bosnia for centuries, was that both these Christologies should be participants in the testimony that God has created for every people a law and way of life,ss ina living co-mingled whole. The concept of the pure nation state reached the Serb and Croat nations in the context of the European concept of ‘national sovereignty’. With the growth of these two nationalisms in Serbia and Croatia, in the nineteenth century the Orthodox of Bosnia were invited, by visiting evangelists of nationalism, to call themselves Serb, while the Catholics were invited to become Croat. Today,the nation-state nucleiof Bosnia’s neighbours are fighting to expand into this country, both considering Bosnia their own; their most well worn justification being the presence of the Orthodox and Catholic Churches in Bosnia. Using this excuse, the neighbouring states of Bosnia facilitatedthe destruction of the organs of dialogue between Bosnia’s religious traditions, with the aim of subordinating them to politics. For, if

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the concept of Bosnia as a single entity incorporating a diversity ofways and beliefs is reduced to a purelypolitical concept, the Serbs and Croats, as European and Christian nations, can claim the principle of ‘one nation, one state’-which underlies the entire history of Europe, and thus readily wins Western sympathies. At every turn the Bosniac nation’s efforts to establish its own identity were portrayed as ‘Islamic fundamentalism’, and, as such, totally alien and unacceptable to modern Europe. This ‘Muslim phenomenon’ viewed in the global context, and specifically within Europe’s traditional fear of Islam, could readily beportrayed as a new manifestation of the ‘general Islamic peril’. The multiple religious faces of Bosnia, in the context of modern rationalism, are reduced to nothing more than separate manifestations of sentimentality and morality.In contrast, the national ideologiesare seen as proactively ‘searching’for solidly separate national identities, thus laying the necessary foundations for acquiring a nation state. The Croat and Serb nation-state designers accordingly identified the Bosniacsas the ‘other side’ a t a very early stage in their plans. These schemes are anti-Bosnian, anti-Muslim, antiIslamic: they define the Bosniac body of values aas‘dangerous heresy’; and the structure and constitution to which the Bosniacs subscribed in their struggle to preserve Bosnia, as ‘the safeguards of heresy and heretics’. The Bosniacs were thus faced with endless dilemmas. If the essence of their spirituality, with its stress on tolerance, is publicised, due to its Islamic content it can readily beused against them. If they pull into their ‘own’ ethnic space, they join with their opponents in denying Bosnia’s pluriformity.

Opposition The Serb Orthodox Church is structured to cover all areas where Serbs have lived or live. It incorporates the Montenegrins and Macedonians, since it does not recognise either the autocephalous nature of their churches or their separate national identity. Although the Catholic Church of the Croats is organised differently, it too covers all regions in which Catholics live. From the pointof view of the Catholic Church, however, Bosnia is an integral state, and therefore the Croatian Church has given no public encouragement to thedestruction of this country. Both the Serb and Croat Churches are components of the supra-national structures of Orthodoxy and Catholicism. The Serb Church, however, is comprehensively bound to Serbia as the state in which the majority (66% in

Opposition 133 1991) are mostly Orthodox Serbs. This also holds, although the nature of

the structure is different, for the Church of Croatia, where the majority (78% in 1991) are Catholic Croats. Both churches cover all Bosnian municipalities in which Orthodox and Catholics are present. However, since neither prior to 1992 Muslims inhabited allmunicipalitiesofBosnia, church, given the prevailing ethnography, could triumph through the principle of pure majority. The result was the historic agreement signed in 1939 between the Croat Peasant Party leader Vlatko MaEek, and the Serb prime minister of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, DragiSa CvetkoviC-known as the ‘CvetkoviC-MaEek Agreement’. This agreement confirmed the consensus reached between the greater-state political forces of Serbia and Croatia to divide Bosnia’s municipalities according to Serb or Croat majority. The Muslims were totally excluded from the equation. Thus itbecame possible for municipalities in Bosnia and Herzegovina to be considered, where convenient, as either Serb or Croat, even when the proportion they contained of either was minute. This principle is the primary source of national ideologies whose inherent goalwas to erase the Muslims from the Bosnian map. Morally, the issue was prioritised as crucial for resolving the Orthodox-Catholic relationship, which, for the sake of better collaboration, should be comfortably divided into comprehensive nation states. The ‘Muslim question’ was-and is-seen purely as an inconvenient phenomenon for which neither of the two Christian supranationalist structures should sacrifice one iota of their dueexpansion: for the presence of a Muslim political nation in Europe is not only anomalous but intolerable. This view of Bosnian religious affairs is fundamentally opposed to the historical attempt to maintain Bosnia as an organic unity of three Abrahamic traditions. Yet the possibility ofthe peaceful existence ofa multiple, coequal religious credo is crucial for the world. Each of the three primary traditions of Bosnia-Judaic, Christian andIslamic-is directed towards the same outcome-salvation-and dialogue between them depends on the quality of their individual capacityto establish principled spirituality. If this dialogue is not possible between individuals, families and nations, then the future of the world is, as Huntington foresees, one of painful divisioninto a few exclusive religious zones, one or two of which will gradually ‘clean out the others’. The end would be an expanded version of its miniature prototype: the suffering of individuals, villages, cities and regions of Bosnia. The clash of the world’s leading political forces within virtually every region of the world is enforced, more or less, by the supra-national religious

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systems. Behind the Croats in Bosnia and Croatia stands, explicitly or indirectly, the Catholic Church and the great powers of the West; behind the Serbs in Serbia, Montenegro andBosnia are the OrthodoxChurch and Russia and its allies throughout the world. The Bosniacs are left, as the third component of the same geopoliticalterritory, to turn towards Islamic supranationalism and its prevailing political forces. Since, however, there is no single overriding politicalpower steering the policy of Islamic supranationalism, the strength of the latter is insignificant in comparison with its counterparts. That the Bosniac nation should be forced to cast itself wholly on theIslamic community is precisely what its enemies are smvingfor. The age of Communist ideology as a ruling system of values in Bosnia and the neighbouring states produced an overwhelmingly secularised culture, which dominated all the ethnic communities. Since this meant the severance ofthe ethniccultures from their religious sources, with the substitution of the Christian-based Marxist inheritance, the effects of Communist rule were most noticeable among Muslims. The depth of their division from their own religious principles was evident in their increasing alienation from their cultural inheritance and their growing acceptance of cultural norms inherited from Western Europe. This alienation was exaggerated by the prevailingly negative climate of opinion regarding Islam-another specifically Christian and European inheritance. The measures taken by the ruling structures to destroy the last significant elements of Islamic culture passed mainly unnoticed and unresisted. ‘Muslim’ intellectuals subscribedtotally to the valuesof the Western world, and their relationship with Islam, if maintained at all, was primarily sentimental or moral. Contemporary links with movements within the Islamic world were primarily political: Islam within Bosnia was allowed to retain a galvanic life, purely for the sake of diplomatic advantage, and maintained only the most external and sporadic relationship with principle. Thus contemporary Islamic movementswithin Bosnia were only Islamic in outward form: their contents were more closely related to the dogmatic-secular trends within Western Europe, or were mindless reactions to thelatter.

Splitting In the Bosniac community, as events have revealed it in this final decade of the twentieth century, we can identify four principal groups, dividedby their attitudes towards religion. This brief outline examines the layers

Splitting 135

within the community of intellectuals, since the significance of these divis i o n has ~ ~ been ~ overlookeduntil now by all analyses of the Bosniac attitude towards Bosnia and its defence. The first and most numerous group was composed of intellectuals who were integrated by their education into the framework of the Communist ideological system,and belonged to it by public declaration and action. Since within this ideological systemit was taught that religion is a ‘backward social phenomenon’, which should be superseded by the formation of new social attitudes, the foremost in the struggle for an enlightened society had to reject religion. Therefore, the majority of these integrated intellectuals were explicitly anti-religionist. Their education enabled them to be the most active and influential layer of Bosniac society, and the predominance of their world-view virtually excluded the potential for other visions. The second group consisted of intellectuals with vaguely Islamic leanings, who avoided professional connection with the structures or constitutions of religious organisations. Most of these grew up as social outsiders, engaged in unequal dialogue with the forces hostile to Islam. Only a few had the opportunity to form an insight into general civilisational trends and to establish a systematic concept of historical Islam. In this circle a primarily political view of Islam was predominant, while any insight into the essential problems of the civilisations ofthe West,and into formulating a response to the Islamic requirement that civilisation should be based on principles of the highest order, was largely absent. Believing that the traditional forms of Islam were not sufficiently strong to survive in competition with, and in opposition to, the West, the members of this group were often harsh enemies of Bosnian Islamic tradition based on the principles enshrined in the maunuzlf and tarikat. No form of inbuilt spiritual structure governed their relationship towards the outside world: their poor performance in the political field betrayed their fundamental disunity. The third group was made up of Islamic intellectuals with a professional relationship to Islam. They acquired their education in Islam within religious organisations which were managed from their foundation by the state authorities-whose interest was inspired by the requirements of Yugoslav diplomacy within the ‘non-aligned’bloc. Inside this group, Islam was viewed as a privileged structure, whose principles and foundations were not to be tested, rather than as a force enabling freedom from slavery to false values and to false gods. It is difficult to establish whether this structure incorporated anything more than the mere preservation of impoverished forms.

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The last and smallest group was made up of members of Bosnia’s Sufi tradition, a group which experienced various forms of denial and persecution throughout the twentieth century. The revivaland reformist movements which they initiated were portrayed as panislamist and Vehabistmovements totally opposed to Sufi tradition. Although Islamic tradition in Bosnia, in its original form, is in absolute accordance with the tmawwuJ the religious authorities officially prohibited the Dervish orders and the activities of the taki31yass7 in 1952. The little tarikat (Dervish) communities were thrust onto the margins of society and forced to operate in total secrecy, their rights openly denied. They did not die out, but continued to act in a closed environment, unable to communicate their developments to the intellectual community. They did succeed, however,in preserving their living relationship with the Bosniac inheritance and an awareness oftheir spiritual mission, including the rejection of forms empty of content, in favour of those participating in the living Tradition. The members of the first three groups by and large view the Sufi dedication to Tradition as both naive and outdated. Relations between the Sufis and the other three groups of Bosniac intellectuals were reduced mainly to sporadic contacts between individuals, which hadno impact a t a wider social level. Bosnia’s attackers, their waraims founded on nationalist ideologies, treated all members of the Bosniac nation as the enemy: the lists of victims are drawn from all layers of the Bosniac community. The Bosniac response, however, reflected sharp internal differences in ideology. The concept of Communistic totality had collapsed, and the Communist attitude to religion by and large collapsed with it. Representatives of the secondand third groups stepped into the political arena, with ambitions to create alternative political ideologies. Lacking both resources and efficient organisation, however, their politics split between intentions of overt, even fundamentalist, support for Islam, aimed a t creating a national-religious voting base, and their tendency to dilute this policy, for thesake ofhalting, or at least appeasing, their powerful antagonists. Given the lackof a comprehensive patriotic alliance to promotethe principle of unity in diversity, there was fertile soil for division between these groups, most of whose members operated with total disregard for moral principles. Numerous family, trading, smuggling and other alliances and networks were formed: Bosniac society split and fragmented into smaller and smaller units, in direct accordance with the aims of the antiBosnian programme.

ChanEes 137

Changes The four-year campaign of intensive killing and expulsionproduced a more questioning attitude within the four groups towards their own creeds, and migrations from one group to another. With the closing of the latest war, it has become possible to re-assess the movement that has taken place within the Bosniac community towards or away from its spiritual centre. Given the predominant size ofthe first group, it was particularly noticeable how many of its members failed to participate in the defence of Bosnia as unity in diversity-although a significant proportion did in fact join the defence. All those who did show awareness of the need to defend this concept of Bosnia showed changes in ideological perception and an awareness of the need to revive a more genuine understanding of religion. In general, the more naive the previous political interpretation of earlier circumstances by members of the first group, the more blatantly their subsequent, publicly expressed support for religion revealed ignorance of religion’s absolute basics. This was coupled with a dangerous tendency to use religion as a substitute for thelost ideology of the Communist period. Many became public supporters of religion-and of religious forms in particularalthough their level of knowledge, coupled with their former beliefs and actions, did not render this credible to onlookers. However, the size and strength of this group made it a serious prospect that religion would be used to cover their promotion of neo-fascistpolitics within Bosniac society. The second group, on finding itselfin an ideological vacuum, immediately tried to propose its world-view as a substitute for the defeated Communist ideology. However, the consequences of their former failure to cope with their outsider status were evidentin an obvious lack of practicalthinking, and an inability to establish a sufficiently broad base of social activity. Their actions appear as an unpolished struggle for power, accompanied by the crude and unskilled imposition of their own positions and unfounded confidencein their own historical significance. Not surprisingly, divisions resulted andpart of the group withdrew, faced with the reality ofthe power struggle and realising the danger of the religious mask-the false claim to religious principles. For the most part, the second group were and are no more guided by religious principles than are convinced atheists. Instead of gathering people in a strong alliance with a clear strategy for defence, they promoted obsession with the self and the perversion of social constitutions and resources. They proved willing to accept any alliance which could support their distorted representation of individual and social circumstances.

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The third group was more open about its real concerns: they openly displayed their divorce from religion, turning instead to join the power struggle, or to abandon the country. Other members proclaimed their dedication to Islam and joined the most loud-spoken elements of the defence. Again, it is difficult to be sure in their case to what extent they had formed a clear concept of the future,and of the means of reaching that future. The fourth group, the most interesting from the viewpoint of this analysis, almost universally joined the defence, showing no dismay either a t the suddenness or the cruelty of the onslaught against Bosnia. Their genuine relationship with Tradition equipped them to observe and avoid the manipulation of religion for political purposes. Most entered the war well prepared and contributed significantly to the defence of Bosnia, in proportion to their small numbers. The scales of values applied to life by every individual and group became tenable or untenable in the light of the choice between escape or sacrifice: the members of this last group saw reasons for this sacrifice, understanding it in the context of humanity’srelationship with Goodness. Given the acceptance of this relationship, patriotism and the like gain validity; whereas in its absence they are little more than tools for justifymg the actions of the national or state structure and for imposing on every individual the obligation to respond to perceived danger to the group. The dialogues with the seven Bosnian Sufi Shaykhs, used as a basis for this analysis,emphasised the necessity for a perspective onthe Bosnian drama drawn from their spiritual inheritance, something which cannot be found in any purely exoteric interpretation. From this perspective there is no sign that their trust in the possibility of peaceful dialogue between the three Abrahamic traditions ever wavered. The Sufis consider that the current difficulties in communication should not be allowed to create acceptance of the political reduction of faith in the educated strata of society: any form of departure from religious principles can only lead to killing. All recent events in Bosnia-the killing, torture, persecution and destructionhave internal causes. They are not a consequence of evil in the abstract, but of specifically human evil. Even the dead are not wholly guiltless: as a society, we deserted spiritual values, and killing is the usual result of human error. The situation can only be resolved through alteration within. Bosnia and the Bosniacs cannot be saved by schemes imposed from outside. Instead, they should take the road towards their own transformation, which will ultimately be that of their salvation. Nothing can be achieved by the adoption of any kind of scheme for a better future, if the improvement of humanity in a spiritual sense isnot an integral part of that plan. Any plan

Without an A m e r 139

for the future should incorporate an inbuilt distinction between the real and the unreal and acceptance of, and persistence in, the real-as demonstrated in the lives of those who have taught and testified to the real. Evil cannot defeat good, regardless of the widespread and powerfulillusions to the contrary and regardless of the agony suffered. But evil cannot be destroyed by evil. In a spiritual sense, humanity’s only right is to salvation; all other rights belong to God, yet we should still accept and fulfil our right. We should not incline to blind retaliation, but to just punishment of those who initiated and orchestrated the evil, accompanied by forgiveness for all those who will not merely be set free by forgivenessto commit new crimes.

Without an Answer The community of the Bosniac nation living today in Bosnia and Herzegovina are the survivors of a historical experience of persecution and genocide. The impact of this experience isvisible throughout the history of Bosniaand Herzegovina and its neighbours. There is a continuous link between the persecution of the followers of the Arian Church, the persecution of the Muslims, the Templars, the Krstjani, and their latter-day descendants who have been the victims of a fresh attempt at genocide at the end of the twentieth century. However, there is little or noreal awareness of this vertical ascent of genocide through the different Bosnian epochs, in spite of its grimly visible effects-and despite Islam’s traditional stress on the inevitable conflict between the witnesses andthe deniers of truth. The persecution and killing of the followers of the Arian Church was followed by the persecution and killing of the Bosnian Krstjani, and their experience was succeeded by that of the Bosnian Muslims. Atthe end of the seventeenth and the beginning of the eighteenth century, the Muslim communities ofSlavonia,Srijem,Licaand Dalmatia were wiped out; in the nineteenth century most of Serbia’s andMontenegro’s Muslim communities were destroyed. The phenomenon of this genocidal destruction of Muslims was present across all south-eastern Europe; in addition to the little known history of the destruction of Europe’s Muslims,we have data specific to the Balkans. In the seventies of the last century, Muslims made up half of the total residents of the Balkanpeninsula.Between1870 and 1890, around three hundred thousand Muslims were killed in this area, and around five million had fled to Anatolia by the end of the century.58

140 THE CYCLE OF SLAUGHTER

The process of genocide continued, with respites, throughout the twentieth century. The remaining Muslim population never succeeded in producing a strategy for protection and survival: they remained easy prey for the genocidal campaigns of their neighbours. h spite of a thousand years of experience of slaughter, they failed to construct an ideology which could provide them with an insight into the initiators, perpetrators and goals of these campaigns. Serb and Croat nationalist desires for ‘building separate nations’ are permeated by extremist attitudes towards Muslims, accompanied by open or tacit intentions to carry out total, ultimate destruction. In peacetime, this particular aspect of their characteristic national ideologies was concealed, and-as if under the control of some supernatural force-the Bosniacs always succumbed to a fog of oblivion where their own fate was concerned. Driven on to who knows what road, they passively awaited the next resurgence of the genocidal epidemic,always totally and completely unprepared. Even the fact that the intellectual leaders of the Bosniac nation never managed to form a consensus regarding the nation’s attitudes towards religion, political ideology and European perceptions of nationhood, still cannot explain the riddle of their failure to note the genocidal trends their community experienced. If their vision improved, the result might be different and more decisive attitudes towards religion and political ideology, which would in turn contribute to the construction of a presence in the world significant enough to break the flow ofthe oncoming tide of genocide. The ‘never again’ ofthe survivors of genocide still conveys no more than a remote desire and hope, against a background of graves, shattered houses and mosques, the reminders of concentration camps, the impact of mass rapes. Yet it is not too late to form a small but determined group to undertake the task of forming an adequate response. Failing this, the most likely alternative, the final deletion of Bosniac presence in this country, is guaranteed. For the moment, however, these alternatives are no more than visions, potentials: no end has yet been reached.

The Hand Bosnia and the Bosniacs persist in their desire to testify to the possibility of justice for all peoples, and full freedom for all to choose different roads towards God. This concept has won numerous victories, but has also suffered a multitude of bitter defeats. The ongoing process of humiliation,

The Hand 141

killing and destruction testifies to the continuing presence of this desirebut at times it seems that the great Bosnian goal, testified to by endless human suffering, is in fact unattainable. How can the contradictions of Bosnia’s pluriformity-Islam, Bosnia, the Bosniac identity, versus the anti-Islamic, anti-Bosnian forces-be resolved; how can this multi-faceted riddle be turned into a unified plan, embodying in itself the source of life? a First, neither Bosnia nor the Bosniacs can survive if Islam-both as tradition of tolerance and in the sense of submission to principle-is not accepted as the unifjmgdefinition of their identity. T h e salvation of every man is a right and possibility: the end to which all else should be only a means. This goal can be understood and served only by those who define submission to the Truthand the Good as the highest values, and who, on the basis of this submission, become leaders and healers within their society. This kind of submission is not only the acceptance of outward articles and laws: it comprises faith that the spiritual centre of humanity enables us to overcome our state of imprisonment in the world and time. This awareness of the existence of external laws, paralleled by the presence of supports at the deepest levels of being, is the pre-condition for participation in the external circumstances of ethnic and historical tradition. This marriage of the ‘spirit and soil’ forms a strong foundation for humanity’s presence in every corner of the earth, based on a sense of commitment to this goal. A general duality is manifest in the various claims about Islam. If Islamic spirituality (tasa.wuluf)is not shown to be the pre-condition for the highest order of Islamic unity-in the sense of unity of submission to principlethen the effort to impose external, political forms of law (xhariah)necessarily produces instability and hypocrisy. This would be an ideal climate for splitting Bosniac unity: external forms have meaning only when their defining principle is that of direction towards the innercore of every individual. Bosniahas continued, throughout its history, to embody a nuclear awareness ofthe highest human model: nothing in theworld is unworthy of human service, and yet everything offers service to humanity, if the latter is conscious of its mission. This view of Bosnia requires both patient waiting and action, which empowers her guardians to establish order and protect her from all who want to divide and destroy her. The position of humanity as ‘God’s viceregent on earth’ means, above all, the need for a responsible relationship towards the self. This brings about our own salvation, while obstructing evil and destruction in this world.

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Bosniac identity cannot be more than a name expressing the traditional Bosnian relationship with Islam, which rises up to fill the gulf between the human heart and the furthest horizons of submission to the Truth. Bosnia embodies the truth of the unity of ‘different ways and laws’. If the Bosniac identity is reduced to a sheer concept of ‘blood and soil’ then it will be in conflict with Islam and will be left without a source of life, continuing instead to battle for survival against Serbhood and Croathood until it disappears in the conflict. Bosniac identity, in this reduced form, willlose all capacity to understand the sources of hatred and tension encompassing it: its disappearance will be accompanied by attempts to ingratiate itself with the torturersand killers, followed bythe final triumph of oblivion. An examination of the commonest attitudes of Christianity will show that they embody the seed ofresistance to, and denial of, Islam andthe Muslims. This phenomenon hasbeenmanifest throughout history in numerous crimes against Muslims (in Spain, Sicily, Greece, Bulgaria, Serbia, Central Asia), and against the Jews (Spain, Poland and Germany, to name only a few examples). This seed may never wholly vanish, but its victims can use their awareness ofit totry and oppose its growth into a tool of genocide. It is a key paradox of Bosnian and Bosniacpolitics that the essential precondition for their survival is dialogue and co-operation with the Serbs and Croats-in the permanent presenceof the anti-Islam, anti-Bosnia, anti-Bosniac nuclei. The fact that Serbs and Croats in Bosnia have been manipulated from time to time for the purposes of anti-Islam, anti-Bosnian, anti-Bosniac plans does not justify the adoption of an exclusivist position towards them. This latter would reduce Bosnian politics to Bosniac politics, and Bosniac politics to the politics of ‘blood and soil’. It follows that the Bosniacs can and must find in Islam a source for their identity and strength: a clear vision of Bosnia and a strategy in which Islam helpsstrengthen theunity in diversity. Acknowledgement and support of this unity in no way lessens Bosniac ties either to Islam or toBosnia. On the contrary, awareness ofthis relationship between the traditions is fundamental to Bosniac spirituality and is the best form of resistance to the anti-Islamic, anti-Bosnian, anti-Bosniac forces. The Bosniac identity cannot-without betraying itself-be a pure reflection of the national ideologies of Serbhood and Croathood. A purely reactive Bosniac version would be merely the weakest protagonist in the conflict between three identical ideologies and would, in the final outcome, be totally destroyed. Bosniacs are faced with the riddle of pluriformity of ‘five fingers on one hand’. If this riddle is not resolved in the totality of their culture, then their

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future is uncertain. Waves of humiliation and slaughter will continue to break, their methodologies different, but their essence the same-the essence which we are now experiencing to the full in the final decade of the second millennium.

Disappearance and Renewal There are twoways of looking at thefuture of Bosnia and the Bosniacs. T h e first is favoured by rationalists and by thoroughgoing nationalists; the second is upheld by the minority dedicated to theunity in diversity of religious creeds. According to the first view, Bosnia will be divided. Its unity of diversity will split totally into three separate national and cultural entities-the Serb, the Croat and the Bosniac. Each will be contained within its ‘own national territory’: the Serb national territory will be united with Serbia, and the Croat territorywith Croatia. The Bosniacs willbe left with a Bosnian ‘ministate’, hemmed in by the surrounding nation states. In accordance with the will of their neighbours and the current powers of modem civilisation, this mini-state will become the official buffer-zone between the Orthodox and the Catholic worlds. The Bosniacs will disappear as a political nation, and all that will remain of Bosnia will be its historical, geographical concept. T h e spider’s web, whose threads are the three sacred strands of Bosnia’s unity in diversity, will disappear. T h e second view, held by the Bosnian Sufis, foresees that the peoples of Bosnia will gather together (al-qaabd), will renew their strength, and from their state of national inertia will return to full faith that God has created for every people a law and a way of life, that the many roads lead to the same goal, and that the existence of many is the guarantee of their truth. By reviving the knowledge and understanding that the children of Abraham share a single goal, the Bosniacs can offer the renewal of Bosnia to replace the worn-out tyranny of nationalism. They will maintain their link with the vine-the essence of humanity’s transcendent inflow and outflow-and the memory of God’s promise that humanity will always retain the potential to climb the ladder of perfectibility. The blood ofthose who died in the belief that Bosnia stands for all faiths and all peoples cleansesthe world. Thus we are enabled to perceive the scent of the rose, its testimony to the love of God, and the Paradise open to those who refuse to be enslaved, or allow others to be enslaved,to anydung but God.

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Conditions The Bosniacs have once again been forced into an existence defined by two stark choices: on the one hand, the image of the mm&d, or mosque; and on the other, slaughter, rape, forced exile and destruction. More than a thousand of their mas4ids have been destroyed, over a hundred and fifty thousand people killed, over fifty thousand women and girls raped, and more than a million people expelledfrom their homes. The dark forces of human evil have touched every aspect oftheir existence-hence the danger of their becoming so radicalised by suffering that they take on the nature of the perpetrators. The other choice is to realise the true meaning of the first image, the musujid, and to hold by it, while facing the immediate need to confront, analyse and identify this evil. The image of the mas&id, and the factof the killings,offer a spectrum ofpossibilities, ranging from the highest-the Vertical Path-to the lowest-descent into rage. The slaughter must be understood for the ascent to be achieved. Only then can this command be followed with confidence: Not equal are the good deed and the evil deed. Repel evil with that which is fairer and behold, he between whom and thee there is enmity shall be as if he were a loyal friend: Yet none shall receive it, except the steadfast; none shall receiveit, except a man of mighty fortune.59

In contrast, rendering evil for evil means to become agents in the spread of corruption. The conspiracy among Bosnia’s enemies to build a totalitarian uniformity through destruction is a denial of Unity, for Unity can only be confirmed by the pluriformity which they are striving to destroy. ‘Had God not driven back the people, some by means of others, there had been destroyed cloisters and churches, synagogues and mosques, wherein God’s name is much mentioned.’ This plurality of ways is a confirmation of the unity of the truth, thus denial of any one of them is a t the same time denial of the truth. All people have the right to resist any kind of effort to exclude or deny this diversity: ‘To those against whom war is made, permission is given to fight, because they are wronged ... They are those who have been expelled from their homes in defiance of right, for no cause except that they say: “Our Lord is God.”’60This is the most important reason to take up arms, for without defence of that freedom, ‘the earth had surely become corrupted’.61

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The fact that Bosnia has survived intact down the ages shows the will to preserve the monasteries, churches, synagogues and mosques.This has only been possible through the consensus that the elements of her diversity and constant dialogue about their nature lead to one and the same goal. This awareness is sown in every human self and is reflected in the creed ‘We believe in what has been sent down to us, and what has been sent down to you; our God and your God is One, and to him we have surrendered.’62 Unity is confirmed by the multitude of paths that lead towards it, just as peace is confirmed by a multitude of voices.The monasteries, churches, synagogues and mosques give outer form to this multitude of paths and voices and show their underlying Unity. ‘Checking one set of people by means of another’ points to the constant flow of dialogue between faiths and peoples which prevents anything, even a path towards Unity, from being commandeered as a means of reaching their goal. T o those who see only their own goal, their own and any other path is irrelevant, their own and every other language is irrelevant. Only through relinquishing their goal would they come closer to God; but instead, by deifymg their goal, they refuse to see thetruththat ‘no associate has This is anunforgivable attitude, the source of all corruption. When narrow-mindedness becomes a god, the resulting arrogance displays itself as ignorance, which passes itself off as knowledge, and weakness, which comes in the guise of violence. It is only possible to break this cycle if one accepts the overriding fact of humanity’s quest for Perfection. Learning a sacred language means acknowledging the fact that there are other languages. Every person follows his or her own path: the messenger reveals the message, but humans have freedom in how they read it. Individuals, therefore, are subject to two conditionalities, one greater and one lesser-in the words of the Torah, the Gospels and the Kur’an, believing in God and doing good. The ascending motion brings them closer to Completeness; but this motion is shown by the goodness of their acts, for God is always infinitely close to humankind, but humankind is always infinitely far from God. A person’s position is shown by the relationship of dialogue with those who are close to that person. And this relationship rests on trust, for submission to God binds the individual to the goodness of man, in accordance with the command ‘Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself: I am the Lord’.64

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NOTES 1 Ilijas BoSnjoviC, Demografske pos4edice ratn (Demographic consequences of the war) (Sarajevo, 1995), (manuscript). 2 AmraHad?ii-MuhamedoviC, UniSteni i oSteEeni zjerski oljekti U tokungresije na Bosnu i Hercegovinu (Destruction and dmnnge to religiow buildings during the a w e s sim against Bomia nnd Hmegovinn) (Sarajevo, 1994),(manuscript). 3 See Noel Malcolm, Bosnia: A Short History (London, 1994), pp. 4-5. 4 Ciro Truhelka, RanokrSanska arheologjin (Early Christian Archeology) (Zagreb, 1931), pp. 114-117. 5 Truhelka (1931), pp. 114-136. 6 Richard P. C . Hanson, The Senrch for the Christian Doctrine of God (Edinburgh, 1988), p. 14. 7 Hanson (1988), p. 15. 8 Zsa (Jesus) as a name means ‘Saviour’ and it corresponds with the Hebrew yema from yehoshua’ (‘God is help’) =Joshua. Interpreting the origin of the name ‘Zsa, some linguists claim t h a t Y n d is derived from Syriac Ye.rhu’, which is again derived from Hebrew Yeshua. ‘Zsa (Jesus) is God’s prophet, one of the many in the long line of prophets. The coming of the prophet Muhammad put an end to that line by sealing it. ‘Zsa is mentioned inthe Kur’an as al-Masih (‘Christ’), nabi (‘prophet’), ram1 (‘messenger’), ibn Mnryam (‘the son of Mary’), 7nin al-muqawabin (‘among those that are close to God’), Wa+h (‘worthy o f respect in this and in the future world’), muburak (‘blessed’), qawl al-hagq (‘reliable word’), ‘abd Allah (‘God’s slave’). Al-Masih is a title that means ‘anointed’ (Hebrew mashiah, Aramaic meshiha) that was translated in the Septuagint by the Greek Christos (a noun derived from the Greek verb chriein, which means ‘anoint’). Arabiclinguists point out two roots for the word al-masib: (1) the verb m a h a (‘rub with the hand’, ‘anoint’); and (2) the verb snhn (‘travel’, ‘go on pilgrimage’, ‘wander’). 9 Robert C. Gregg and Dennis E. Groh, Early A r i m i m : A view of salvation (London, 1981), p. 2. 10 See H a r r y T. Norris, Islam in the Balkans: Religion and society between Europe and the Arab Wwkl (London, 1993), pp. 26-27; Smail Balit, ‘Der Islam im mittelalterlichen Ungarn’, Siidostforscmgen, 23 (Munchen, 1964), pp. 19-35. 11 Konstantin J. JireEekandJovanRadoniC, htoriia Srbn (History of the Serbs), I (Belgrade, 1911), p. 237. 12 Tadija SmiEiMas, Codex diplomaticus regni Dalmatiae, Croatiae et Slavoniae, (Zagreb, 1905), 11, p. 280. 13 SmiEiMas (1905), III, p. 87. 14 Alan Forey, The Military Ordm (London, 1992), p.6. 15 Forey (1992), pp. 6-17. 16 Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh, The Temple and the Lodge (London, 1989), pp. 4142. V (Venice, 17 Vatican Archives, 5, fol. 103v; Daniele Farlati, Zlyrimm samnn, l 1751-1819), I-VIII, pp. 46; Augustin Theiner, Vetera monumenta Slavorum meridimalium historiam illustrantia, I (Rome, 1863), p. 20; Franjo Sanjek, Bosanskohumki krstjani i katarsko-duahtiEki pokret U rrednjem vijeku (The Bosnia-Hum

Notes 147

-aniandtheCathar-DualistMovement in theMiddleAges) (Zagreb, 1975), p. 59-62. 18 Augustin Theiner, Vetera monumentaSlavmm meridionalium historiami l l ~ ~ a n t i a , I (Zagreb, 1875), pp. 19. 19 Theiner (1875), p. 22. 20 SmiEiklas, 111 (Zagreb, 1904-1934) (II-XV),p. 196. 21 Archives of the JAZU, Zagreb, Cirilski mkopis IZZ (C1’lci manuscript 114, a, 41, fol. 3 lr-34r; see also Sanjek(1975), pp. 140-144. 22 See Croatia sacra (Zagreb, 1934))p. 184. 23 This tradition was noted a t the end of the nineteenth century by Ivan Zovko: see Ivan Zovko, ‘KakosupostalisteCci?’(‘HowdidsteCci come into being?’), GlasnikZema&kogmuzeja (The Heraki o f theCountry Museum), 2, I (Sarajevo, 1889), pp. 97-99. 24 On the particular interpretations of the name Paraclete among the followers of the Church of Bosnia, see Aleksandar Solovjev, ‘Nestanak bogumilstva i islamizacija Bosne’ (‘The Disappearance of Bogumilism and the Islamization of Bosnia’), Godiinjak istmjskog d&tva Bome i Herregovine (Annual of the hi st^ Guild of Bosnia and Herzegovina),I (Sarajevo, 1949), pp. 66-69. 25 Manuscript no. 3488 in the university library a t Bologna; see also DuSanka Bojanik-LukaE, ‘Un chant3 la gloire de Mahomet en Serbe’, Wiener Zeitschrrftfir die Kunde des Morgenlandes,76 (Vienna, 1986), pp. 57-63. 26 Paul Rycaut, The present state of the Ottoman Empire, containing theMaxim of the Turkish Politie, the most material points of the Mahometan religion, their sects and heresies, their convents and religious votaries, andtheir militaty discipline, with an exact computation of theirforces both land and sea, illustrated with diverse sculptures, representing the variety o f habits among the Turks, third edition, (London, 1670), vol. 11, p. 131. 27 61:6. 28 ‘Discorso del priorato della Wrana di Giovanni Marnavich Bosnese Canonic0 di Sibenico’, see Luka JeliC, Glasnik Zema4skog muzeja (The Herald of the Country Museum), 3, XVIII (Sarajevo, 1906), pp. 279, 305; ‘Opis Bosne iz 1627 godine’ (‘Description of Bosnia from 1627’), Manuscript 4112, f. 1 1 U Casanatenskoj biblioteci U Rimu; see Karlo Horvat, ‘Tri doslije nepoznata rukopisa Ivana Tomka MarnaviCa,biskupabosanskoga (1631-1639)’ (‘Three unknown manuscripts of Ivan Tomko Marnavit, Bishop of Bosnia, 163 1-1639’), Glasnik Zema&kog muzeja (The Gazette of the NationalMuseum), 3, XXI (Sarajevo,l909), pp. 350-363. 29 4153. 30 Ibn al-Arabi, al-Futuhat al-makkjya (Cairo, 191l), II 298,29. 3 1 2:llS. 32 Psalm, 127:l. 33 Sahib MuslimI, p. 264. 34 See Mehmed MujezinoviC, ‘Musafirhana i tekija Isa-bega IshakoviCa U Sarajew’ (‘Isa-Bey IshakoviC’s Musafirhana and Takkiyya in Sarajevo’), Naie starine (Our Antiquities),111 (Sarajevo, 1956), p. 246. 35 Hazim SabanoviC, ‘VakufnamaIsa-bega,sina pokojnog Ishak-bega iz 1462’ (‘Vakufnama of Isa-Bey, Son of the late Ishak-Bey from 1462’), in Vakufiame iz

148 THE CYCLE OF SLAUGHTER

Bome i Hercegovine (XV i XVI vyek) (Vaknamas$-om Bosnia and Herzegovina [W andXVIcentury])(Sarajevo, 1985), pp. 13-14. 36 Quoted according to Mujezinovik (1956), p. 248, on the death of the Sheikh Abdul-Fetah, one of the founders of this takkijya. 37 These include the beautiful edition of the M a s n m i , 1647, by the Dervish Muhamed BoSnjak. (Fehim Nametak and Salih Trako, Katalogarapskih, perzijskih, turskih i bosamkihrukopisa iz zbirke BoSnjaEkog im’tuta [A Catalogue of Persian, Turkish and Bosnianmanuscripts ? om thecollections of theBosniak Institute], I [Zurich, 19971, p. 243.) 38 See Djaltl-od-Din Ru-mi, M a t h ? : La Qdte de I!Abmlu, translated from the Persian by par Eva de Vitray Meyerovitch and Djamchid Mortazavi (Paris, 1990), p. 96. 39 This quote is from the Letter of Understanding (Ahdnama) taken from the study by Hazim SabanoviC,of Turkish documents made in Bosnia and Herzegovina from the first half of the fifteenth century, The historial andjuridical collection, vol. 2 (Sarajevo, 1949), p. 192. 40 Evli Celebi, Travelogue: Noteson the Yugoslav land, translated by Hazim SabanoviC (Sarajevo, 1979), pp. 110-1 11. 41 ReSid Mehmed Bosnewi, Divan, Ghazi Khusrew-bey’s library, Sarajevo, MS 3 3 84. 42 Abu Hamid al-Gazali, Ihya ‘dumal-din (Cairo, 1908-9), 111, 1.5; 111,p. 12. 43 See, for instance, Adem Handtik, ‘On the forming of some of the city settlements in Bosnia in the sixteenth century’, Contributions to Oriental Philology, XXV (Sarajevo, 1976), pp. 134169; idem, Studies on Bosnia: historical adclendafiom the Turkish Osmanianperiod (Istanbul, 1994); idem, The Population of Bosnia in the Ottoman period:A historical overview(Istanbul, 1994). 44 Ibn al-Arabi, al-Futuhat al-makkijya, W ,23 1,s. 45 Ibid, 11, 542, 19. 46 1744. 47 See Ismet Kasumovik. ‘The two versions of the chronicle on Mekami Ibrahim’. The Annals of the Ghazi Khwrev-bey’s library, XIII-XIV,(Sarajevo, 1987), p. 166. 48 7:40. 49 3:31. 50 Abdullah AbdiBosnewi, Tagalliyam ara ‘isin-nm minmsat-i hikam-il $ms, (Cairo, 1836), p. 20. 51 1:6-7. 52 See Sahib Muslim IV, p. 1397. 53 Miron Zarzycki, Ewald Arndt and Dorde StratimiroviC, ‘Aladh-dzamija U Foci’ (‘AIadZa-Mosque in FoEa’), Glasnik Zemaljkog muzga (The Herald of the Country Museum), W 2 (Sarajevo, l891), p. 110. 54 Ibidem, p.106. 55 5:48. 56 O n the divisions among Bosnian Muslims, see the essay ‘Muslim divisions’ in Rusmir MahmutiehajiC, Living Bosnia:politicalessaysand interviews, trans. by Spomenka Beus and Francis R. Jones (Ljubljana, 1994), pp. 2429. 57 See ‘Odluku o prestanku rada tekija U Narodnoj Republici Bosni i Hercegovini’ (‘Decision to close the tnkkiyas in the People’s Republic of Bosnia and Heme-

Notes 149

govina’) passed 12 March 1952, by the mama majlis in Sarajevo, in accordance with the conclusions of the Vakuf Assembly of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. The decision was published in the The Gazette ofthe Supreme Islamic Ofice in FNRY),3, III (Sarajevo, 1952), p. 199. 58 Kemal H. Karpat, The Ottomanpopulation 1830-1914: Demographicsandsocial characteristics (Madison, 1985).

59 41:34-35. 60 22:40. 61 2:251. 62 29:46. 63 6:163. 64 Levitincr 19: 18.

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CHAPTER 5

THE MASDJID

Introduction

T

HROUGHOUT the history of Bosnia’s religious identity we can trace

the presence of the three mainsprings of its strength. These are, that man is created for the sake ofPerfection;l that Godhas created for all men their own laws and ways of life;*and that in faith there can be no compuIsion.3 The first is contained in every holy tradition: it recalls humanity’s potential to divide the unreal from the Real. It does not depend on the form of tradition, but acts like a seed in the world, bringing forth fruit from the tree of life. The number five, in the sacred scienceof numbers, corresponds only to man. Number one corresponds to God, two to the Soul, three to heaven, four to earth. (Humanity is placed like a point a t the centre of the four principles, the four sides of the world and the four ages of time which mark the earthly state.) But humanity cannot fulfil its designated role of intermediary between earth and heaven without the transcendent measures of depth and height, the vertical axes which pass through the centre of all degrees of existence: the Tree of Life. The central position of humanity is symbolised in the number six. Only in six does the centre become an axis, the seed become a tree; sixis the number of the primordial or perfect man. As universal mediator, man, with his six available spatial dimensions of back and forth, left and right, up and down, spans all existence.Behind the symbolic number six is that from

152 THE MASDJID

which existence ‘springs’ or ‘begins’, and to which it return^.^ Discerning between the unreal and the Real leadsto acceptance of the Real: this process is the single path to achieving perfection, a path enshrined in the principle that ‘there is no god but God’. Without the possibility of achieving Perfection, humanity is nothing. By seeking Perfection, stimulated to doso by the permanent memory or sensation that perfection once dwelt among us, we confirm that the self is an illusion and that we are incapable of acting as our own guides towards the lost heavenly state. Since perfection and eternity are potentials only, we cannot free ourselves from the false I and reach perfection and eternity without thehelp and guidance of the I which is in essence Perfection and Eternity. Beginning with discerning between the real and the unreal, we need to follow the road given to all of us by the Unique Perfection. The Spirit is the peak of creation, the first thing that was made.S It is open towards the Creator, and the human heart is open towards the soul. Through the Spirit, humanity can recognise the archetypes of all symbols in the world and in the self.6 By the will of the Creator, the prophets and the good achieve the fullness ofhuman potential for perfection: through them Godmakes known the Way. The examples of the prophets and the good return to the crux of all six dimensions, where the false I is extinguished and the light of the true I shines. The prophets and the good all have their time with God, but since they exist on the scale of human lives, in human time and within the physical laws, the form in which they are revealed is individual and unique. They follow and show the Road, although their separate identities take the form of different ways upon this road. Every way is the Road, for they all lead to one Centre. To help us recognise these paths, the external symbols are confirmed by, and confirm, the multitude of prophets and the good, the holy proverbs and rituals, sacred history and science. These paths are called by different names, such as Christianity, Judaism, Zoroastrianism, Buddhism. Every path in its original nature is a sufficient guide: all lead‘straight and upwards’ towards the Centre, and, in their most essential form, incorporate nothing which is in any way contradictory to the principles of the Centre. All bear the same relationship to the Treasury from which they descended into existence and to which they ultimately rise again. To belong to any sacred tradition means to acknowledge the holiness of the multitude of different ways. Fulfilment of the obligations of this membership means dedication to one of the paths of the Road and absolute respect for the other paths of the Road. Since the different paths cannot be opposed to one an-

other, all conflict between their followers results from failure to understand that the existence of a multitude of ways is the strongest guarantee of the unity of the One Way. Acceptance of the symbol does not always mean possession of knowledge concerning the ‘commandments’ and ‘prohibitions’ for the sake of which the symbol exists. The symbolised is always on a higher level than the symbol, and every attempt to grasp a t the sign while rejecting or ignoring what is signified leads to darkness and a repetition of the Fall. External acceptance of the holy examples of the prophets and the good does not necessarily result in secure progress along the stages of their Way. ‘Some men there are who say, “We believe in God and the Judgement Day”, but they are not believers.” These are the people who have snatched a t the sign in spite of what is signified, who have stopped at one stage of the journey in disregard of the Centre to which it leads; who have embraced the form in spite of the contents. Humanity’s painful ascent from the lower world is not physical: the kingdom of God cannot be achieved through the imposition of human power, but rather by the rejection of this power as imperfect in relation to the power of God. ‘TheKingdom of God is in you,,* Jesus tells us. This embodies obedience and submission to Perfection and Eternity: the denial of all treasures except the treasure of God. ‘No single thing exists that does not have its source with God.’9 The essential divide which splits all peoples is the clash between two opposing perceptions of the world and humanity. In the first perception, the world and man do not exist for themselves, but for God: therefore everything in theheavens and humanity has the quality of a symbol communicating God, through whom everything exists. In the second vision, the world and humanity exist only for themselves, and are therefore self-sufficient. There can be no reconciliation of these two positions within human nature; nor can there be any cessation of the debate between the two. This duality balances eternal testimony to, with denial of, the three stages of wisdom. Each side has produced countless manifestations within the frame of time and space. The forms inspired by the first vision are of value only inasmuch as they have capacity to recognise holiness and to protect it within every individual and community: this alone is of importance and not the obvious external variations of doctrine and ritual. At the heart of every sacredtradition is its most essential symbol and the doctrine centred on that symbol.Sincesymbolsall point to the Sacred, every reliable symbol is therefore a sacred symbol. But the sacred symbols

154 THE MASDJID

cannot be divided from sacred art, and therefore the scimtia sncra and the a n sacra are essential to Tradition. The Temple is the most perfect crystallisation of sacred science and sacred art in every tradition: the most explicit expression ofthe human capacity to choose a road and find Salvation.

High in Low Mount VisoEica lies at the centre of Bosnia’s sacred geography. Its name is a harmony of opposites. Visotica is derived from the feminine adjectival noun visoka, which means ‘(the) high (one)’,plus the suffix -ica.’O In Bosnian, adjectival nouns-for example, dobri (the good), bhgi (the meek), vjerni (the faithful)-play a key role in sacred discourse;as these have the same form as adjectives, one requires a sophisticated linguistic intuition to tell the two uses apart. As a feminine diminutive, the suffix -ica gives a sense of grace, happiness and dearness; it also can transform abstract nouns into personal nouns-for example, 4epota (beauty, i.e. loveliness) into Ijepotica (a beauty, i.e. a beautiful woman). Thus the name Visotica includes both high and low, both j-eedom and mljzlgation. It has three summits, whose names are Little Stag (Mali Ljeljen), Great Stag (Veliki Ljeljen) andMosque (Diamija). The first two summits are smaller and lower. The third is the mountain’s true summit, which can beapproached by three distinct and well-trodden paths. A person exists on earth in six directions. All six meet in the self, in the heart as the inaccessible centre of being. The upwards direction signifies the ‘column of sun’,or the link between people’s earthly destiny and their heavenly outcome. This is the upright path. Its earthly sign is the mountain-top, the highest (though not the ultimate) human goal on this earth. Here the body, as the external extension of the centre, exhausts its physical possibilities, but the gate can open to higher planes. There are many paths which lead towards this heavenly gate. They are different and specific, but they meet in one and the same goal. Sufis see the three paths which lead to the summit of the Mosque as denoting the three religious Traditions which, in a potential unity of differences, an unassuming harmony of opposites, have vied with each other for the whole ofBosnian history. (Three, in this case,is only a symbol for ‘many’.) Wherever individuals may find themselves, the image of the mountaintop will guide them from their starting-point along the path which is theirs.

High in Lour 155

Each path that leads to the summit of VisoEica passes through grassy clearings, gently or steeply sloping. It winds between steep rocky scarps, treacherous scree-fallsand huge boulders. Now descending, now ascending, it skirts precipitous cliffs, circling two lakes and many bramble thickets. It edges along dangerous chasms, rockfalls and gorges. The path can only be taken by those who know the secret of the Stag: always follow the one who has passed before. Step in the footprints of your predecessors, just as a deer always puts its rear hooves in the prints of its forehooves. On that path the Stag is your guide. He knows the steeps, the heights, the obstacles. He is the enemy of the snake and the greeter of light. His cry rings from those sections of the path which are passable. As for the climbers, they have the world’s axis, the tree of life at their centre: their gaze is fixed on the path, and from their temples, along the world’s axis, there rises the invisible tree of life, as signified by the stag’s antlers. (Following the Messenger by circling the Kaba, his followers have been compared to deer.’ l) The whole climb is fraught with obstacles and pitfalls. Danger lies in wait for the climber a t every point. It can only be overcome by keeping to the tracks of one who has gone before, and by being constantly on one’s guard. Every obstacle, every pitfall is an attempt to divert one’s purpose from the path, from striving towards the summit. By keeping to the path, the climber shows devotion to the summit, but straying from the path means losing sight of the summit. As the Tempter said to God: ‘Now for Thy perverting Me, I shall surely sit in ambush for them on Thy straight path.’12 There are three paths on VisoEica where the climber can recognise the steps of the one who went before. As the paths lead to the summit or the centre, they can be said to be its extension. The centre revealeditself through the first to walk these paths, who became the messenger from the centre to all who follow. Every path has its own messenger, and all messengers are different heralds of unity. Those who join the messenger gain a knowledge of the path, guard it and pass it on. The meaning of the paths lies in the summit, into which they vanish. A climber can only follow one of the paths, though they all have equal value for all lead towards the Goal. Undertaking the climb means pledging to follow one of the paths, and any detour along another path weakens one’swill to follow the footprints which lead to the summit. But the summit is the sole goal and confirmation of all the paths. Their existence confirms the summit, which is where they meet. It reveals itself through them. Those who climb a path are a single community, and thus part of a single humanity. The path is what makes them into a community, and the summit is what makes them into humanity: ‘To

l 56 THE MASDJID

every one of you We have appointed a right way and open road ...’l3 The possibility that every individual can reach the summit links everyone into unity, for creating a human being is the same as creating the whole of humanity.14 Rationality, reason, arguesthat one can reach the summit by any number of paths. But only the three familiar paths are reliable. Taking any other path means relying solelyon reason to guide one over the sharp ridges and along the precipitous cliffs. Some have tried such paths and succeeded, but no trace of their passing remains, whereas the three marked paths are well trodden, and their reliability provenby the fact that those who have climbed them finally meet at the summit. Those who have climbed by unknown paths, so tradition tells us, have nevermet anyone else a t the summit. Though reaching the summit means reaching the heights, the summit is the Mosque, the Dfamija. The word diamea stems from the Arabic word for ‘gathering’ or ‘being together’. In Bosnian, another name for mosque is mesdzid-in Arabic ma.@id, whichmeans‘placeofworship’ or ‘place of prostration’. High and low, therefore, complement each other. When humankind reachesthe heights, the depths become clearer. Our beginning is in the Womb. There we exist in the full purity of our link with Unity. And this is also our goal: to return again to the Merciful, the Gracious.lS Obstacles and pitfalls lead us to Mercy, to Grace. Humanity’s purpose lies in the merging of unity and multitude, silence andspeech, peace and motion, for according to sacred tradition ‘My mercy surpassesmy wrath!”6 The human I exists in the world of wrath, for conditionality only exists to dissolve in Completeness. Thus thehuman I is also the I of Completeness. The human heart, by the same token, is the eye by which God sees.17 Man is created in God’s image,’* man is the locus where the centre, the heart, is in contact with the Uncreated. This centre, therefore, is no other than the I of Completeness. As such it is boundless, but can only be shown through the bounded. Therefore boundedness gives humankind the ability to reach the summit, the Mosque, by climbing the VisoCica, the Little Height. Reaching the summit means striving for the high through the low. Worshipping a t the summit returns one to the root of creation, back into the stream of Completeness. This is the eternal way of Tradition, of accepting that everything in the human self and aspiration leads to Unity. And this can be proclaimed in any place. The choice is not humankind’s. Humankind can only know what has been chosen. This knowledge that the summit lies in every phenomenon guides one not only to the heights, but also to human lowness or

Building and Razing 157

prostration in worship: ‘Hast thou not seen how to God prostrate all who are in the heavens and all who are in the earth, the sun and the moon, the stars and the mountains, the trees and the beasts, and many of mankind?”9 For all except mankind, worship is unconditional. But human faith gives rise to freedom: in obeying the One who is similar to none, who is comparable with none, who is therefore utterly his own and thus completely free, humanity is also free. But man’s acceptance of trust on the basis of his dialogue with God, theworld and other people has alsomade him the bearer of ignorance and violence: ‘We offered the trust to the heavens and the earth and the mountains, but they refused to carry it and were afraid of it; and man carried it. Surely he is sinful,and very foolish.’20

Building and Razing Building a temple is a confirmation of the desire for Perfection. The temple sums up humanity’s belief that our ‘violation of the Law’21can be revoked and that thestate resulting from the eating of the forbidden fruits is not our final destiny: that there is still potential for return to the ‘most beautiful state’22.Not every attempt at building is inspired by a complete vision of sacred science and art on the part of the builder: but pure repetition draws him nearer to the archetype and encourages the visitors to his work to find the ‘stations of wisdom’ whichit contains. The building of temples characterises the post-Eden epoch: temples are mute witnesses to humanity’s grief for thelost state of perfection, and to our belief that we can reach it again. Primaeval man, before he took the apple from the forbidden tree, needed neither temple nor ritual. The whole world was a temple for him, since he knew what was forbidden and what was permitted, and respected them as the Creator’s laws. Everything in the world and within himself witnessed to theTruth, and he knew that ‘nothing is, that does not proclaim His praise.’23 The knowledge of what was forbidden and the obedience to this knowledge made the world holy, and man’s sixfold perfection embraced the heavens and the earth. After the Fall, and as time passed, people fell more and more into forgedulness of the lost perfection. The majority accepted the eclipse of the soul and turned all the more to their world prison as the ‘only reality’.The world of empirical experience cameto be seen as the only world. The minority still searched for a way out of the lower world, turning to the inner core of the self to find it, believing that within this centre is ‘the

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eye through which God The human soul became the most wartom of battlefields, where endless hard battles were fought for the sake of the ‘great lost peace’. Inside the soul two irreconcilable armies confront one another: one the force and advocate of Evil,2s and the other that which rebukes it-the ‘reproachful The external world places infinite obstacles in the way of the attemptsof the minority to gain victory in the great war, now being fought in the soul of every individual.The removal of these external obstacles isthe small war,for without victory in the greatwar every human action can be classed as the product of pure compulsion. Both wars are good-‘the small good war’against the deniers and denial of Truth, and the ‘great good war’ against the lowerforces ofone’s own The purpose of both these wars is Good, and therefore so are those who achieve that good. Every temple sums up the sacred human path and purpose. Any perception of a temple which does not acknowledge it as sacred, results in smfe between the temples and between the peoples who gather in them. Refusal to accept that God created a lawandway for every people leads to the flawed ambition of‘one church for allpeople’. This specifically human misinterpretation of the symbols in the world and the self ultimately inspires the destruction of temples, the denial of the right of peoples to glorify God in them.28 Temples are destroyed by those who have taken symbols as ultimate facts in themselves and who have forgotten what the symbols indicate: the destroyers are unaware of the significance of the temple as the centre of humanity’s efforts to be saved from darkness and depth. In southern Europe in recent centuries several thousand m a s d j i d ~have ~~ been laid waste. The history of this region reveals an endless cycle of destruction and construction. At the heart of numerous ideologies we find hatred of, and the passion to destroy, the masdjids of others. Whole armies are created and structured for this aim, justified by a distorted ‘doctrine’ according to which the acceptance of a specific sacred tradition involves the destruction of the masdjids of another tradition. But ifthe significance ofthe masdjid is understood, its destruction is the most specific denial of the core of every holy tradition. The soldiers who wage war on masdjids deny the sacredness of their own or any temples. The necessity for movement between the stages of wisdom-the progress the from fear to love to knowledge, symbolised by all masdjids-prohibits destruction of churches and monasteries, since the symbolic essence ofthese buildings embodies that same purpose. Every dishonour done to churches and monasteries is a violation of the principle of the mmdjid. Correspond-

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ingly, those who destroy the masajids, and the forces behind them, should be made aware that their actions dishonour churches and monasteries. Can a structure of faith which fails to embody this principle be of any real service to human salvation? If churches, monasteries and masajids cannot coexist in any village, town or city, what does this indicate for the world’s future? Can we genuinely expect that Christian, Jewish and Muslim states will one day exist peacefully sideby side? From 1900 to 1995, in the territory designated as Bosnian a t various stages in history, around a thousand mas4ids were completely destroyed. In the anti-Bosnian war between 1992 and 1995, a total of 655 were razed to the ground, and a further 524 suffered varying degrees of damage.30 This suggests the anti-Bosnian war was, to an important extent, a continuation of the various campaigns which erasedthe presence of all msajids in Slavonia, Serbia, Montenegro andDalmatia. These crimes against principle have been transfigured in the history of the responsible cultures into acts of heroism: a distortion which lowers the culture capable of producing it. The mas4ids were burned and mined: temples became slaughterhouses and funeral pyres. Thousands of ruins, and the devastated sites where mmajids once stood, cover Bosnia and the surrounding countries today. The belief common among criminals-that their acts will remain unknown to, or beviewedfavourablyby, future generations-was not the main reason for the thoroughness of these ‘heroic’ campaigns against masajids. The beauty and antiquity of the targets was no obstacle. The primary motive remains obscure, a riddle which challenges us all. It is easier to understand the inspiration and elements which go to make up a building, than it is to understand those of destruction. Life is protected by birth which springs from the seed of eternity in human existence. But where is the seed whichproduces killing? Bosnia’s essence is violated by assaults against any form of temple, and such assaults have beenmost widespread and frequent against m s 4 i d s . This in turn prompts a closer look a t the masdjid itself: what is particular to it, and how its structure incorporates the reflections of human desires for perfection, in a crystallisation of sacred learning and sacredart.

The Stations of Wisdom The perfectibility of humanity unfolds itself through the renewal of links with higher worlds, via the soul. Everything in the world celebrates the

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~~

Creator. The six measures of space are full of signs, visible in North and South, East and West, height and depth-or in front and behind, right and left, up and down. Each individual syinbol among this multitude has a corresponding image in the hidden world of the soul, to which it descended from the Treasury, from which everything pours forth and to which everything returns. The images in the soul are true reflections of their archetypes, but fallen man recognises them with difficulty. What relationship do these images bear to ‘the great, recognisable world’? In other words, we could say that the cosmos, the great world, exhibits all that is concentrated in the self, the little world. Both are the source of one and the same knowledge, of one and the same truth: hence, both are knowable. This is the reason why in the roots for the word ‘world’ in Bosnian, as well as in Arabic and Hebrew, we find the same root as for the verb ‘to know’. But is it possible to recognise these symbols in the little, sixfold, world with the same clarity possible in the great world? There are three stages of wisdom-fear, love and knowledge. Each involves two apparently opposite reactions: fear-in flight or attack; love-in patience or action; and knowledge-in discernment and unification. Each of these stages of human manifestation begs a comparison with one of the dimensions of the great world, as we shall see later. Wisdom is humanity’s attempt to smve for balance: a stable point where the forces of all dimensions of the world meet in harmony. This desire for harmony leads humanity closer to the Alpha and Omega, liberating us from the forces of imbalance and the random action ofexternaland internal principles. Wisdom leads to the whole: the obstruction of wisdom results in disintegration. A deeper view into the development of the word ‘wisdom’ shows its etymological relationship with the meanings of ‘character’, ‘God’, ‘learning’, ‘possibility’, ‘looking’, ‘victory’, ‘wit’, ‘knowledge’, ‘opinion’, and many more. Since reaching for perfection, as the Centre or the all-comprehending embrace, is the purpose of wisdom, everyelement of wisdom should include a unifymg centre, or itwill fracture into meaningless multiplicity. The corresponding meanings of the word ‘wisdom’demonstrate this duality. Wisdom enables the recognition and destruction of evil impulses, diminishing the gap between the illusory and the real I. Wisdom incorporates all the knowledge and skill which enables humanity to approach higher possibilities-the approach to God, to holiness and to goodness. This state is described in the prayer spoken by the prophets Ibrahim and Ismail in the central temple. ‘Our Lord, doThou send among them a Messenger, one of

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them, who shall recite to them Thy signs, and teach them the Book and the Wisdom, and purify them; Thou artthe Almighty, the All Wise.. .’31 The Message cannot be divided from wisdom: one cannot be recognised without the 0ther.3~Wisdom is a gift of great good, giving vision to those who are aware.33 Its symbol is present on every pathway andin every constellation, but only the human heart is capable ofapproaching it in its full reality. Humanity’s deep attraction towards Perfection is revealed in fear, love and knowledge. The end of these aspects of human nature are apparent at the turning point, from darkness to light and from nothingness towards being. Willing rejection of the realmofevil, for the sakeof Truth, is achieved by turning from the desires and acts which approach evil, and by confirmation of the will for good action. Through acceptance of everything that follows from this initial act of rejection and confirmation, humanity achieves ‘the state of happiness in this, but not knowingly in the higher life in the future world’.34 This state is symbolised in the fact that God has placed a t our disposal everything in the heavens and on earth, and abundantly pours out his blessingson us, externally and within.35In acknowledging the desire for perfection, and in striving to achieve that desire and the ‘state of happiness’, humanity moves away from the unreal and towards the Real. The unity of Truth overwhelms lies,emptying the self of false images and filling it with Truth, the highest realisation of the potential knowledge embodied in the human soul. But if the soul turns to knowledge devoid of the Truth, itis rapidly taken over by images and idols, distortions and lies. Fear permeates all humanity. The phenomena of the world, and all manifestations of mutability and impermanence, birth and death, confront us with the question of the First and the Last. We cannot say, from sensory perception alone, ‘This is God’. This is not, however, becausewe are unable to discern reality, but because, in endless paradox, our understanding that the phenomena of existence are symbols of God is accompanied by our debasement of these phenomena into gods. In the end, the realisation that we can possess these phenomena only to lose them, brings home the finality of their causes and consequences. Growth and disappearance, in the ongoing currents of change, impose the need for action upon us. But every human action involves issues of consequences and responsibility. In the multitude of interrelated phenomena, within the global sequence of consequence and cause, eventhe most finely tuned research cannot trace the first cause or the final consequence. But central to human existence is an awareness that our presence in the world only gains meaning in the perfection of our intentions and the justice of our judgements, in each action or refusal to act.

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Having acknowledged that the world is finite, mutable and mortal, humanity is filled with fear when confronting that which is neither final, mutable nor mortal. The desire to become real leads us to the one and only Reality, beside which we are nothing. However, fear of annihilation fills us with a terror which has no focus, but shrinks from everything. Instead, we should try to recognise the One Who Is Everywhere, to find the Face reflected in all creation, to run from the One towards the One. Fear always hastwofaces-one turned towards annihilation, the other turned towards the Real. Salvation rests on denial of the unreal, the understanding that the unreal is the same as nothingness. Nothing revealed by sensual perception can be God, since there is no reality in it. Fear produces first denial, and only afterwards confirmation-leading to the ‘state of happiness’. After our Fall, fear was rooted in humanity by our increasing dedication to ‘sensible’-empirically based-knowledge and thought. The spiritual journey truly begins with the rejection of this condition and the act of ‘turning’ away from the world towards the Face of God. But since the Face of God is encountered wherever we turn, we must learn to read its presence in the world while detaching ourselves from the world as an end in itself. This turning, division and rejection produces ‘a station of good fortune in this world: but (the) reward in the life to come will be far greater yet’. We are reminded that ‘God has made subservient to man all that is in the heaven and all that is on earth and has lavished upon him His blessings, both outward and inward’. This in turn instructs us to overwhelm those spiritual idols and distortions, desires and fears, which encourage corruption, torture and killing. The severance of our relationship to the idols and distortions of the lower world is a form of dying, and yet this is the overwhelming of Death. It strengthens the ‘now’ of spiritual balance-in which, embracing the fear of God, we conquer our fears of everything else.36The spiritual act is born from the fight against the soul’s desire to challenge its submission to the world of drowsiness and inertia. The battle is fought in order to replace this drowsiness with the future, and inertia with durable activity. We are required to replace our oblivion with remembrance and sporadic activity with a steady flow of action. Love binds humanity to the phenomena of the world. Yet to love them as real in themselves, in their endless growth and death, turns them into obstacles in our journey towards perfection. Rejecting the unreal andapproaching the Real means recognising God’s Love in every aspect, every phenomenon of existence. Love for the world which gives the world preference over God, produces instablility andunease: there is no base of

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‘permanence’ acting as a source and a home for all movement. Movement from such a stable baseconveys peace, and every statewithinthese movements brings the mover among those ‘whom He loves and who love Him’.37 Love shows itself in patience,arising from the satisfaction of contemplating the beloved; and in activity, sprung from the passionate desire for perfection. The first way is shown in surrender to everything which is wholly good and harmonious in itself: in this state the knots of the soul are released and constrictions vanish. Repose comes to us from God’s Peace, which is the general beauty and harmony of all existence. Through this repose the soul desires to reach the state of bliss, the eternal beauty anchored in the ‘uncaused Cause of all’. ‘Beauty bears within itself every element of happiness whence its character of peace, plenitude, satisfaction; now beauty is in our very being, we live by its substance.’38This state can be compared to a lake: in its total calm it reflects the breadth of the heavens. This is peace in the Centre, repose in the One, the Eternal East, the Sea into which all flows. Every love, in its reality, returns from this state to the Love of God. The abundance of mercy requests compassion or revelation to the world, since Love by its nature always demands to be expressed.The state of peace is conveyed through the pulsing ofthe heart in the source of God’s love: the revelation of Love flowsinto thewide sea of love. The heart of fallen man isdarkened, and does not reflect the Lightwhich lies upon all phenomena of the world. The soul is crowded by the multitude ofcomplicatedfactswhich, tedious and ugly though they are, present themselves as Real, but which lack love and life. The fervency of the soul unites all its movements in the outpouring of faith in God’s Mercy. This is manifest in compassion towards the beings around us. Flexibility and movement spring from the inner life just as the flaming of the red rose is accompanied by its scent. The heart’s pulsation in the source of God’s Love is seen in the splendour of the love of those who love God and whom God loves. They know that ‘God has endeared to you belief, decking it fair in your hearts’,39and that He loves ‘the conscious’,4o ‘those who cleanse themselves’$* ‘the good-doers’$2 ‘the just’43 and ‘those who fight in His way in ranks, as though they were a building well compacted’.44 This knowledge embraces the dividing and uniting way or, differently expressed, the objective and subjectiveway, and acts bydiscerning or identifying. It incorporates three possibilities-sensory perception, thinking or being. Discerning between the Real and the unreal immediately raises the question of the human 1. T o say 1 is to confirm two things: the self as sub-

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ject and the second person as object. But since God is One, this discernment necessarily involves the denial of the subject: the self is nothing, while the object, the second person, is Truth. The one and only Reality can be known, accordingly, only in the emptiness of the human self. T o say that there is no god but God is the same as saying that the self of the speaker is nothing in itself. Since only God knows and by His knowing comprehends a116: and since His knowledge remains with Him,47 it follows that the subject, the self, is unreal. In this denial the subject reaches the threshold of knowing the Real, but does not know the Real. ‘He is the Knower of the Unseen, and He discloses not HisUnseen toanyone.’48 The subject ‘He’ is individualised and limited by our attempts to portray it, but beyond these confines is Perfection. Since the soul knows the Real it knows what it finds. Thus the subject is Truth, and the object-false. The Subject is the eternal I, and the object darkens the subject. In this Perfection, knowledge no longer needs discernment, it is only light. This is the processof recognition: since the selfis illusionary and‘secondary’ it is nothing. The reality of I is nothingness compared with God’s I. Reality is one and indivisible: nothing can be added to it ortaken away. The human I taken apart from God’s I is only a multitude of sensual reflections and conceptual images created by the world of spiritual distortion. Thinking has no capacity to overcome the fundamental duality, since it is, essentially,the act of discerning: ‘It is like the colour white, in relation to light: white is distinct from black, but is invisible without light and could not illuminate anything.’49 Thought can discover the direction, but never come to the goal. It does not comprehend the Real since it is only secondary in relation to it. Reaching the Real is, accordingly, knowing what God is. But Reality itself does not lie in this knowledge. God is not ‘two’ and since only He has knowledge, recognising the Self is the same as Being. Thus the subject is extinguished in the unity of the Object, which has no other, and the object is absorbed in the unity of the Subject. The world is equal to Being with regard to Existence, and the I is equal to the Self with regard to intelligence. The first relationship is included in the science of signs, which is the intellectual aspect of existence. ‘With Him are thekeys of the Unseen; none knows them but He. He knows what is in land and sea; not a leaf falls but he knows it.’sO The science of signs or symbols unites phenomena with their archetypes in the Perfect Treasury, while the conscious persona is ‘extinguished’ in existence. Thereforethe Prophet’s prayer ‘0 my Lord, increase inme k n o ~ l e d g e ’sums ~ ~ up both forms of knowledge in the Unity of Existence.

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It includes knowledge in Being and Being in knowledge. On the first page of knowledge the subject is destroyed by the Object, while on the second the object becomes Subject. From this, it follows that Being means to Be All, and Knowing is to Know All.

Fear: Flight and Attack If there is no god but God, it follows that there is no reality but the Real. Every symbol inthe world and in humanity exists to signify God. The more explicitly the symbol is perceivedas a symbol, the furtherwe move from the symbol and the closer we move to God. Knowing the unreality of the world, whichbecomes all the more obvious as acceptance of the real increases, humanity is overtakenby fear of the multiplicity of the universe. But there is no shelter from God except in God.s2 So Iask Thee, my Master, the asking of him whose soul is diverted by his drawn out expectations, whose body is heedless because ofthe stillness of his veins whose heart is entranced by the multitude of favours done for him, whose reflection is little concerning that to which he is coming home; the asking of him whom false expectation has overcome, caprice has entranced, and this world has mastered, and over whom death has cast its shadow; the asking of him who makes much of his sins and confesses his offence; the asking of him who has no Lord but Thou, no friend besides Thee, no one to deliver him from Thee, and no asylum from Thee except in Thee.s3

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By turning from the treacherous wealth of the world towards the threshold of the masdjid door, humanity approaches the statement that ‘there is no god but God’: our security is guaranteed by That Which Is.s4 In so doing, we place ourselvesat the pointof the road symbolised in architecture by the fountain, doors and mihrab. The touch of water and the act of washing signify separation of the self from the treacherous world and ascent to the higher rungs of the ladder of worlds. Water is a sign of principle, descending and rising. It descends from heaven andreturns to it, just as the Spirit andthe Light descend and return to the Word. The winter and the North correspond, in the external world,to this movement of rejection and separation. Continuing through the stages of flight, or rising from darknessand depth, the fugitive comes to the doors, before which stand supporting pillars. Inertia and drowsiness bindthe Word to the surface ofthe world and it loses its links to the Height and the Light. But its seed, according to the nature of the Word which it carries, tries to defeat the forces of inertia, sleepandparalysis: it becomes ‘a goodtree-its roots are firm and its branches are in heaven; it gives its produce every season’.SS The supporting pillar is the sign of thisdirection and guidance, which overwhelms the dizzying effects of false abundance,inertia and drowsiness. The pillars are therefore symbols of beginning, and the first station, decisionand intention, which strengthens the inertand drowsy body. Having passed the doors, and having experiencedfrom within the state of winter and the North, the fugitive arrivesin a space separated bythick walls from the world outside. Although the doors have been passed, for the fugitive the act of entry is insignificant in comparison with what has been entered-the masdjid. The fugitive is now faced with choices between right and left, forward or upward, depth or height. But the state of fear and tension, which drove the fugitive to flight, is subdued by the change from the bustle and noise of the world to the emptiness and silence of the masdjid. The fugitivehasnow lost the motivation for flight and stands upright, changing in the solitude from the posture of flight to that of confrontation. The horizons of treacherous colours, sounds and scents are gone. In a moment, like a lighming-flash or the flash of light from a sword, the fugitive undergoes transformation, from the state of flight to that of action. In passing from confusion into sheltered solitude, the fugitive faces silence and space, which ‘centre’ him in concentration on the self. Fear is crystallised towards the centre of being. The paralysed tension becomes the conscious acceptance of forces descending from the heights through uprightness. The prayer ‘Send us a right road’ is the same as the prayer for the

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‘upright path’. This act of concentration on the self is demonstrated by the division of the soul into a part which advocates evil, anda part which rebukes it. This division correspondsto the two armies, the opposite sides inthe great good war. The victory of one side means ruin, and that of the other-the great good peace.By reaching this great good peacethe soul reaches response to the Word. ‘0 soul at peace, return unto thy Lord, well-pleased,wellpleasing! Enter thou among my servants! Enter thou my paradise.’S6 Keeping to the direction of the mihrab, the disciple turns towards the Kaaba as the centre. But the centre includes the axis of depth and height: the uprightness whichpasses through all the worlds. The Kaabais only the lowest reflection strung upon the axis which unites the series of reflections of God’sThrone in all worlds. By this transformation from flightto attack, which renews the uprightness within each ofus through the presence of solitude, silence and space, the disciple arrivesat the second state, which corresponds at the worldly levelto East and spring. The rising of the spring sun in the East drives away winter and darkness: the sap of lifein the frozen tree rises freely fromthe depths to the heights. The transformation is from a passive state of fear, the first state, into the active, upright confrontation ofseveralpossibledirections-the second state, symbolised by the pillars. The disciple, passing from the state of passive fearinto thatof active choice, feels the presence of the power of heaven. Standing upright on the earth the disciple reflects humanity’s position as mediator between earth and heaven.The multitude of pillarsholding up the roof of the masdjid suggest the multitude of disciples who, bytheir uprightness, conquer distance, joining heaven and earth. In the same way, the moments of the past and future always arrive in a single ‘now’. The upright disciple andthe pillar suggestthe letter elifwhich corresponds to the Holy Name Allah and the number one. But Allah is One.57 The uprightness of the disciple andthe pillar is shownin Unityas the reality of all space and alltime. The pillars bear the roof, the building bears the sky: the uprightness of the disciple is the pillar which bears the sky. This position between earth and heaven takesthe disciple to thethird stage.

Love: Patience and Passion Uprightness and conscious acceptance of the forces reaching down from above lead the disciple to the third stage. The number three corresponds with the roof of the masdjid, which is composed of triangles resting on the

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quadrangle of the building. The roof represents the sky: the dome is a clear symbol of heaven,a circle, which corresponds to the number nine. Both the pyramid and the dome lead the forces of earthly desires to a single point, which stands alone and rests on nothing. The third stage corresponds to patient love. It reveals itself as the acceptance of peace and tranquillity. Victory in the great good war brings peace which springs from Perfection and Eternity. Perfect peace is the highest beauty. It harmonises all opposing forces and radiates blessedness and stability. The multitude of forces are held and stabilised by the keystone. The Prophet of God said: ‘My likenessamong all the prophets is the likeness ofa man building a house. He is proficient a t it, he does it well, and he leaves a single brick out. Then the people begin to go around the building, marvelling a t it, and say, “It would be complete if not for this brick.” Indeed, in the building I am the place for that brick.’5*Jesus tells us ‘the very stone which the builders rejected, has become the head stone of the corner’.S9 In this ‘head stone’ at the height of the pyramid or dome, peace is fulfilled. It balances all forces and radiates Beauty and Perfection. The pyramids of the roof, and the dome as its perfect manifestation, represent a crown of peace andbeauty above the dimensions of the world. The mibrab,60 which points to Mecca, corresponds to the state of love. Unlike the cupola, whichsignifies patient love-peace, blessedness and beauty-the mibrab signifies the active manifestation of love-the progress of love from its passive manifestation. This is the fourth stage, symbolising direction: every motion contains action, which organises itself or grows from intentions or desires into inextinguishable fervour and the will to fight. The original significance of the word is plain. The mibrab shows the disciple how to aim for the Merciful. ‘Turning towards’ signifies ardour, which is a vital manifestation of this stage.61‘It is the melting of the heart in thedivine warmth, its opening to Mercy.’62 The movement towards heaven means that heaven is attracting. Being shown the Face of Peace, Blessedness and Beauty, the disciple is drawn towards acceptance. The mibrab is therefore a reflection of ‘the fourfold surface of the earth’ so that the disciple can be turned towards the self as a reflection of heavenly accord. ‘He is the Almighty, the All-forgiving, who created sevenheavens one upon another. Thou seest not in the creation of the All-merciful any imperfection. Return thy gaze; seest thou any fissure?’63 The mibrab is a sign of active love: all positions and movement in the ritual of praying, in which the disciple gradually becomes molten until, a t the climax, both body andsoul ‘pour out’ in the Sadjda (prosaative prayer)

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towards Mecca, accord withthe mibrab. The disciple is directed from earth towards the centre and thus towards the axis-the direction of height and depth. Reaching the centre means reaching the heart as the ‘part’ of the being through which approach to the soul is possible. In the sequence of stages, the approach to the soul isthe approach to the Creator, who is above the heart. But ‘above’ means here both centre and depth. The way to the Spirit is in the depths of the heart. God says: ‘Neither heaven nor earth can comprehend Me, but the heartof My slave comprehends Me.y64God’s Embrace means God’sCentrality. Therefore the mihrab’s guidance towards the centre is the same as absorption into this comprehensive embrace. Perfection is both the embrace andthe centre from whichit springs. In the posture of the Sadjda the disciple is totally focusedon the heart as the lower part of the axis which raises him through the Spirit to ‘the Living, the Everlasting. Slumber seizes Him not, neither sleep.’65This axis through the heart, as the exit from the world of earth, connects the disciple with the vertical andthus prevails overthe lowness of fallen humanity.The mihrab is, accordingly, the exit from imprisonment in the walls of the world, opening towards ‘the other side’-Perfection and Eternity. All stages accord with ‘unity in diversity’; they ‘accord through opposition’ and through ‘building and unmaking’.In their secret relationship with theOne and Only, Who is their root, they are manifestations of His ‘Revealed Love’or ‘Love to Be Revealed’. ‘The viewpoint of fervour or of life is harmoniously opposed to that of detachment or of death, just as the viewpoint of contentment or of peace is opposed without antinomy to that of action or of combat.’66Therefore the passion of the turn toGod corresponds to the point of South and the season of summer, as opposed to the point of North and the season of winterrejection of, and division from, the world. The encircled depth of the mihrab is, accordingly, the oasis of life in a desert of walls. For that which is approached is Living,the giver of Life.

Knowledge: I and I The reality of knowledge is above the reality of the self. We can say that knowledge is the process of contraction and release-contracting in the sense of recognising, and releasingin the sense of understanding: this is the original meaning of the word ‘K~r’an’.~7 Sinceknowledgeisabove the three-dimensional space of the Earth, it corresponds to the vertical axis:

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discernment is symbolised by height, and recognition by depth. Discernment of the objective way is symbolised by the munara6* or minaret of the masdjid: this is the fifth stage of wisdom. The minaret resembles the upright letter el$ which indicates the Highest Name and the number one, which emphasises God’sUnity and Uniqueness. Unlike the pillar, the minaret is burdened by nothing. It is purely and objectively standing for, and pointing to, the Truth-objectively, because its role is to be a landmark visible a t a great distance and from all points of the compass; a symbol of the Explicit and Clear. Its role is above all to be a clear focus for listening, for the call to prayer is sent from it. Since, both to sight and hearing, the minaret rises far above the rest of the masdjid, it is a direct symbol of the heavenly.69 The pinnacle of the minaret is often decorated with a row of apples, usually golden or gilded. Their position at the highest point symbolises the height of knowledge, which humanity lost by disobeying God’s commandment: ‘Eat thereof easefully, where you desire; but draw not nigh this tree!’.70 The apples remind us of the position of the first man, who was fully centred on intellectual tuition: as yet the Fall was not present within, preventing the flow of recognition between symbol and archetype. The taking of the apple from the forbidden tree71 interrupted this flow, and this was the true Fall. Its restoration demands ‘returning the apple to the branch whence it hung’-the renewal of the interrupted flow of recognition from symbol to archetype. The golden apples of immortality also symbolise the sun, and their presence a t the pinnacle of the minaret is linked to theholy times of ritual which unite manwith Perfection and Eternity. The minaret is the spear, the shadow of which,on the surface of the earth, points to the time of the heavens. At the top of the minaret, symbolising the emptiness of the self in comparison with God’s Perfection, is the original symbol of the first prohibition, obedience to which made man Holy and Perfect: ‘And those who cry “Lies” to Oursigns, We will draw them on little by little whence they know n0t.’7* Inside the masdjid is the m i m b a ~the , ~ ~pulpit. This, like the minaret, belongs to the fifth stage, through its elevation and its involvement in communicating the truth. Speech from the pulpit is the shaping of science and law founded on the Kur’an and the Prophet’s Teaching. The priest speaks in the name of these two sources: his personality is subdued to the performance of these tasks. The self of the speaker is false in itself, as an earthly phenomenon, but real according to God, for everything created in and by God is transformed into a symbol of the uncreated Self. From the stand-

Knowledge: I and I 17 1 ~

point of discernment the subject is false andthe object true. But, in unifylng knowledge, the object becomes false and the subject true. The subject is covered by a shadow which reflects the human condition. The disappearance of this shadow leaves the pure light of the Eternal Self. This raises the question of what we can find in the masdjid which symbolises the True Subject.Solving this question leads to the sixth stage, which unites all the others. It is enshrined at the heart of the masdjid. In this ultimate stage of knowledge, whichis pure and perfect light, there is neither discernment nor opposition. Just as the masdjid is open towards heaven, so the internal self, through the deepest part of the heart, is open to the Light which is Perfect and Eternal. The human I, realised through the Spirit in God’s I, or, rather,submerged in God’s I, is the centre of Perfection. The Kaaba, the Stone and the Prophet’s Grave, as thecentre of the masdjids of Mecca, Jerusalem and Medina, also signifythe Heart as the centre of the Self. The approach of the Spirit for the sake of return to God is the essence of holy tradition and of every sacred art. The masdjid of any religion is the fullest embodiment of this essence. Human existence always incorporates the potential or reality of goodness or holiness: humanity always retains the potential to achieve good. The praying disciple is the living centre of the masdjid. The masdjid encircles the disciple and enables the attainment of the sixth stage. Viewed from outside, the Sadjda, prostration, is the climax unifymg symbols from the world and the self in the clarity and the speech of the archetypes from the Treasury. Thus thearchitect’s portrayal of all six stages of wisdom in the dimensions of humanity is given the name of masdjid-the ‘place of prayer’. Although the focusing of the self towards the Kaaba is an important element of prayer, and thus thewhole masdjid is focused towards the Kaaba, the atmosphere created by the architecture inspires a sense of the universal. God’s omnipresence and the openness of the heart towards Perfection and Eternity is echoed in every comer of the masdjid. ‘Whithersoever you turn, ‘And when there is the Face of God; God is All-embracing, All-kn~wing.’~~ My servants question thee concerning Me, I am near to answer the call of the caller, when he calls to Me.’75‘And We are nearer to him than the principal vein.’76 The emptiness and silence of the masdjid, the absence of tension and opposition between earth and heaven, implies the presence of Perfection and Eternity, which are not only ‘before and after’ but ‘here and now’. The raised hands of the disciple at prayer, and the belief that they are held up to

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THE MASDJID

receive what ‘descends’ from the Object of the prayer, are the best symbols of the absence of tension, the potential for goodness and peace. The mihrab’s depth symbolises the passage towards Knowledgeand Light, the uniting principle of both: God is the Lightof the heavens andthe earth; the likenessof His Light is as a niche wherein is a lamp (the lamp in a glass, the glass as it were a glittering star) kindled from a Blessed Tree, an olive that is neither of the Eastnor of the West whose oilwould well-nigh shine, evenif no fire touched it; Light uponLight (God guides to His Light whom He will. And God strikes similitudes for men, and God has knowledge of e ~ e r y t h i n g . ) ~ ~

The strength of the illumination grows from the external levels towards the centre: first the depth, then the glass, then the oil, then the flame itself. The internal self achieves reality as it is united with the Self. It is the Eye through Which God looks. Through it the Spirit descends, the Light and the Word. Through the Word of God, descended from the heart of the Propheh7* the Spirit, the Light and the Word enter the Prophet’s speech, which isthus God’s Message. The Kur’an is both the Light and the Word, which arrived in the world by way of the Soul and the Prophet: it is the presence of Perfection in finality, and ofEternity in time. Therefore Kur’anic messagesare inscribed upon the internal surfaces ofthe mas&d, their grouping echoing that of the windows. The vertical alifand lam signify the descent of the Will and Love in the realisation ofcreation. All other letters of this inscription are, as it were, sprung from these divine interlacings of the vertical axis, which, in their unity with the ‘Vine of Speech’ are eternally connected with the ‘Stem of the Vine’. This presence of the Word in its written form reminds us again of the opened heart, where the unreal I is submerged in the Lightof I. On the planes between the dome and the walls, in the mihrab and the lower parts of the windows and doors, we often find representations of the honeycomb or similar motifs, in which light and shadow signify the allpermeating and all-present Unity. The symbolism of the honeycomb, open

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and pouring out its goodness, suggeststhe sweetness of achieving Truth and of the Light above all Light. The discipleis drawn towards this Unity, shown everywhere by the Light, to the point where knowledge becomes Light. Thus the essence of the disciple’s self findsfulfilment in its total absorption in the Sweet Self.

Humanity and Perfection The disciple at prayer is the living centre of the mas4id. Everything present or active in the masdjid has the task of confronting the disciple with the possibility of perfection, leading from the potential tothe Real Light. Through physically entering the m d j i d , the disciple is clothed in perfect clothing: passing through the stages of wisdom, the disciple is enabled to grow, sothat thetreacherous and imperfect I reaches perfection and fullness at the point where the broken flow betweenthe symbol and the Symbolised is renewed. In the renewal of all dimensions ofthe holiness of this clothing, the disciple becomes an element of the great I, and a reflection of God’s revealed love. The essential character of every reliabletradition is its general stability or standard. The holy or good human being is the manifestation of this durability andstandard. It may be said, therefore, that the human being, considered in its integrity, comprises a certain sum of possibilities which constitute its corporeal or gross modality, and in addition a multitude of other possibilities, which, extending in different directions beyond the corporeal modality, constitute its subtle modalities; but all these possibilities together represent, none the less, one and the same degree of universal Existence. It follows from this that human individuality is a t once much more and much less than Westerners generally suppose it to be: much more, because they recognize in it scarcely anything except the corporeal modality, which includes but the smallest fraction of its possibilities; much less, however, becausethis individuality, far from really constituting the whole being, is but one state of that being among an indefinite multitude of other states. Moreover the sum of all these states is still nothing at all in relation to the Personality, which alone is the true being, because It alone represents its permanent and unconditioned state, and because there is nothing else which can be considered as absolutely

The Self here referred to is thefilflled or perfect man.l0 This perfection symbolises the absolute realisation of Being,not only the centre of its state

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.

or position, but the totality of all states of being-whether understood as a sum of phenomenal states or as the sum of all its potential. In this centrality and generality, humanity possesses the capacity to achieve unity with the Centre of all archetypes. This is symbolisedby humanity’s knowledge ofthe names of all things. Since names are the essence of the named, the manifestation of the creating word, humanity’s knowledge of names preserves the link with God. The permanence and strength of this relationship makes all its participants holy. This state reflects the relationship between ‘intellectuality’ and ‘spirituality’. Intellectuality hovers over us, and spirituality surrounds us. Intellectuality becomes spirituality when the whole person lives with and for the truth. The good see, hear and sense the phenomena of the world in the light of their link to the Treasury, constantly renewed in the Light above all light. This is the blessing ofthe world: it is in the world, but acts as a bridge between the lower and the higher worlds, itself participating in and revealing the higher world. All phenomena of the world are permeated with it, since it is in everything and above all sees God. This is reflected in the words of the Much-Praised: ‘I have neverseen anything without seeing God in it ... without seeing God nearer to me than it.’** The good man contains the whole world. His spirit is not closer to him than the world, since it would then be on the margin of totality, and his inner self could not be ‘the Eye through which God looks’**-nor could everything created symbolise the Creator. This quality gives the good man the position of viceregent over the earth: the earth is his kingdom. The spiritual man is the king of this world, independently of whether he has explicit power or a recognisable throne. The achievement of this power requires travelling the road of submission to the Perfect Power, and the rest is achieved accordingly. This submission means perfection, and opposition to it signifies ignorance or weakness. This kind of power testifies to inner perfection and inviolability,bearing no relationship to events in this world. Human perfection reveals its nothingness before God’s Reality. The inversion between perfection in the world and Perfection in God is revealed in human centrality which, in an inviolably secret way, becomes equivalent to God’s Centrality. This equivalence commands man to be holy inasmuch as God is Holy: ‘Ye shall therefore sanctify yourselves, and ye shallbe holy, for I am holy.’83 From the knowledge of how the seven heavens and the earth and all that is between them glorify God, springs the human revival in the light of That Which. created all things, from the loveof becoming known. In this knowledge man achieves holiness and goodness: ‘Why, is he

Humanity and Per/ctian 17 5

who was dead, and We gave him life, and appointed for him a light to walk by among the people, as one whose likeness is in the shadows, and comes not forth from them”84 Knowledge of the Being revealed in all phenomena is the highest human state. It transforms us into the much praised who, in praising God, become us: ‘Praise be to God for His ourselves His Praise.FatimaBegumtells grace, in what He has given to me. I have been granted full and perfect apprehension of the divine essence, as I had always most earnestly desired. That one who has not attained to knowledge of the Absolute Being is not worthy to be called a man-he belongs to the type of those of whom it is said: ‘they are like the beasts of the field, and are even more ignorant’.8SBut he towhom this supreme happiness has been granted, has become a perfect man and the most exalted of created beings, for his own existence has become merged in that of the Absolute Being. He has become a drop in the ocean, a mote in the rays of the sun, a part of the whole. In this state he is raised above death and the fear of punishment, above any regard for paradise or dread of hell. Whether woman or man, such a one is the most perfect of human beings. This is the grace of God, which He gives to whom He wills.’86 Being raised towards Perfection, in dedication to the Reality that ‘there is no god but God’, prevents movement in the opposite direction. Whoever climbs the ladder of Perfection does not fall back.Imam al-Sajjad prays: So give me, myGod by Thy mercy andThy lasting bestowal of success, that which I may take as a ladder with which to climb to Thy good pleasure and be secure from Thy punishment, 0 Most merciful of the

This state is summed up in the words addressed to Jesus: ‘Oh cousin, if my heart found rest in something other than God for the twinkling of an eye, I should think that I had not known God.’ss To the spirit which has tasted the satisfaction of God, all else becomes bitter and colourless: ‘The soul’s perfection coexists in liberation from the life which is in part and admission to the life which is whole. All that is scattered in nether things is gathered together when the soul climbs up into the life where there are no opposites. The soul knows no opposition when she enters the light of i n t e l l e ~ t . Ibn ’ ~ ~Ata ‘Allah tells us, of this liberation of

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the soul, ‘When He gives thee obedience andindependence in Him from it, then know that H e has in sooth covered thee with His bounties, both outward and inward.’gO This is how holinessor goodness are perceived in the light of the higher worlds. The good are not what they seem in the eyes of the majority: ‘If anyone looks a t them, he believes they are sick, although they are not sick, and he says that they have gone mad. In fact, great concern has made them mad.’9* The signs in the horizons and in human souls communicate with them at a different level. They hear, feel and see, something which for the majority doesnot exist. Their opposition to force frequently leads them into conflicts in which they suffer. The light they bear bums away all acceptance that darkness should be the ultimate fate of their tradition and inheritance. T o save the core of their tradition they are often fierce enemies of human law and the customs constructed around it. Only in the deepest part of the self is the power of their presence felt, while darker thoughts, the offspring of the created world, see danger for themselves and their power in the presence of the good. The testimony to principles presented by their whole lives is directly opposed to the deceptions of those who call upon those principles in order to submit others to themselves for their own ends. Humiliation, persecution and suffering are clear evidence oftheir vision, oftheir clear insight into the opportunities of the world and the possibility of human greatness.The destiny of the good is not a consequence of lack of perception. Acceptance of the Real supplies them, says the Prophet, with ‘seeing by God’s Light’.9z Since they live in the fullness of joy and bliss, it seems that they have neither joy nor bliss. T o the ignorant who turn towards onlythe dim lamps offeredby towers on the horizon, their safety and stability, andthe speech of silencein their light, are incomprehensible. Their focus on that light, their absence from the unreal and presence in the Real, seems, in the eyes of the majority, like ignorance of the world and heedlessness of its affairs. ‘The children of this world are wiser in their generation than the children of Light’, as Christ tellsus. However, they have a higher and truer insight into what the people of darkness do not know. The good do not anger easily, nor do they react to accusation, but nor do they let weakness go unchallenged, nor the different forms of evil andtheir actions. Time for them is not the same as time for others. Since they have their being in That Which is the First and Last., Internal and External, a century or millennium might pass, for them, like moments, while moments have the meaning of millennia. They remain at peace facing events whichare catas-

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trophes for others, while reserving their greatest energies for events which others do noteven notice. Praying to God frees them from the prison of the world. When they speak to God and await his answerthey are fully aware of the emptiness of all human attempts to say ‘I’. T o say this monosyllable betrays that the I is not truly submerged in the Real I, for when the real absorption has taken place speech losesmeaning, for everything is known in its perfection-the One and Only. In the speech and prayer of the good, the ordinary onlooker sees only a state of humility, which appears to be weakbut this perception is born of ignorance and evil. Dedication to the false self is characteristic of evil, and its denial is good: evil is removed from the soul and burned in the fiery love that knows itself to be not a shadow but the source of the shadow of the world. ‘I and this world are as a rider and a tree beneath which he taketh shelter. Then he goeth on his way, and leaveth it behind him.y93The direction followedbyall the good on their journey, within every tradition, isalways and completely the same, for they know that ‘Whithersoever you turn, thereis the Face of God.’94 Knowing that Being is impossible without the One, the good seek the keys of heaven and earth by submerging the self in God. This is the ‘highest way of ‘You must know, says Shaykh Jili, ‘that the perfect man is a copy of God, according to the saying of the prophet. God created Adam in the image of the merciful, and in other traditions God created Adam in His own image. Further, you must know that the essential names and the divine attributes belong to the perfect man by fundamental and sovereign right in virtue of a necessity inherent in his e~sence.”)~ The Essential Names and Qualities of God are, to perfected humanity, the founding and ultimate law, possessed of compelling power. The perfect man bridges the gulf between earth and heaven, containing both in himself. He represents the world in its totality, as the world is: an atom in the enormity of space. His most visible and perfect manifestation is the MuchPraised, as the al-Hallaj says: ‘The Light of all prophethood shone forth from his light ... His existence was before the nothingness; his name was before the Pen... All sciences are as a drop from his sea and all wisdoms as a sip from his river, and all time is but as an hour of his enduring. In him is Realityandinhim is Truth. He is the first in Union and the last in prophethood-the inward in Truth and the outward in Kn0wledge.’~7Since the Much-Praised is the Example and the Lamp of the world, his essence calls to all humanity, addressing our capacity for good: ‘My servant draws near to Me through nothing I love more than that which I have made obligatory to him. My servant never ceases drawing near to Me, through

178 THE MASDJID

superogatory works until I love him. T h e n I love him, I a m his hearing he sees, his hand with through which he hears, his sight through which which he grasps, and his foot on which he walks.’98

NOTES 1 God says that man is created ‘in the faire2 stature’ (95:4). 2 5:48. 3 2:256. 4 See Martin Lings, Symbol and Archeqpe: A stndy of themeaning of existence (Cambridge, 1991), pp. 98-99. 5 It should be mentioned that the message and tradition speak of the Spirit, Intellect, Light and Word as synonymous or closely related in meaning. This is why emphasis has been placed on the traditional teaching of the ‘primacy of the Intellect’. (Uml &IC$, Kitabal-‘agl wa ’ljahl [Tehran, 13881, pp. 29-30). 6 4153. 7 2:s. 8 Luke, 17:2 1. 9 See 15:21, 23. 10 AI1 nouns in Bosnian have one of three genders: masculine, feminine and neuter. Mountain (planina)is feminine (Translator’s note). 1 1 Abu Dawud, Al- Sunan (Cairo, 1884). 12 7:16. 1 3 5:48. 14 31:28. 15 God is Gracious (ar-rahmnn) and Merciful (ar-rahim), as H e says in His revelations. In Arabic, the noun mhim. means womb. 16 Sahib Mzrrlim,Tawba 14. 17 Nahjal-Balaghah (1994), p. 166. 18 Genesir, 1:27. 19 22:18. 20 33:72. 2 1 Arabic Haran, means ‘that which is forbidden’, ‘that which is set apart’. 22 95:4. 23 1744. 24 Nahjal-Balaghah (1994), p.166. 25 1253. 26 75:2. 27 Ahmad ibn al-Husayn al-Bayhaqi, Kitab as-Sunan al-Kubri, X vols., chapter Zuhd (Hyderabad, 1344-55). 28 22:40. 29 Mas4id is a noun derived from the verb sanjada, which means ‘do slldizcIp, ‘fall on one’s knees’, ‘prostrate oneself, ‘serve God’.The oldest known usage of the word

Notes 179 mgd’ (from s-g-d, ‘prostrate’) in Aramaic dates from the fifth century B.C. (Elephantine Papyri), and it also appears in Nabataean texts with the meaning of ‘place to worship God’. It is possible that it corresponds with the Hebrew masseba and Greek stylos, in the sense of ‘sacred pillars’ that marked ‘places where God is worshiped’. The Kur’an uses the word msdjid to denote theplace ofdoing mdjd, i.e. renewing, confirming or fulfilling man’s vow givento God thatonly H e is the true Lord of mankind (7:172), Ruler of mankind and Allah of mankind (1 14:2-3). T h e first marrljid isMasdjid al-Haram in Mecca (3:96), and the second the Masdjid al-Aqsa in Jerusalem. Both m d j i d s are said to date back to Adam, and then to Abraham and his descendents. The coming of the prophet Muhammad made the entire earth a masdjid. 30 Amra Had%-Muhamedovie, ‘Gradenje i ruSenje mesdZida U Bosni’ (The Building and Deshuction ofMasdjih in Bosnia), Bkzgaj, 1, I (Sarajevo, 1997), pp. 6472. 3 1 2:129. 32 3:81;454, 113; 33:34. 33 2:269. 34 16:41. 35 31:20. 36 3:175. 37 554. 38 Frithjof Schuon, Stations of Widom (London, 1995). p, 149. 39 49:7. 40 9:4. 41 9:108.

42 5:13. 43 49:9. 44 61:4. 45 5:97. 46 65:12. 47 46:23. 48 72:26. 49 Schuon (1995), pp. 152-153. 50 659. 51 20:114. 52 9:118. 53 Ai-sub fat ai-firnilat ai-Sajadijya, pp. 205-206. 54 God says in the Holy Tradition: ‘Lailaha ilaikzh (‘No god but God’) is My fortress and whoever comes in it will be saved from My punishment’ (Majlisi, Bihar al-anwar, 3, p. 5.) 55 1424-25. 56 89:27-30. 57 112:l. 58 Ibn Kathiir, Tafsir ai-Qur’an al-azim (Cairo, S. a.), m, pp. 492-494. 59 Mark, 12:lO; Matthew, 21:42; Luke, 20:17; Psalm 113:22. 60 Arabic mihrab (pl. maharib) denotes a recess in the wall of the masdjid opposite the entrance that indicates the direction of Ka’bah. There are two doors-one for

180 THE MASDJID

physical, the other for spiritual entrance. The masdjid as a whole is both literally and metaphorically built around the mihrab. The word contains consonants h-r-6, which is the root of the verb hariba, which in its first form means ‘be enraged’, ‘be infuriated’; in its second form ‘challenge’, ‘sharpen’ or ‘excite’; in its third form ‘fight’, ‘declare war on’ or ‘be a t war with’; and in its sixth form ‘be at war’ or ‘wage war on’. Interpreters link these root meanings with ‘great good war against oneself, ‘war against evil and evil impulses’. Linguists claim that it is possible that the word mihrab means ‘building’, ‘recess’, or ‘room’. This is why mibra6 is both a symbol of passing through and surpassing the created world in order to get close to the Creator.The fact that the mihrab is in the place where the door will be eventually ‘opened’, while the door is in the place where the mihrab will be eventually ‘closed’, suggests the reciprocity between physical and spiritual passing on the way to the Last. Namely, the direction towards Masdjid al-Aqsa in Jerusalem, which is the second temple that was built in the world, was changed into the direction towards Masdjid al-Haram in Mecca, the first established temple. Everything is thus eternally directed towards the First, which is alsothe Last. 61 Lings (1991), p.120. 62 Schuon (1995), p.150. 63 67:3. 64 Bihar ai-anwar, LVIII, p. 39. 65 2:255. 66 Schuon (1999, p.155. 67 Arabic Kur’an is the name of God’s Message revealed (sent down) to the prophet Muhammad. It is the name of the entire Message and its particular parts. It itself is the interpretation of its name. We encounter the earliest usage of the word Kur’an in the Kur’an itself, where it appears seventy times with different meanings. It is possible to establish the linguistic link between the Arabic Kur’an and Syriac Oeryiini (‘reading of the text’, ‘teaching’, ‘study’). Most Muslim linguists think that Kur’an is a noun derived from the verb qara’a (‘he is reading’, ‘he is studying’, ‘he is telling’);these meanings can be encountered in the Kur’an, where the verb qara’a occurs, but not as often as the verb tala, which signifies ‘reading’, ‘studying’, and ‘telling’. The word Kuran is written without a hemzet in the oldest Kufic manuscripts. Some scholars were thus led to assume that the word was derived from the verb qarana (‘he composed’, ‘he combined’). However, the term Kur’an should be linked with the verb qara’a. The root of qara’a means, in the first place, ‘read’ or ‘study’. Furthermore, ai-gam is the plural of ui-qur’. This term is also usedboth for the period of menstruation and for the period of purity, and that is whyit is made, as some claim, with two opposite meanings. The fact is that its root q-r-‘ denotes ‘gathering’, ‘collecting’,and ‘connecting’. It refers only to those things that are followed by ‘releasing’, ‘dispersing’, ‘transferring’. Bearing that in mind, the original meaning of ai-qsr’ must have been ‘the period of purity’ because it is the period when the blood accumulates in the womb; then it is used to denote the period of menstruation, for it is the time when the blood is being secreted after having been accumulated. Ai-qar’ is thus used in the sense of ‘reading’ and ‘studying’ because letters and words are first recognized and com-

Notes 181

bined in ‘reading’ and ‘studying’ and then announced. Furthermore, linguists claim that al-qar’ means ‘gathering’ and ‘collecting’. The original meaning of the Slavonic verb Eitati (‘read’) is not legere (Latin ‘to read’), as we usually think nowadays, but ‘to count’. Furthermore, the development of this verb is connected to fmt (‘honour’) and Eirt (‘pure’). Different meanings developed from the Proto-Slavonic Eisti, while the basic Indo-European meaning ‘consider’, ‘appreciate’, ‘think’ remained more explicitly connected to the development of the verb Eitati; it is alsopreserved in Sanskrit cetati (‘he watches’),in the Sanskrit noun citti-h (which corresponds to Est) ‘tolerance’, ‘reason’. The verb uEiti (‘learn’, ‘study’) is historically connected to verbs related to naviknnti ‘accustom’, i.e. naviti, sviCi, obiti, Eitati etc. (‘be accustomed’, ‘become familiar with’, ‘inure to’, ‘read’). There is an obvious semantic connection with the English ‘recite’ and ‘cite’. In Bosnian this verb explicitly denotes reading of the Kur’an and of those books that are connected to it (aloud or silently). Reading the Kur’an includes learning it from the text or from recitation, in that what is being learned should be delivered via all senses to the learner. 68 The Arabic manira has the same meaning as the Syriac word menarta. That word means ‘candlestick‘,‘place for a lamp’ and ‘lighthouse’. Minaret also means ‘boundary stone’, ‘signpost’, and ‘watch-tower’. Boundary stones in the Haram area were called manar al-hnram, and the prophet Abraham was called dhu ‘Zmanar, for it was he who placed those stones. Obelisks were also called manara. Thus, the original meaning of that name implies ‘isolation for observation’ in the entirety of horizons. The minaret surpasses its surroundings by its prominence, thus calling everything that can be comprehended by the senses to surpass sensory cognition in ‘reaching’ the Firstand the Last, the Inner and the Outer. 69 Lings (1991), p. 123. 70 2:35, 7:19. 71 7:22. 72 7:182. 73 The Arabic minbar, often pronounced as mimbar, comes from the root n-b-r

(‘high’). We also encounter that word in Ethiopian with the meaning of ‘seat’, ‘chair’. Mimbnr, in the sense of ‘pulpit’, is the part of the mas& whence the Prophet addressed the people, conveying the Revelation and its interpretations. It is, therefore, a constant sign of the presence of the Revelation and the Prophet, to whom Muslims turn as living and irreplaceable sources of how to arrange individual lives and the world as a whole, in accordance with God’s Rule. Stairs symbolise ascension towards the Kur’an and the Prophet, and through them towards God, as well as their descent to the earthfor the salvation of mankind. T h e Bosnian noun sjedalo (‘seat’) is, both in its development and its meaning, linked with the Indo-European, Balto-Slavonic, Pan-Slavonic and Proto-Slavonic perfective verb sed-, sed-, sedere, with the imperfective verb in +ti, -iti, sjedjeti=sjediti (‘sit’), thence sjedenje (‘sitting’), sjediiste (‘seat’), etc. The word stolica (‘chair’) is related to the Indo-European root st@)el-, which appears in the Old Prussian stallit (‘stehen’), stalts (‘Stall’). The noun stol (‘table’) comes together with stoh ‘throne’. Govornica (‘pulpit’) is the substantivisation of the Pan-Slavonic and Proto-Slavonic verb govoriti (‘speak’). The noun govor (‘speech’) is an old ono-

182 THE MASDJID

matopoeia; Indo-European onomatopoeic root go- is widespread-compare Sanskrit gavnte ‘it reverberates’. 74 2:llS. 75 2:186. 76 50: 16. 77 24:35. 78 2:97, 26:192-194. 79 Ren& GuCnon, Man and his Becomingaccording to Vedanta, trans. by Richard C. Nicholson (New Delhi, 1981), pp. 35-36. 80 Ar. al-insan al-kamil, heb. adam gadmen. 81 Quoted in Frithof Shuon, UnderstandingIslam (London, 1989), p. 89. 82 Nahj al-Balagbah,p. 166. 83 Leviticus, 1144. 84 6:122. 85 7:179,25:44. 86 Fatimah J. Begum Sahib, quoted in Margaret Smith, Readingsfiom the mystics of Islam (London, 1950), no. 145. 87 AlSah~ntal-Krmtilatal-Saijadi~a, (1987), p. 198. 88 James Robson, Christ in Islam (New York, 1930), p. 117. 89 Franz Pfeiffer, Meisttr Ekbart, trans. by C. de B. Evans, I (London, 1924), p. 207. 90 Ibn ‘Ata ’Allah, al-Hikam (Cairo, 1939), no. 86. 91 Nahj al-Balaghah, p. 160. 92 See Arthur J. Arberry, Stlfism (London, 1990), p. 28. 93 See Lings (1995), p. 376. 942:115. 95 68:4. 96 See Reynold A. Nicholson, Studies inIslamic mysticism(Cambridge, 192l), p. 106. 97 See ‘Ta-Sinu’s-Sir2j’, Islamic Quarterly, TV (London, 1956), p. 60. 98 Sahib Al-Bzrkbari, LXXVI: 38.

CHAPTER 6

GENOCIDE New mosques are not t o be hilt, old ones are to be demqed. Mojsije ZeEeviC, Orthodox priest, early nineteenth century' And all their homes we did see ablaze; Of all their mosques bothgreat and mull W e le? bnt one accursed heap For passingfolk to cast their glance of s c m . Petar PetroviCNjegoS, Princeof Montenegro, 19472

Icannot bear tosee minarets hBomin; t h q must vanish.

Milan SdkiC, Yugoslav president,19333

T y i n g to conquer the world (...) they roe their birth-rate, the consrr~utionof mosques and presnrre against nun-Muslims. Miroljub JevtiC, Serbian sociologist, 19894 W e are not interested merely in Serbia, but rather a Christian, orthodox Serbin, with no mosques and no in$dels. Mirko JoviC, president of the Serb National Renewal Party, 199OS

Iam in fmmr of a merciless war against mosques.. . Don Ante BakoviC, Catholic priest, 19946

Introduction

A

new wave of Muslim-killing lately overwhelmedBosnia: its rise generated mass death, mutilation, expulsionand torture. Yet its awes andfresh potential remain in the darkness of uncomprehended evil. The bitterness and turmoil in the souls of the survivors deprive them of the courage to confront their suffering, and thus the causes and consequences of death remain unanalysed. Evil isebbing again, for the time being, leaving painand confusion in its wake.

184 GENOCIDE

This was genocide-for killing, torture and expulsion were committed with the intent to destroy the Muslim community of Bosnia and its ethnic, religious and political identity. This was genocide-as the result of deliberate policy,Bosnia’s Muslims suffered horrific bodilyand mental trauma, were deprived of the right to bear children freely, were slaughtered in large numbers. This was genocide-conducted on the basis of a systematically conceived campaign, instigated publicly and directly, ensuring mass collabor a t i ~ nThis . ~ was, in fact, more than genocide in the usual sense ofthe term: Muslims were in its focus, but its main goal was, and is, the dissolution of Bosnia. As yet this crime cannot be categorised, since such an attempt would require first that the evil should be fully analysed. However, the survivors will have to carry endless guilt if they fail to confront their experience: silence and inaction will make them accessories after the fact-although to date the law has shown little capacity to deal with the guilty. T o kill one man is to kill all men; to save one man is to save the entireworld? we must search out the root of this specific, structured evil, aware of the possible nature of its potential fruits if we fail nowto bring it into thelight. The events in Bosniahavehad many causesandmany consequences: most attempts at analysis deal with intellectual, political and social causes and effects. However, the root ofevil remains undetected. The survivors must redeem themselves by doing what they can to help those who must confront the next wave of genocide. The sacred traditions tell us of men ‘who hold the truth in unrighte~usness’~-these are people weak in applied knowledge and in active implementation of goodness. There is also the man ‘who knew his Lord’s will and prepared not himself, neither did according to his will’lO-people who have heard the truth but are still too weak to trust in Goodness or totake action to achieve it. Some refuse to understand that their purpose is to do good: their will is weak, or deviates. Evil isnegative: it consists of weakness, incapacity, lack of knowledge (or at least of applied knowledge), lack offaith, desire, or action on behalf of goodness.ll ‘And yet, those who are bent on denying the truth persist in giving it the lie: but all the while God encompasses them without their being aware of it.”* Or, as St. Augustine puts it: ‘The truth is that one should not try to find an efficient causefor a wrong choice. It is not a matter of efficiency,but of deficiency; the evil will itself is not effective but defective. For todefect from him who is the Supreme Existence, to something of less reality, this is to begin to have an evil will. T o try to discover the causes of such defection-deficient, not efficient causes-is like trying to see darkness or tohear silence.’l3

Introduction 185

Evil isa betrayal or deviation of the human soul and human purpose. The more obvious the deficiency, the greater the evil. The lowest depth to which humanity can fall is that of total absorption in evil: the failure to recognise our ability to ascend from the depths to the heights, from darkness to light, from ignorance to knowledge. In the darkness of this state, humanity acts to destroy order and reason, to kill the self and to kill others. Evil is in the individual. However, just as each individual is related to a family, tribe and nation, the state of evil is related to other, similar states. The depths to which the individual has sunk exert a form of gravitational influence on others in the environment, drawing them down into inertia and drowsiness, while an individual who has reached a high level stirs and attracts others to rise to this level. The state of each community as a whole therefore reflects and is reflected in the nature of its leadership-spiritual and temporal. Every individual is always in a permanent state of transition, between the lowest possible evil and the greatest possible human perfection. The extent of the distance from the founding principles, or the transcendental source, is reflected by the measure of evil in the self. Alienation from principle is now frequently called ‘freedom’; while knowledge of, and submission to, principle are lost. The human will weakens, for the tension between ‘to do’ and ‘not to do’, that is, between the ‘permitted’ and the ‘forbidden’, vanishes. The essence of Love is lost: the feeling of sublime, all-encompassing peace, the blazing energy that ‘melts’ the inner being. Knowledge remains in the field of objective reason, while the unification of the subject and the object into One vanishes from humanity’s scope-together with all awareness of a transcendental source and purpose. ‘Man as such has become to all intents and purposes good, and the earthtoo has become good and looks immensely rich and unexplored; instead of living only “by halves” one could a t least live fully, be fully man and fully on earth; one was no longer a kind of half-angel,fallenandexiled; one hadbecome a whole being-butby a downward path.’14 The rule of principle, or the rule of quality, vanishes, and the rule of the Selfand quantity rises. Since human goodness is conditioned in this manner, individual and collective systems of value are created as substitutes for absolute principles. These defective systemsof value hold that everything which is not immediately accessible to the collective understanding is meaningless. The ‘principles’of groups and countries are created: the Absolute Good dissolves into popular notions of ‘individual good’ and ‘the collective good’. Being what they are-conditional-and lacking any transcendent source, the indi-

186 GENOCIDE

vidual is eternally opposed to, and excludes, the collective, and the collective good of one group wars with that of another group. ‘Fulfilment’ is achieved by preventing or denying the fulfilment of others: only then does the self lose its conditionality and accomplish fulfilment in a complete self: The urge to achieve this imaginary completeness of the self creates the necessity of acting violently against any ‘other’ self. These profane teachings usually try to prove themselves valid by stressing their feeble links with Tradition. They pretend to acknowledge the ‘rightto different laws and ways’-as long as these are exercised in other territories. Everything other which survives within the group territory is denied and destroyed-if it lacks the power to resist. On the level of the collective, this degeneration is expressed as a state of democracy, which ison a higher level than dictatorship, but, like dictatorship, incorporates a descent from principle by being itself a collective ideology. In justifymg its tenets of freedom, betterment and development, democracy as a form of rule promotes the full right of choice regarding both good and evil. Dictatorship, in general, imposes evil. Since the effectiveness of such imposition is the measure of the dictator’s power, aggressive rule is justified by total destruction of the other. By promoting the rule of quantity, in the outward form of democracy and its further degeneration into tyranny, over time, evil becomes systemic.The will of the majority becomes a mere reflection of the will of the dictator, and the consequences are manifest in campaigns aimed a t destroying the other. The potential for such campaigns is present wherever a system is established in the absence of principle. The genocide in Bosnia resulted from the fulfilment of four preconditions. First, the Serbian leadership decided to destroy Bosnia’s Muslims, either partially or fully, in order to homogenise Serbian ethno-political identity on the territory gained, which would henceforward be exclusively Serb. Second, they determined on the removal of all other obstacles to the establishment of Greater Serbia. Third, they organised the campaignof destruction and provided the necessary resources and energy; fourth, they inspired andled countless individuals to commit the actualkillings. The campaign was systematically prepared, in full awareness of the fact that its probable consequence would be genocide in Bosnia. It was assumed that, given their ready signature of the Karadjordjevo agreement, theCroats would be willing participants in the destruction of Bosnia; and it was also assumed-correctly-that the world would be indecisive when faced with the need to defend Bosnia’s Muslims. Due to the West’s known distaste for the religion of Islam, and for Muslims generally, it seemed probable that

‘TheEnd of History’ 187

there would be no serious objections to the slaughter. The fact of the Bosniac nation’s religion was used to explain the campaign for permanent division of the component groups comprising Bosnia’s unity of diversity. Central to the campaign was the invention of, and-once the process of radicalisation began-the encouragement of, an ‘Islamic peril’in Bosnia. No genuinely scientific analysis hasbeen offered-in fact, no appropriate name has yet been found-for this episode of genocide.I5 Genocide was a means to an end-the end being Greater Serbia. The campaign aimed a t the removal of Muslims, together with Croats, from the parts of Bosnia that were destined to become a part of Greater Serbia. This process of elimination required that all links holding Bosnia together should be previously weakened or severed, and that Croatia should be attracted to the feast by the lure of Greater Croatia. The offer of a ‘Muslim mini-state’, butchered from the dismembered carcass of Bosnia, wasto serve the same purpose.This genocide may be termed anti-Muslim, or anti-Bosniac, or anti-Bosnian, or all three: there is no single term that could fully cover this phenomenon or meet the needs of scientific analysis. The relations linking Muslim, Bosniac and Bosnian are intricately interwovenandinseparablefrom the other strands composing Bosnian unity. Given the impact of its social manifestations we should persist infinding and developing powerfulways to describe and examine this phenomenon. We are obliged to admit what has been mainly denied or ignored by the scientists and the general public: that open or tacit European support forSerbia’s anti-Muslim policy was perhaps the greatest causal source of the genocide of Bosnia’s Muslims. This is precisely what needs to be researched: to help determine the links between this outbreak of genocide against Muslims and the implications for the world at large.

‘The End of History’ The dissolution of the Communist empire and the collapse of the Berlin Wall were celebrated as the victory of Western liberalism and a new world era. Francis Fukuyama convincingly represents these episodes as symptoms of ‘the end of history’,16 and US president George Bush announced the coming of ‘a new world order’. However, right a t the start of this ‘posthistorical’ era, the slaughter of Bosnia’s Muslims took place. The unity of Bosnia was carved into three military and political entities, in each of which freedom of movement, the return of refugees, economic, cultural and political activities, were denied or permitted on the basis of an ideology-based

188 GENOCIDE

ethnic principle. The killings only stopped after the main objectives of the creators of the anti-Bosnian ideology had been achieved. The Westgave the perpetrators the time they needed, while, with the imposition of a universal arms embargo, they denied the victim the right to self-defence. Only after Bosnian unity had been thoroughly destroyed did Western military forces arrive to separate ‘the warring parties’. Their belated arrival left an open question: Was thewar in Bosnia a skilfully instigated and carefully managed effort to create a frontier dividing the Westerncivilisation of liberal democracy and free-market economics, andthe Slav Orthodox world? Or does ‘the end of history’ simply mean the same as ‘theend of Bosnia’? Was the genocide in Bosnia just a final spasm of the ‘pre-post-historical era’ or does it refute the notion of the final triumph of Western-style enlightenment andliberalism?Fukuyama’s theory of ‘the end of history*, founded on Hegel’sdialecticof ‘the struggle for recognition’, contrasts absurdlywith the genocidal slaughter ofBosnia’sMuslims.Fukuyama’s interpretation is based on an ideological reading of Hegel, and its genealogy can be traced, via contemporary ‘new conservative’ philosophers, back to Alexander Koj6ve“and to active factors of American policy. Conservative interpreters welcomed The End of Hirtory? as intellectual proof of the inevitable victory of the ‘sacred’ principles of market capitalism and Western liberal democracy, over opposed political ideologies. However, there is a different and more compelling reading ofHegel’s The Phenomenology of Mind, which suggests a background to the revival of the ultranationalism and genocide in Europe, and the general feelings of insecurity off which these fed,in much of the post-Cold War world. Hegel’s dialectic of the struggle for recognition, the ongoing debate of ‘master and slave’, is engrained deep in Marxist understanding of the liberating role of the working class. But the Hegelian model, present in most modern philosophy, can also serve to interpret the genocide in Bosnia. According to Hegel, humanity’s awareness ofthe self, and its separate, individual nature, begins when the first self becomes conscious of a second or ‘other’ self, which is demanding recognition. ‘Otherness’ is essential to the consciousness of ‘self. ‘Otherness’ must be subjugated or destroyed in the confrontation with the se% the self finds fulfilment in the extermination of the other, or through absorption of the other in the self: ‘Self-consciousness has to abolish its otherness; that is the abolition of the first ambiguity and that is why it is only another ambiguity; first, it has to strive to abolish another independent being in order to become self-confident.’l7 This is the basis for the struggle of the individual to extort recognition from the other

‘The End of Hhtory’ 189

the battle is never-ending, since every single indication of the existence of the other impliesincompletenessof the initial self. The contemporary world of liberal democracy and the free-market economy, an enormous and almost omnipresent organisation, with a firm grip on much of human existence, is historically anomalous. It gives no clear answers to the question of whether we have reached the end of history. According to Fukuyama, Marx’s understanding of the causal matrix of the modem world cannot provide the necessary answer: it must be sought in Hegel’s much deeper comprehension of history.I* According to Hegel, the main driving force of history is neither modern natural science nor the constant expansion of demand, but something which is, in principle, entirely non-economic-the struggle for recognition.19 Summarising Hegel, A. Kojeve says: ‘Everyhuman, anthropogenetic craving, which isthe mother of self-consciousness, of human reality, is, in the end, the role of craving for “recognition”. And the peril of life, which “realises” human reality, is the peril in the role of such craving. T o speak about the origins ofselfconsciousness means, necessarily,to speak about the fight to thedeath, with the intention to achieve “rec~gnition”.’~~ At the heartof the Serbian struggle for recognition lies the image oftheir civilisation’sapocalypticdefeatby Turkish forces onthe battlefieldof Kosovo: we, the good side, the self; and they, the evil, the other. Everything which is even remotely reminiscent of the others must be totally erased. Otherwise, ‘they’ retain the potential to encroach on ‘us’. The Serb identity is therefore determined by denial of the others-and the most prominent others, where the Serb self is concerned, are Muslims and Islam. This dialectic of the Serb smggle for identity is far from alien to Europe. As Henri Pirenne points out, the West arose from the ruins of the classical civilisations, thanks to the crusades of Charlemagne against pagans in the North and Muslimsin the South.2’ Central to the European struggle for recognition is the destruction of the Muslim bogey, whose manifestations range from Saracen to Turk, the quintessential others. Paradoxically, however, the more closely ‘they’ resemble the self, the geater the threat they represent to the self: the fact that the Muslims of Sicily, Spain andthe Balkans were, through language, culture and genealogy, fullyintegrated, has always been considered somewhat disturbing and non-European.All phenomena occurring in Islamic communities, whichare contrary to the standards of Western civilisation, have always been classified as the products of Islam: however, when the same phenomena appear in ourown communities,we neverthink of blaming Christianity, or any other essential component of Western culture.

190 GENOCIDE

The concept that individualities resolve their positions within the world by building nation states has historically produced violent conflict between the national self and the other or others. Anti-Semitism and anti-Islamicism have appeared in European history as identical aspects of the struggle for recognition or ‘completion’ of the self. That opposition has not vanished with the defeat of Nazism and Communism: the view that ‘the end of history’ has been reached with the defeat of Communism is highly questionable in the light of the Bosnian genocide. Predictions of forthcoming world harmony are morethan non-responsive to the reality of suffering. The West’s silence on the genocidal killings of Muslims in Bosnia implied, given the West’s known anti-Islamicism, tacit support for, or indifference to, the ideologies, leaders, systems and perpetrators which made that genocide possible. But there was more than silence. Plenty of public statements by influential thinkers could be taken as open arguments in favour of killing Muslims. William Claes, for example, argued that ‘Islamic fundamentalism is a t least as dangerous as was Communism’.22 Current predictions of the future increasingly include the revival of the West’s long tradition of anti-Islamicism. Western thinking is steadily pursuing a course towards defining Islam as the essential other. This is becoming a fundamental issue for the future, which must also impact on theses dealing with ‘the end of history’ and ‘the clash of civilisations’, the frame in which the genocide of Bosnia’s Muslims was planned and executed.

‘The Clash of Civilisations’ The dissolution of the ideological barrier between the Communist bloc and the ‘free world’ marks an important change of direction in the course of history. Most of the states ideologically based on Marxist theory, and on views of state and nation derived from that theory, disappeared along with the vanished barrier. According to Fukuyama, consensus on liberal democracy’s legitimacy, as a system of government, has spread all over the world in recent years, following the defeat of rival ideologies such as monarchism, Fascism, and, finally, Communism. The same author points out that liberal democracy could represent ‘an ultimate achievement of human ideological development’ and ‘a final form of human government’, and as such could bring about ‘the end of history’.*3 However, this course has been paralleled by the emergence of civilisations whoseleading characteristics serve only to stress the opposition of religions, cultures, policies and economies within

‘The Clash of Civilisations’ 191

the world community. The fact that more and more individual entities are being recognised as such across the globe gives priority to the question of how to harmonise relations between them, and of the scale of the possible confrontation between them. There are two leading theses: the first suggests that, with the resolution of the dualist opposition of the two leading ideologies, humankind has entered a period in which the values of Western liberal democracy and freemarket economy are victorious. There are no major obstacles to these values, which willtherefore overwhelm the current frontiers of Western civilisation, converting the entities they subjugate into enthusiastic participants in the regime of liberal democracy. The second thesis can be seen as the antithesis of the first: it has been summarised by Samuel P. Huntington in his essay ‘The Clash of Civilizat i o n ~ ’ . ~ ~ believes He that cultural differences will be the most important cause of future conflicts in the world. The disappearance of the principal ideological division, with the new potential it created for people to choose and change ideological sides, means that cultural background will become an infinitely more important source for determining the inclinations of an individual or a group. These inclinations are sharpened by the very factors that could be expected to reduce cultural differences-the increasing integration and mobility of peoples and goods. Citizenship of a state does not suffice for the definition of self, so individuals and groups are compelled to turn to those features which they regard as characteristic of themselves-to religion and religious heritage, history and culture, language and ancestry. This accordingly promotes civilisational entities which base themselves on the cultural distinctions ofvillage, region, ethnic group, nationality and religious community. The civilisational entities of the future will represent the highest level of concentration of an individualculture, and be formed by common objective determinants such as religion, customs, language and institutions, and subjective emotions such as the sensation of belonging. Huntington suggests that the future of the world will be essentially determined by the relations between sevenor eight big civilisations-Western, Confucian, Japanese, Islamic, Hindu, Slav-Orthodox, Latin American, and perhaps Afri~an.~s Accordingly, the most importantfuture conflicts will emerge along the fault-lines between these civilisations. Differences between civilisationsare considerably more fundamental than differences betweenpoliticalideologiesandpolitical .systems. Since faith penetrates human beings most profoundly, differences based on religion have enabled the foundation and development of many, if not most, civilisa-

192 GENOCIDE

tional entities. However, different civilisations see the relationship between individual and group, citizen and state, parents and children, husband and wife, rights and responsibility, freedom and dependence, equality and obedience, differently-often to such an extent that values of one civilisation are antagonistic to those of another, or others. These differences are the product of centuries of development.We should makea distinction between heritage and tradition, in the sense we have applied to the latter: heritage covers everything transmitted from the past to the living generations, which does not include tradition: the latter is fundamentally linkedto transcendent sources: revelations and prophets. Their values surpass the life of political ideologies and systems.The modern development of the world isdestroying many superficial relationshipswithin heritage and tradition, but at the same time intensifying the struggle for recognition on the basis of the particular ‘fundamentalvaluesofcivilisation’ characteristic ofeachof these major civilisations. Thus we urgently need to provide an alternative to national states as the source of identity and membership. It can he claimed that religion is increasinglybecoming the foundation of modem identity, and ‘desecularisation’the most important feature of social life in the present day. Since the Western concept of liberal democracy, founded on religion and culture common to the West, contains the implication that this will one day be the ruling global ideology, any opposition can be seen as incorporating opposition between the Christian West and other civilisational entities. Accordingly, the Westand Islam are deadlocked in a mutual confrontation, and this link can produce either fruitful reciprocity or continuous struggle until the othw is destroyed. Seen from the West’s point of view, the others are, first and foremost, Muslims, since the ‘Jewish question’ has been resolved bythe establishment of a distinct JudeoChristian civilisational entity. Meanwhile, from the Muslim point of view, the others are, above all, Jews and Christians. According to Huntington, the ‘clash of civilisations’ takes place on two levels: the micro and macro. On the micro-level, it occurs when neighbouring civilisations come into conflict over borders, the aim being to assume control of the others, or to eliminate them. On the macro-level, it occurs when states or groups of states come into conflict while competing for political or economic control, in order to promote their respective goals and civilisational values.The disappearance of the global ideological division has actually helped strengthen the ancient antagonism of Western Europe towards Orthodox Christianity-butstill more towardsIslam. Increasing numbers of Muslim immigrants in European countries, and the present-day

Elites 193

aspirations of the Muslim countries to gain independence in the world’s markets, help exacerbate this antagonism-the revival of the old repulsion and hostility towards Islam. The increasingly present danger of a conflict between the Christian West and Islamic East has become the focus of intense observation. As Bernard Lewis points out: ‘It should now be clear that we are facing a mood and a movement far transcending the level of issues and the governments that pursue them. This is no less than a clash of civilizations-that perhaps irrational but surely historic reaction of an ancient rival against our Judeo-Christian heritage, our secular present, and the worldwide expansionof both.’26 It is a paradox that the collapse of the ideological framework that supported the integrity of Yugoslavia, although it was directly contrary to the fundamentals of the different participants in the multiple state, should have had the worst consequences for Bosnia. Bosnia’s historical and traditional unity of diversity embraced Catholicism, Judaism, Islam and the Orthodox Church. Our common desire for perfection is reflected in the diversity of ways and laws, but also in the conviction that human holiness is one and the same. The urge felt by two of the component groups of Bosnia’s pluriformity, to regain their individuality, brought them into confrontation with what they could perceive andportray as an ‘Islamic threat’. This ‘threat’ relates to a wider context: to universal perceptions of the present and future of our world. Thus, Bosnia confronts old sentiments, beliefs and prejudices,teamed with the latter-day concept of the clash of civilisations. This context is essential for understanding the causes and consequences of antagonism towards Bosnia, but also their far-reaching consequences for everything that lies ahead ofhumankind.

Elites The phenomenon of Bosnia’s genocide is impossible to interpret without identifying the distinct natures and ambitions of the various national leaderships. The Serb leadership inherited a detailed plan for Greater Serbia, as the ultimate goal of all Serbs-a plan with the appeal, easily popularisedin a post-Communist environment, of nationalism, militarism and religion. This plan required that the territory on which the Serbian state should be built and defended should cover all regions of the Balkans where Serbs live or have lived-regardless of the presence of members of other ethnicand relig-

194 GENOCIDE

ious communities27-and also areas which the authors of the plan considered to be of strategic importance for the visionary state. By promoting the issue of Serb identity to the centre-point of their strategy, they established andpopularised the all-too-acceptablepolarisation of ‘we’ and‘they’, ‘master’ and ‘slave’, ‘judge’ and ‘accused’. The whole of history has undergone-and is still undergoing-revision and metamorphosis according to the ambitions and values ofSerb national policy. The confirmation of Serb individuality requires,according to the Greater Serbia plan, denial and subjugation of all other participants, past and present, in the designated area. The will and the rights of the Serb nation must be backed by its religion, culture and politics: all three are therefore compelled to adopt a debased system of values. The ‘Serb truth’, ‘Serb good’ and ‘Serb God’ are not the same as the truth, good and God of others. The autocephalous church of Orthodox Serb Christianity is a false prophet on the road which leads to and from the transcendent source of principle, a prophet who will forever justify the national obsession with an individualised set of religious, cultural and political values,to the exclusion of all others. Within this exclusivesystem,politicalandreligiousleadersestablish themselves through the sole criterion of devotion to the system. Their success does not depend on wisdom-understood as knowledge of goodness coupled with effective action on its behalf-but on cunning-thatis, an aptitude for using all possible means, however evil,in order to achieve their own and the system’s goals. Achieving the Greater Serbian State presupposes the foundation of the state nucleus, in which the system of government corresponds to the system of national values. The state perceives its existing borders as the arbitrary imposition of an unjust world. The ‘sacred task‘ of all components of that nucleusis to maintainits‘purity’, strengthen and organise its national members in the neighbouring countries, andsimultaneously attack and accuse the others, all in order to expand the state. Everything that hinders progress is eviland hostile, and everything that supports it is good. The establishment of this nucleus presupposed the destruction of all Muslim presence, not only as rival participants in the legal and state system, but also as the proponents of a religious tradition which ensures the right of individuals and communities to choose and follow their own path and law. Denial of Islam and hatred for Muslims became the most important driving force of the campaign for Greater Serbia. Islam and Muslims are blamed for all individual and collective difficulties inthe past and present. Antagonism to the doctrine of government based on principle, together with the pro-

Elites 195

nationalist tenets of modern civilisation, have been deployed in the campaign to help establish conviction that this attitude towards Islam and the Muslims is well founded. Additional reasons for encouraging and sustaining hatred are found in all contemporary misunderstandings between Muslims and other participants in the global unity of diversity. The ‘Jugo-Slav’ state of the ‘Southern Slavs’ has always, in certain quarters, been perceived as a means of achieving Greater Serbia. All others were expected to submit to the Serb will, thinly disguised; to accept the Serb system of values and to renounce everything not strictly in accordance with this will and these values. The presence of the others produced continuous tensions in the course of implementing the programme. The weaker parties to this state consequently sought solutions which would enable their separation from Serb rule, or obstruction of the Serb plan. Meanwhile, for those in favour of founding Greater Serbia, the solution lay in crushing all resistance to their will, with all means at hand. This provoked the Croats to persist in their long-standing intention to separate: Croat national policy was created mainly in response to the policy ofGreater Serbia. The political will, within Croat national policy, to co-operate with the Muslims, was a consequent by-product. The Yugoslav dictatorship established after World War 11 directly opposed any public activities on behalf of Greater Serbia and Greater Croatia. Consequently the collapse of the Communist system was seen as opening the route to implementation of these suppressed plans: primarily that of Greater Serbia, but also that of Greater Croatia. The fall of Yugoslavia was accompanied by the emergence of Slobodan MiloSeviCas the self-created has since used all the resources of the dissolving ‘leader of all Serbs’-he country to achieve the national goals which brought him to power. Diatribes against the historical actions, cultures and religions of others took the forefront of the political stage. The resources of the dissolving country were placed in the hands of leaders who inevitably, given their psycho-social origins and circumstances, initiated and conducted genocide against Yugoslavia’s Muslims-backed by Slobodan MiloSeviC himself.** The leadership consists of qualifiedparticipants inside the party and state communist administration who used the organisation and procedures of that administration to serve the ancient nationalist goals. Simultaneously they have sought and obtained support from church, nationalist and criminal organisations, the army, the secret police and the masters of the financial organisations. This leadership put forward a proposal for the final solution of the Serb-Croat question, and by so doing aroused the aspirations of the

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Croat nationalist leadership: to proclaim the will of Croats to establish an independent Croat state, able in its own turn to designate new borders. The Greater Serb leadership simultaneously tried to cajole the Muslims into acceptance of Yugoslaviawithout Croatia, and the Croatsto hostility against Bosnia, in case the Muslims should offer significant resistance to this plan. The essenceof the plan is to detach thethree principal component groups from the state integrity of Bosnia. The first to leave should be the Serbian entity, established and led byMiloSeviC’s regime, but claiming to represent the independent will of the Bosnian Serbs.Next, the Croat entity, similarly founded andmanaged by the regime of Franjo Tudman,but claiming to represent the independent will of the Bosnian Croats; and, finally, the Bosniac entity, its politics reduced from those of the Bosnian state to those of the Bosniac nation. The organisations and institutions of the Bosnian Serbs and Croats should serve to deny the existence of the Bosnian state and to apply steady pressure against the Bosniacs, whilst the ultimate political solution should depend on the willsof MiloSeviC and Tudman. This outcome wouldbe acceptable both to the Western powers and to Russia, since the entire Bosnian drama could bereduced to a single concern: ‘Is there an Islamic threat in Bosnia?’

Ideologies ‘When they act in groups, they (the executors of genocide) have a need for an ideology that would legalize their actions, for without an ideology they would see themselves and each other as they really are-villains and murd e r e r ~ . Enormous ’~~ emphasis was placed on history by the Serb national policy: to instigate the latest episode of genocide, it was necessary to wheel out and refurbish nineteenth-century attitudes and experiences. Dobrica CosiC has expressed the underlying emotion most comprehensively: ‘The idea of Yugoslavia failed, mainlya t the expense of the Serbs; we must return to the course of Kara~iorde.’~~ (Karadorde was the leader of the Serbian uprising at the beginning of the nineteenth century, against the Ottoman Turks and was celebrated as the efficient and reckless killer of Muslims throughout Serbia.) The notion of such a return is indirectly referred to by the Memorandrm: ‘Establishment of the full national and cultural integrity of the Serbian people, no matter in which of the republics and autonomous provinces they live, is its historical and democratic right.’3 These two statements are clear evidence of the ideological postulates in use,

*

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according to which the end justifies the means-the latter involving all methods for the destruction of cultural and historic individuality, including genocide. The Memorandum offers a goal to the Serb people, at the close of the twentieth century; Karadorde’s actions a t the beginning of the nineteenth century demonstrate how this aim is to be achieved. The direct consequence of these postulates is the view that Muslims, and Bosnia itself,represent the main obstacle to achieving that aim. In order to convince the Serb people of this, they must be ‘enlightened’ in every possible way regarding the past, present and future Islamic threat. It is possibleto trace the rise of anti-Muslim activity among Serbian intellectuals back to twenty years before the outbreak of war against Bosnia’s Muslims.32 Anti-Islamicismhas been promoted through skilful emphasis and interpretation of all offensiveand hostile accounts of Islam andMuslims within the Serb literary tradition: the epic poem Gorski Vvenac (A Mountain Wreath) by Bishop NjegoS; some of the works of Ivo AndriC (who was embraced by this tradition), and others. The Muslim community is, according to these accounts, a wretched and repulsive relic of the suffering and heroic Serbian past. Muslim Slavs are in every way opposite to Serbs: they are apostates and traitors; they are a non-historical people; they have no good human qualities. Muslims are treacherous, unreliable, incompetent and dangerous. The popularisation of these accounts proceeded rapidly, in particular among Serbian intellectuals connected with the highest circles of state and national policy. Ironically, this process was conducted in the region of the world where, just a few decades earlier, the persecution of the Jews as the primary European other evolved into systematic genocide. If these two phenomena are compared, their similarity of principle is proven: the structure, elite, ideology, organisers and perpetrators analysed following the holocaust against the Jews could be found operating, down to the smallest detail, in the destruction of Bosnia’s Muslims. The rehabilitation of a hostile view of Muslims and Islam, supported by common Western associations of Islam with terrorism, primitivism and corruption, made such statements by the intellectual community convincing in the eyes of the majority. The ready conclusion is that theBosnian Muslimsdo not belong to the European familyofpeoples.33 Moreover, they are all mentally retarded andsickly,as ‘scientific research’ clearly shows.Their sickliness is the result of their obsession with cleanliness, which is prescribed by their religion; in addition they are aggressive and greedy.34Islam, their religion, is fundamentally

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opposed to tolerance, dialogue and coexistence-as a leading Belgrade writer, who helped focus the instigation of hatred and hostility towards Bosnian Muslims, points out.35 It is therefore understandable that ‘many people in Serbia think of Islam as strange and h0stile’.3~Leaders of the Serbian Orthodox Church also joined in support of the attitudes towards Islam and Muslims promoted by the Serbian intelle~tuals.~7 Such were the circumstances in which the image of Muslims as subhuman, unhealthy and dangerous was systematically constructed. The image wasbackedbyauxilliaries: reminders of the hardships suffered by Serbs throughout history; stimulation of popular terror a t the spectre of Islam once again threatening the Serb nation. Thus, all conditions for ‘the justified killing of Muslims’ were secured: not only is this nation unhealthy, primitive and alien, it is also committed to the destruction of the Serb nation. The obvious solution is suggested by Stojan ProtiC, leader of the People’s Radical Party, speaking of the Serb forces’ entry into Bosnia at the end of the First World War. ‘When our army crosses the Drina, I will give the Turks (i.e. Bosnia’s Muslims) twenty-four hours, or at most forty-eight, to return to the religion of their ancestors. Those that refuse to do so should be cut down, as we usedto do in Serbia in earlier days.’jR This approach, incorporated into the state, the ideology of Greater Serbia and the church was promoted relentlessly in schools and in the army, becoming a deeply rooted, almost universal image. For Serbs, therefore, to observe the norms of human decency in their dealings with Muslims would be treachery. 39 Sadly, the group within the Serb nation who openly challenged this outlook was small and swiftly suppressed: as a result, the killers of Muslims live at peace among their fellow nationals, without fear of punishment or ostracisation. 40 Hostility to Muslims and Islam enabled the destruction of Bosnia asunity of diversity, under the cover-used by both Serb and Croat nationalists-of defending Europe and Christianity. Once the Muslims have been successfully denied and removed, Bosnia must disintegrate. The very opposition of Serbs and Croats to Islam makes i t a logical-if superficial-conclusion that it is impossible for Bosnia to exist as a state of three sovereign and equal nations. Islam and Muslims are unacceptable: ergo Bosnia is destined for division between Serbia and Croatia, thus neatly doing away with the problem. The formula produced on behalf of Greater Serbia was adopted by the Croat nationalist policy, with virtually identical anti-Muslim, anti-Bosniac and anti-Bosnian components. The historic agreement between MiloSeviC and Tudman on thedivision of Bosnia and military co-operation against the

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Muslims is clear evidence that these two plans are not only causally related, but also complement one another.41 The realisation of these goals differs only in practice and scope, not in principle. The number of towns where each succeeded in erasing all traces of Muslim presence differs, but there is no difference in quality between the destruction of FoEa and Stolac respectively. The Muslim reaction, as we have seen, was to vacillate between defending Bosnia as a state and fighting purely for their own survival. Since resistance to the immense forces directed against them was impossible in the short term, the Muslims of Bosnia were forced, in the face of genocide, to abandon the defence of state integrity and to retreat to their defacto national and religious ‘area’. This retreat was the primary objective of Bosnia’s destroyers.

Organisations Yugoslavia’s dissolution, initiated by deliberate policy on the part of the Serb leadership, should have ended in the creation of a unified Serb state, encompassing all territory where Serbs live or lived, regardless of the historical borders between the South Slavic states-and regardless of the presence of other peoples. The process of strengthening the organisation behind the Serb national plan, effected by placingmore and more Serbs in the institutions and organisations of the Yugoslav state, was part of the process of destroying Yugoslavia.Yugoslav authorities were thus ethnically and ideologically modified in all areas where the supporters of the Serb national plan had gained supremacy. While the western border, envisioned as passing through Croatia, was initially prioritised as a result of Croatia’s secession from Yugoslavia, the unresolved Muslim issue remained central. Attempts to win Muslims over to acceptance of Greater Serbia failed, and the logical consequence was to obtain agreement with Croatia over the division of Bosnia. The task of drawing the border that would split Bosnia in two could be accomplished only by destroying the veryessence ofBosnia’s identity, so that therevival of Bosnian state integrity could nevertake place. Numerous towns and villages where Muslims constituted the majority were situated on the Bosnian side of the river Drina, whilst Muslims and Croats were the majority on the Bosnian side of the river Sava. These communities represented the biggest obstacle to the creation of homogeneous territory and were therefore exposed to the worst of the genocide. ‘Serb

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rule’ was imposed in all towns and villages wherever possible: the others were exposed to pressures carefullydesigned to affirm that rule. Muslims and Croats were ordered to surrender any arms they had, and to sign affidavits stating their obedience to the Serb authorities and readiness to serve in the Serb army. Arrests of community leaders came next, followed by the burning and demolishing of mosques and Catholic churches. Finally, when the population was desperate, the prospect of ‘moving out’ began to open up, on condition that those who left first signed a statement affirming that their departure was voluntary and that they relinquished all their possessions to the Serb authorities. Although, in public, it was denied that this policy had any connection with the plan of Greater Serbia, it was the product of clear and deliberate co-ordination between the leadership, ideology, organisation and executors. Secret services, connected from the grass-roots to the topmost elite, represent the basics of the regime. Even though we can distinguish two sides to the external organisation-the military and the political-nothing the organisation contains and does is distinct from the system of rule based in Belgradeand headed byMiloSevik. Its foundation is the Yugoslav army whose strategically planned presence on all territories designated as crucial to ‘the integrity of the Serbian people regardless of the borders between republics’ was designed to cripple any states established after the dissolution of Yugoslavia. Most prominent were the armies of the nationalist political parties, whose autonomy was only apparent and which, in reality, yere conceived by, and governedfrom, the headquarters in Belgrade. In order to protect themselves, the people a t the top ensured that all the actions were managed and supervised bythe secret services, but executed by groups whose connection with the top was not immediately apparent. Every action of these groups that was not in line with the general plan was resolutely counteracted by the secret services, until the consensus arose that it was impossible to act out of line with government policy. The few individuals and groups which resisted the orders to commit crimes were powerless to bring about change; they were, instead, exposed to certain death. The seeming autonomy of the criminal groups was necessary for the purposes of their backers: once this was established, genocide could go ahead. The destruction of Bosnia’s Muslims took place in all areas seen as key to the establishment of homogeneous national territory, together with psychological and practical measures to prevent the restoration of Muslim communities in these areas and the reconstruction of the Bosnian state as a whole. It is now obvious that the designers of the plan to destroy Bosnia

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delegated a large number of people linked to military and police services, who were transformed intothe main organisation for the execution of genocide. These individuals andgroups were allotted the role of cajoling or forcing Bosnia’s Muslims to withdraw from the defence of the state to the defence of their own nation: from the domain of state policy to the domain of nationalism and religion. The perpetrators of genocide selected the most important areas of Muslim presence astargets and created a climate of terror, imposing intolerable military and political conditions. Most people became refugees, and those who stayed were exposed to constant pressure. Concentration camps, torture, mass rape and public executions were among the means used to drive the entire Muslim population from these selected territories. The terror permeated the entire area: the perpetrators did their utmost to create lasting mental and visual images that would forever prevent Muslims from returning. All the mosques in these areas were destroyed:to be precise, they were levelled, conveyingthe certainty that they would never berebuilt. What is hard, but necessary, to believe, is that practices designed to convey insurmountable terror, repulsion, humiliation and insult, practices designed to prevent any Muslim return to the places where these were experienced, were, from the point of view ofthe perpetrators of genocide, expressions of their patriotism. By burning and mining mosquesandhouses,by raping womenand young girls, and by staging public executions, the perpetrators of genocide created the impression they intended. Initially, only the most beautiful and ancient mosques, the most well-known families, were the targets. However, the wave of evil went on rising, ultimately to sweep away all traces of Muslims in those areas. Had they been driven out immediately, their return could have taken placeat a later stage, as was the case with populations displaced during the Second World War. Therefore, it was necessary to go further, to herd thousands into concentration camps where they were tortured and killed. In places where these goals were achieved and an ethnically ‘clean’ territory created, wiped free of all marks of Muslim presence, the authorities concealed most of the visible signs of organised violence, disguising them with the makeshift appearance of the rule oflaw. The appearance of an overt military campaign was removed and the illusion that the entire enterprise was independent of the leadership in Serbia could be established. Nevertheless, from the beginning it was impossible to disguise the direct link between events in Bosnia and the Belgrade headquarters. The organisation

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was so comprehensive that it was obvious that the chain of command extended down from MiloSeviC to the lowest criminal. However, there was little possibility that anything might move up or outside the chain of command: he was well protected from any efforts by certain centres of power in the world to point to the direct link betweenthe crimes and his elite. International recognition of Bosnia as a sovereign and politically independent state reduced Yugoslavia to Serbia and Montenegro-which was then little more than a puppet of Serbia. The Serbian leadership, headed by MiloSeviC, had a powerful organisation andplenty of instruments of coercion in their hands, which they could usein Bosnia without restriction. However, in order to protect Serbia they ‘screened’ their direct involvement behind the totally dependent military and politicalleadership of BosnianSerbs. The international community was expected to delay its reaction indefinitely and to do little or nothing to prevent the execution of the plan for the destruction of Bosnia’s Muslims. The resistance whichthe perpetrators encountered, however, forced theminto an unexpectedly long war and compelledthe international community to search forappropriate responses to the embarrassingly large scale of the crimes. The enterprise was not stopped by the intervention of the international community, but by the resolute and unexpected defence put up by those who had been condemnedto obliteration. Almost identical was the approach taken by the Croat forces under their leader Franjo Tubman. All areas where Croats were in the majority, or had sufficient power, were designated components of the general organisation of the state of Croatia. Any loyalty expressed towards the state of Bosnia was largely feigned, and often concealed efforts to dilute its powers and establish Croat rule in the presumed ethnic areas. The same measureswere employed in the areas in which Muslims were numerically, and in every other way, superior, as in the areas that were presumed to be ‘Serbian’. Killings and expulsions, internment and torture in concentration camps, and the destruction of monuments of religious and cultural heritage were carried out with the backing of the Croatian state leadershipalso using methods which ensured this chain of command would be hard to prove.

Perpetrators ‘No reason exists to believe that modem, Western, even Christian man is incapable of holding notions which devalue human life, which call for its extinction, notions similar to those held by peoples of many religious, CUI-

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tural, and political dispensations throughout history, including the crusaders and the inquisitors, to name but two relevant examples from twentiethcentury Christian Europe’s forebear^.'^^ The genocide against Bosnia’s Muslims, like the genocide against the Jews, once again confirms the evil potential of contemporary man. Having ensured the creation of emotions and perceptions hostile to the Muslims as others and as the obstacle to ‘rounding off the ethnic territory’, and given the quantity of means and organisations a t their disposal, the Serbian leadership could readily arouse the number of individuals required to execute genocidal killings. There are sevealexamples that bear witness to the foundations of the ideology of genocide. The Imam of Bratunac was tortured in front of a number of prisoners from that town and its neighbourhood. He was forced to cross himself before being executed (1992). Paramilitaries from the town of Buna, near Mostar, forced the local Imam to perform his prayer and then executed him (1993). Possessed by the conviction that they were working for a just cause, secure in the knowledge that the state ideological system stood behind them, the perpetrators of such crimes had neither consideration nor mercy for men, women, children or the elderly. Muslims, and their presence on territories where Serbs lived, were simply an obstacle to achieving a goal justified by Serbian superiority and chivalry, history and religion. The emotions and perceptions of the perpetrators were permeated by convictions of Muslim guilt, the Muslim danger, and of the necessity for a homogeneous Serbian state to protect thejeopardised Serb people. The sufferings of the Serbian people have been raised to the level of an ecstatic form of martyrdom. In this vision, the world is against the Serbs, who nevertheless persevere bravelyin the defence of everything that is honourable and sacred. Ironically, they compare their situation to the tribulations of the Jews, while viewing the ongoing destruction of Muslims and their culture in Serbia and Bosnia as the justified product of the inevitable relationship between ‘us’ and ‘them’. The acts of killing, torturing and destroying are seen as sacredpledges, bound to encourage and strengthen future generations. The presence of Muslims in Bosnia is merely seen as confirmation that the country, according to the majority of Serbian historians,‘has always been Serbian and Orthodox, and that Muslims are converted Serbs’.43 Bosnia’s unique pluriform identity represents a threat to the entire Serbian concept of history, in which Serbs represent a complete self, while all others in their history and on their territory represent a guilty, defective,

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alien self: All expressions ofthe latter self are anti-Serb.The sense of a fundamental threat to the existence of the group is the flip side to the sense of superiority: culture focused on the completeness of the self generates the group necessity to protect the psychological self, sinceit is essentially irreconcilable with the other. An inseparable part of this concept is the conviction that the right to rule over the others is the consequence of that superiority, hence the right toselfprotection, which helps prepare the nation for violence. The need for constant reassurance of this superiority requires constant emphasis on the sufferings and mbulations undergone by the group, and on the conspiracies threatening its existence, thus stressing the need to defend this admirable and endangered self. The joint action of feelings of superiority, combined with this carefully nurtured sense of insecurity, help prepare the group to commit genocide. The perceived guilt of the Muslims is manifold. Primarily guilty of having caused the decay of the mediaeval Serb kingdom, their resistance to the latest plan to reward the superiority and insecurity of the Serbs is a disease demanding radical surgery. Hence the conclusion that the coexistence of Muslims and Serbs is impossible: where Muslims are present, no Serb can live, and vice versa, say the voices of anti-Muslim, anti-Bosniac and antiBosnian ideology. Unanimity regarding the choice which Muslims must face-between execution, conversion to Christianity, or expu1sion”can be traced all the way back from KaradiiCto Karadorbe. In the middleof the fieldKara (George) drew his sword and cut away the heads of the oppressors. When he had cut the Turks into pieces, when he had cut theTurks, the oppressors, then George wentin and entered the cities: he cut whatever Turk was for cutting, what was for handing overhe gave out, what wasfor christening,he christened it.*

In the content and framework of Serb culture and policy, the perpetrators of genocidal killings have acted, whenconditions were right, with the support of their authorities or without it, and with crime or without it. We can distinguish four types of activity. First, the activities of the executors of genocide are carried out in response to a general decree from the authorities, but without additional crimes. Secondly, there are activities in which

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the executors’ crimes are committed according to direct instructions from their superiors. Crimes organised within an institution are more effective than those that arenowand then committed by individualsandsmall groups. Third, there are crimes that require impetus and decisiveness beyond what is demanded by the superiors. Last, there are crimes that the perpetrators commit on the basis of their own spontaneous decision. The standard classification of the conditions in which the perpetrators of crimes of genocide act excludes or underestimates the role of the will and the convictions ofthe actual perpetrators themselves, that is, their conscious involvement in crime. The state of consciousness of the individuals who participate in genocide enables the genocidal organisation to operate. The action of shooting a gun, butchering with a knife, braining with an iron bar, exposing men and women, children and the elderly to starvation, does not take placewithout conscious participationon the part of the perpetrator and some form of conviction that this activity is justified.We should always bear in mind that the perpetrators of genocide kill the defenceless; people who are exhausted and weak; people who are obviously suffering fromgreat bodily and mental pain; people who plead for their own lives, or the lives of those they love. Serb history is full of examples of the comprehensive slaughter of Muslims. In general, these killings didnot take place as a result of war between the parties: instead, asthe useful by-product ofother conflicts, the presence of Muslims was removedthrough slaughter. For the perpetrators to confirm their status in the polarised structure of ‘we’ and ‘they’-‘we’ representing ‘perfect goodness’ and ‘they’standing for ‘absolute evil’-they had to demonstrate their readiness to kill Muslims and to destroy all signs oftheir historical presence. The crueller the killings, the more convincing the demonstration. The most popular methods of killing werebutchering with knife or axe, delivering blows to the head with specially constructed bars, and throwing into rivers or pits after wounding.More technically advancedmethods were used for the destruction of cities: their awareness that city-dwellers were exposed, undefended,to shells raining down from all sides, strengthened the perpetrators’ conviction of their own superiority. The greater the suffering of the victim, the more complete this superiority. Merely taking lives isnot enough for the perpetrators to prove their dedication to the battle for recognition of the ‘Serb self: a multitude of tortures must precede the killings. The usual method of psychological torture is to take whatever is perceived as being sacredto the others, to their culture and tradition, to humiliate it to

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the utmost degree, and finally destroy it. The rape of women and young girls, the desecration anddestruction of mosques and graveyards,the butchering of bound prisoners,are the most frequent manifestations ofthis dedication: the will not merely to destroy, but to humiliate andtorture. It is impossible to claim that the perpetrator lacks the knowledge of the world around him: the perpetrator is seldom or never a mere unthinking instrument in the hands of the criminal organisation of the government. The issue of the perpetrator’s criminal activitiesis that of the culture which producedhim: an examinationof the social,politicaland institutional framework which providedthe context for the perpetrator and his activities is therefore essential. The genocide committed against Europe’s Jews and Muslims cannot be addressed without considering certain significant characteristics and expressions of Christianity as an essentialdeterminant of European culture.

Toxic Reaction The initial postulates of the plan to destroy Bosnia-according to which Bosnia cannot exist as an independent state since the Muslims are bound to use their majority to impose their rule on others-have been answered by the manoeuvres of various Bosniac politicians.By emphasizing their will to act for the Muslim nation in particular-motivated, of course, by the hope of a solid voting base-the principal forces within the Bosniac community haveembraced the politicalplanof the nation’sexecutioners, rendering themselves liableto being charged withthe same goals. Bosnia, both as a policy and as a tradition, is caught between two principally equivalent nation-state programmes, that of a Greater Serbia for all Serbs, and a Greater Croatia for all Croats. The expected response is, of is the grey area course, a ‘Lesser Bosnia’ for Muslims only, in whatcurrently of the contested ethnic ~pace.4~ The policy of ethnic engineering envisaged conflict between Serbs,Croats and Bosniacs, in all areas where twoor more of these peoples lived together. Although the main sweep of the Bosnian campaign was primarily Serb, and primarily against Muslims, not only didit also sweep away all Croats who were outside the regions designed for Serbia: the chain reaction it set off created Catholic enclaves in Bosniac territory, andviceversa.Meanwhile,Serbslivingintheseregionsbecame themselves the targets of both. The matrix of relationships is only stable when its three strands unite: as soon as one is set against another or others,

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the entire model disintegrates into conflict. New alliances were formed, engendered by violence: two sides agreed on the destruction of a third, most obviously in the Serbia-Croatia relationship, and the dealings of MiloSeviC with Tudman. Their consensus on policy, successfully implemented, was merely the continuation of a plan conceived long ago by both parties, both well aware that the only obstacle would be that presented by Bosnia’s delicate balance of religious and ethnic harmony. The campaign commenced at the end of the last century, with the ideological conversion ofBosnian Catholics into Croats, and Bosnian Serbs into Orthodox, with loyalties respectively rooted in Zagreb and Belgrade: the next step was to complete the division of each from the other religious and ethnic communities of Bosnia. In this new, carefully designed matrix, the Bosnian Muslims inevitably themselves soon came to realise that the greatest profit could be found in joining the destruction. The formation of Bosniac national ideologies, to which the presence of Serbs and Croats in Bosniacareaswouldbe as anomalous as that ofBosniacs in theterritory of either, was urged by Bosniacpoliticalforces, inspired by Serb and Croat counterparts. The transition of policy was accomplished throughthe terminology of ‘our homeland’: this ‘homeland’could cover allof Bosnia, or, more realistically, a portion-all that mattered was that this position should be adopted. Once accepted, all peoples of Bosnia wouldbe principally allied against the state, and the poison, once running freely through the blood of all peoples, would have no antidote. Thus, the mafiosos and criminals of the Bosniac nation, who found themselves able to win cheap favour and status by murdering other nationals, were closer to the Bosniac political elite than were those people, of all nations, who tried to defend Bosnia asa state of all its peoples. The poison spread throughout Bosnia, until the country’s vitalsigns indicated the approach of death. Centuries of religious experience, testifymg to the transcendent unity and esoteric meaning of pluralism and polyphony, were lost in crude ideological radicalisation: allreligions and their organisations became the cannon-fodder of the ethno-national oligarchies. The ultimate brutalisation of Bosnia’s people, the mutual killing, hounding and looting, was the final purpose of this debasement of religion. This toxic reaction, disguised as a just battle against the ‘aggressors’, spelled the final defeat of the Bosnian Muslims.The poison eroded the foundations essential to their survival and did the work of their enemies more neatly than these enemies could have achieved it themselves through their original measures of ‘cleansing’ and slaughtering. The guilt of the Bosniac nation is twofold: the crimes they committed served a second purpose, that of those who

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originated the crimes. Bosnia’s Muslims took their place in the matrix of destruction, themselves factorsin the assault on unity in diversity.

Crime and the Future The genocidal killing of Bosnia’s Muslims was witnessed, with varying degrees of concern and indifference,by most of the contemporary world. The range of guilt, therefore, extends from the inaction of the witnesses, to those directly involved in the execution of genocide. The condition of the individuals, societies and institutions that were thus associated in this genocide offers a crucial indication for the future of mankind. The development of the world, the frequent announcements of a better future, carries with it ideologies, systems, institutions and condiiions of individuals, societies and policies, which hide the germ of genocidal killing. Nothing as yet exists to prevent the forces whichare at the disposal of modern civilisation, which is in turn composed of such ideologies, systems, instruments, individuals, societies and policies, from global deployment in the service of evil. T h e lack of dedication to principle prevents us from even understanding, let alone counteracting, this situation. The slaughter of the Bosnian Muslims demonstrated anew the ease with which people can be motivated to implement crimes and convincedof the moral grounds for all they are ordered to do. It has also demonstrated, once again, the world’s ability to accept that an entire nation is in some way deserving of persecution purely because its religion and tradition differ from the implied foundations of ‘one civilisationfor all people’, inherited from the aspiration to establish ‘one church for all people’. However, if the profoundest regions of humanity cannot guarantee the integrity and acceptanceof different ways and laws and their equal potential to lead humanity from the lowest to the highest, from darkness to light, then there is only darkness ahead. The potential global onslaught of killing and destruction has its seed in the denial of this integrity at the level of the smallest village, and its final flowering in full-scale wars between the most powerful members of the world community. The Bosnian model for pluriformity incorporates the possibility of an alternative: communities that are characterised by mz$ids, synagogues and churches should gather like the petals of a rose around a single cemtre: First and Last, Outer and Inner. The many paths to the centre offer humanity a way out of the condition of evil, which manifests itself as an attachment to the non-real and transitory.

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Human salvation lies in differentiating between the non-real and the real, and the choice of, and adherence to, the Real: the paths differ, but the end is the same. The desertion or denial of any one way is a denial of the end: it is a denial to humanity of the possibility of salvation. Bosnia’s Muslims bear their own share of guilt because they failed to notice or understand the process underlying the cyclic construction and preparation of ideologies, systems,mechanisms and perpetrators-the process which produces wave after wave of genocidal slaughter. Awareness of this process would offer the possibility of predicting its effects and working to control or prevent the latter. The last two centuries have shown a recurrent pattern of Muslim-killing, and its latest episodes were a predictable continuation. Killings and persecutions have repeated themselves for centuries, as has the construction of Serb ‘superiority’ over ‘subhuman’Muslims. Since the ideologists of Greater Serbia are attacking the validity of ‘different ways and laws’ for the purpose of generating hostility, this generates retaliatory activity-which is similarly opposed to the true nature of its own cause and tradition. Thus, as is often the case, the victim accepts a way of thinking and acting invented and imposed by the executioner. Clearer insights into the permutations of history and the human soul would show us the need to decide whether towait for a new andinevitable wave of killing, or to change our way of thinking and livingin orderto anticipate and hinder its effects.

NOTES 1 Article 2 of VaojeviCki zakon (The VasqeviC statute); Marko A. VujaEiC, Znameniti crnogorski i hercegovaEkifinaci (Famous Montenegrin and Herzegovinian heroes), I1 (Belgrade, 19S2), p. 10 2 Petar P. NjegoS, Gorski vgenac(A Mountain Wreath),(Belgrade, 1984), p. 122. 3 Ivan MeStroviC,U.amene nu politike @de idogadaje (Memoriesof Political People and Events), (Zagreb, 1993), p.2 1 3 4 Miroljub JevtiC,Savremeni diihad kao rat (Contemporary Jihad as War) (Belgrade, 1989), pp. 316-317 S Mirko JoviC, ‘Novoosnovani a ne opozicija’ (‘Newly Established butnot Opposition’),Dana, 19 June (Zagreb, 1990), p. 16. Slobodna Dalmmija, 21 February (Split, 1994). 6 Ante BakoviC, ‘Intenju’ (‘Interview’), 7 For the definitionof genocide see:‘The Convention of the United Nations about the prevention and punishmentof the crime of genocide’, adoptedon 1 1 DecemThe histoy and sociology of genocide: ber 1946; Frank Chalk and Kurt Jonassohn, analysis and case studies (New Haven, 1990); Ervin Staub,The roots of evil: The Ori-

210 GENOCIDE

gins of genocide and other group violence (Cambridge, 1989); John L. P. Thompson and Gail A. Quets, ‘Genocide and social conflict: A partial theory and a comparison’, Research in socialmovements, conflctand change, 12 (1990), pp. 245-266. 8 5:32. 9 Romans, 1:18-2 0. 10 Luke, 12:47. 11 See Whitall N. Perry (1991), p. 474. 12 85~19-20. 13 Aurelius Augustinus, De Civitate Dei (London, 1945), XI, 7. 14 Frithjof Schuon, Light on the ancient w d i . ” (Bloomington, . 1984), pp. 29-30. 15 There are important endeavours to change this situation through writing: Norman Cigar, Genocide in Bosnia (Texas,1995); Thilman Ziilch, Ethnische Siilbenmg-Volkmzord j i r ‘GroJ Serbien’ (Ethnic cleansing-Genocide fir ‘Greater Serbid) (Hamburg, 1993); and RoyGutman, A witness to genocide (New York, 1993). 16 Francis Fukuyama, ‘The end of history?’, The Nationalinterest, 16 (1989), pp. 3-18. 17 Georg W. F. Hegel, The Phenomenology $Mind; trans. into Croatian by Viktor D. Sonnenfeld (Zagreb, 1955), p. 105. 18 Francis Fukuyama (1992), p. 135. 19 Ibidem. 20 Alexandre KojEve, How t o read Hegel, trans. into Bosnian by Andelko Habazin (Sarajevo, 1990), p.12. 2 1 Henri Pirenne, Muhammad nnd Charlemagne(New York, 195.5). 22 See Anne Applebaum, ‘This crusade against Islam can only be a phoney war’, Daily Telegraph, 7 February (London, 1995). 23 Francis Fukuyama (1992),p. xi. 24 Samuel P. Huntington (1993). 25 Hungtington (1993), p. 25. 26 Bernard Lewis, ‘The Roots of Muslim Rage’, Atluntic Monthly, 266 (New York, 1990), pp. 47-60. 27 See the most important documents that lie in the foundation of the plan about Greater Serbia, from Nafertanije (1844) to the Memorandum of the Serb Academyof ArtsandSciences (1986). 28 Paul Williams and Norman Cigar, A prirnafacie case for the indictment of Slobodnn MilofeviC (London, 1996). 29 Leo Kuper, Genocide: itrpolitical use in the twentieth century(New Haven, 1981), p. 84. 30 From an interview with the author, 1990. 31 Cited according to the text of the Memorandum published in Bo2e covik (1991), p. 297. 32 Such effects were also produced by books: VojislavLubarda, Gorh posrtmje (prozui Stumbling) mjeka, 1969), Preobra2q.e (Tramjgmatiun) (Zagreb, 1980) andAnatema (Anathema)(Belgrade, 1981);Vuk DraSkoviC, Noi (hi$) (Belgrade, 1982),et ai. 33 e.g. DragoS KalajiC, ‘Kvazi Arapi protiv Evropljana’ (‘Quasi-Arabs against Europeans’), Duga, 13-19 September (Belgrade, 1987), p. 14-15. 34 e.g. Jovan RaSkovik, ‘0 etnokarakterima: Edipovci i kastrati’ (‘On Ethnocharacters: The Oedipus Complex and The Castration Complex’) Intenju, 15 September (Belgrade, 1989), p. 15.

Notes 21 1

35 See Miroljub JevtiC, ‘Rezervisti Allahove vojske’ (‘Reservists of Allah‘s Army’), Dzlga, 9-22 December (Belgrade, 1989), p. 2 1. 36 Darko TanaskoviC, ‘Nacija i vera, izmedju m i M’ (‘Nation and Religion between m and M’), NZN, 24 September (Belgrade, 1989), p. 25. 37 See, e.g., Dragomir Ubiparipovid, ‘Pismo jednovemoj i jednokrvnoj braci’ (‘A Letter toCoreligionists and Blood Brothers’), Glas Crkve (Valjevo, 1991), p. 56. 38 Ivan MeStroviC, (1993), p. 65-66. 39 Article 4 paragraph 9 of VasojmiCki zakon (The VasojmiC statzte) composed by an

Orthodox priest in the first half of the nineteenth century, states: ‘Whosoever stole anything from the Muslims, shall be granted amnesty.’ see VujaEiC, II, p. 10s. 40 The comparison of the schematism of the Serbian view of Muslims suggests an obvious correspondence with the German view of Jews before and during the Holocaust. See, e.g., Daniel J. Goldhagen, Hitler’s willing exemtioners: Ordinary Gennans and the holocawt (London, 1996), pp. 469-471. 41 See, e.g., Patrick Quinn, ‘Serbs, Croats demand tolls from UN, slam Muslims’, Washington Times, 2 July (1993), p. A7; Dejan Jelovac, ‘Za dom, za kralja, naprijed!’ (‘For Home, For King, Forward!’), Vreme, 5 July (Belgrade, 1993), p. 32-33; John F. Bums, ‘Bosnia Serbs drive to take Sarajevo: UN is kept back’, New York Times, 22 July (1993), p. A8. 42 Daniel J. Goldhagen (1996), p. 14. 43 Mile NedeljkoviC, Krst i polumesec (The Cross and Crescent) (Belgrade, 1993), p. 105. 44 Anne Pennington and Peter Levi, Mark0 thePrince:Serbo-CroatHeroic Songs (London, 1984), p. 24. From ‘The Beginning of the Revolt against the Dahijas’. 45 There are numerous indications of ethnic and religious pluriformity as the key obstacle to the building of the conceived nation states. To quote Veselin DuretiC: ‘In the course of the formation of the new Yugoslavstate, the Serbs not only subordinated their own national goals to supra-national goals, but also their own social and state organisations. Due to this obsession they were unable to achieve what, as a nation, they should have achieved: they did not carry out the homogenisation of their own ethnic space, liberated during the anti-Turk and antiGerman wars. Whole regions which the Karadjordje uprising did not cover, including those in Montenegro, Herzegovina and Bosnia, remained nationally incoherent. They remained grey ethnic zones, in which social experiments of various kinds were later implemented.’ Veselin DuretiC,‘XXth Century Political Ideology and the Serb Ethnic Identity’, in Serbs in European Civilisation (Belgrade, 1993), p. 65.

This Page Intentionally Left Blank

EPILOGUE

I There are two possible-or probable-ways of completing the destruction of Bosnia. First, we could accept that the model of unity in diversity is unsustainable: this would result in the final separation of Muslims, Catholics and Orthodox, and the preservation of a truncated form of coexistence that would satisfy the minimal demands of the international order. The second option is the formal division of Bosnia into two or more parts that would ultimately join the neighbouring national states. Both these possibilities imply a multitude of consequences for the general course of history. However, that course cannot be understood without a deeper insight into both the internal stresses and the ultimate coherence of the authentic identity of Bosnia as unity built of diversity. The power of destruction seeks rationalisation for its goal in the forces which dividethe world, in religious tradition and national heritage. The anti-Bosnian ideologies have striven to subordinate reality to their goal, hence the distorted images and perception of the meaning of the world and of man. The universality of sacred tradition is denied for the sake of base political designs, founded in apathy, inexplicable fears, lust for power and sham knowledge. Bosnia is not simply a historically doomed combination of different parts, which have separated inevitably in order to establish their natural identities.

214 Epihpe

The course of history is a complex but inexorable struggle for recognition: the effects ofthat struggle manifest themselves inthe necessity to subjugate and destroy the other. This leads to the establishment of social and national entities, which try to achieve homogeneity by destroying the dialogue between ‘us’ and the others. The rationale behind the struggle for recognition vanishes, however, with universal recognition of all. The course of history has charted the hardening of mental and physical borders betweenracial, ethnic, nationalandreligious entities. After erasure-by forced exileor slaughter-of the others from the religious, national and political integrity of the ‘self, they quarrel over their boundaries, generating conflicts of ever bigger and more powerful proportions. The international order, based on the idea of global values, then tries to limit these conflicts. Sinceit itself, however, hasto accept the political rationale behind its creation, it is necessarily, more or less, a manifestation of the will of the stronger members of this order, promoting their scale of values and their view of the world future. The two ways of destroying Bosnia are matched by two contemporary views of the course of history. Both are opposedto the model of pluriformity which Bosnia represents-as can be seen in the tolerance or active pursuit of the destruction ofBosnia’s integrity. However, both views can, if thoroughly re-examined, be exposed as defective, revealing the importance of understanding and promoting the Bosnian model, which currently faces seemingly final extinction. The first view holds that liberal democracy establishes relationships capable of abolishing the distinction between ‘masters’ and‘slaves’. The slave is assigned rule over himself, andthe struggle for recognition vanishes in the universality of mutual recognition. Rational knowledge provides the ruling logic guiding mankind, since there is constant ‘revision’ ofthe infinite relationships possible betweensubject and object, generating inexhaustiblepotentialfor the satisfaction of human wishes and needs. The ideological manifestations of this view are liberal democracy and the market economy. The end result is ideological world homogenisation and the end of history, understood as the dialectic of the struggle for recognition. The starting point of the second view is that removal of this opposition leads to the ‘last man’: a state of being in which the reasons for inner tension andfervourareneutralised. Humanity is thus reduced to the lowest of mental states, transformedback into ananimal, no longer governed and upheld by aspirations to achieve perfection.This development would occur with the complete disappearance of the opposed diversity of the world, or

Epilogue 215

with the defeat of all those who do not have enough strength to resist the imposition of a single, exclusive ideology. For if constant dialogue between individuals who are freely and independently advancing towards perfection is impossible, then it is also impossible between organised states and their communities. Bosnia, in its authentic form, represents a constant aspiration to establish permanent dialogue between different ways and laws, and between individuals exercising their right to seek perfection through following different paths. In the past five centuries the Bosnian model allowed the coexistence of Muslims, Catholics and the Orthodox, together with the Jewish community; its previous form incorporated three different strands of Christianity. The antagonism of Western culture towards Islam and its growing tendency to define Islam as the other which should be either conquered or destroyed in the struggle for recognition, enabled the perversion of the Bosnian dialectic of constant, purposeful dialogue between its sacred traditions into the opposition of national plans. This opposition cannot be resolved without the total defeat of the Bosnian model, or its positive affirmation as the embodiment of a consistent and efficient ideology for unity in diversity, testifylng to the sources and centres of sacred traditions. The Bosnian model has universal value, as opposed to the varying value of its manifestations: for the model itself cannot be reduced to any single material reality in the course of history. Still, the consequences of its presence in Bosnian history, from the point of view of achievement, are of the greatest value. Western culture as a whole, as well as its modem manifestation in liberal democracy and the free-market economy, is to a large extent defined by its underlying religion, Christianity, and hence by its traditional antagonism towards Islam. A Westerner sees the Bosnian unity of diversity as alien, since Islam is one of its essential components. The consequence of this attitude is the anti-Islamicism of the forces currently striving to destroy and divide Bosnia. The major Christian supra-nationalisms have been perceived as providing direct or tacit support for these endeavours-which are urged against an Islam reduced to its distorted image within the European consciousness. Bosnia’s identity is separated from its real roots, and the dialogue between the followers of different ways is transformed into the ‘clash of civilisations’-and the need for them to be separated by neat borders.

2 16 Epilogue

Bosnian Muslims are faced with different images of their identity, which have originated both inside and outside their culture. The image of Muslims as a non-European, anti-European phenomenon suits the conquering forces which have builttheir ideology on the long struggle for recognition. Elements most obviously alien to the European scale of values have been singled out from the generalimageofIslam in the worldandsuperimposed on the Bosnian Muslims. Various historical and contemporary phenomena that are contrary to the concept of unity in diversity are represented as specificto Islam, and therefore to all Muslims everywhere.The anti-Bosnian designspoint to the various changes and fluctuations in the continuum of Bosnian spirituality as ruptures and betrayals: the flaws are blamed on the Muslims and are used to generate further flaws in order to justify the destruction ofthe model. Knowledge of the pluriform core ofBosnia’s identity is disappearing from the Bosniac consciousness.Consenting to the reduction of the sacred tradition to a purely politicalinterpretation of contemporary circumstances, they deprive it of its foundation andof its potential to regenerate the strength that is needed for survival. Separating the participants in Bosnia’s unity from the source of their sacred tradition enables the use of shamreligious consciousness for inarticulate replies to anti-Bosnian ideologies. Principles, which put the source of both Bosnian and Bosniac culture in the domain beyond reason, disappear from the horizons of individual and collective existence, andoften take the form of collaboration with the destruction. It is not possible to find a rationale for the existence of the Bosnian model on thelevel of shallow superficialstatements. The feeling, common to Bosnian Muslims,that thedestruction of Bosnia implies for them a loss of the framework for their survival, leads them to advocate Bosnian unity as their conscious or unconscious need. Most often they lack systematic understanding of this need, failing to realise that Bosnia’s pluriform identity cannot be reduced to any one of its components. If the Bosnian model is reduced to its Bosniac component, the Islamic aspect of Bosniac culture becomes isolated,stripped of its potential to comprehend and embrace the other components of Bosnian culture and tradition. This in turn contributes to the uprooting of Bosnia’s Muslims and feedsthe image used bythe anti-Bosnian campaigns. The goal of the destruction of Bosnia leads ann-Bosnian forces among Catholics and the Orthodox-ideologised Croathood andSerbhood-

Epilogue 217

towards ‘unification’ within ‘rationally’ structured national entities, aided by the corresponding religious tradition. The sacred within these traditions, the belief that every human being is God’s creature with equal rights and potential to seek salvation, is an obstacle to the national plan. Therefore it should be denied wholly, if the religious establishments cannot be persuaded or forced to serve the national plan, as a substitute for the full religious freedom of an individual and community. We can better understand the value ofBosnian pluriformity, and the unity manifested in every sacred tradition, by returning to the authentic valuesofevery tradition. Many misunderstandings and unresolved issues between Muslims and Christians have been used to assist the destruction of Bosnia: there is a compelling need for full recognition and evaluation of both Islamic and Christian involvement. In spite of the essentially Christian identity of Western European culture the use of Christiantity by the anti-Bosnian elites, ideologies and organisations hasnever been searchingly examined. The perpetrators-never the elites-have been sentenced, when caught, only on the basisof obvious crimes. On the other hand, Muslims, the chief victims ofthese crimes, have been seen as somehow guilty, primarily on the grounds of their cultural inheritance. We need to achieve a reliable insight into the participation of both sides and to discern the potential for unity within both traditions-or to give up the attempt as not worth spending our individual or collective energies upon. Since Islam allocates everyphenomenon the significance ofa symbol, the interpretation of every phenomenon as a sign forms the basis of the reciprocal relationship between IslamandBosnia. Thus we can recognise the speech of the Creator and His guidance towards salvation in every particle of Bosnia’s earth and heaven.Depriving Bosnia of such meaning and imposingthe symbolsof other landsandskies reduces God, Who resembles nothing and Who cannot be compared with anything, to limited forms. Consequently, Bosnia’s people will be placed in a position where they can complete themselves only by denying others. Bosnia’s identity can achieve a credible manifestation in the shallow layers of human knowledge and politics only if it asserts and acceptsthe living narration of Bosnia. By failing to secure ourselves by this link with our universal roots we face the possibility of being reduced to the lowest level ofexistence-to chaos and evil. Bosnian Muslims can seek the horizons of survival only if the Bosnian formula offers both recognisable individuality and clear universality. Bosnia must provide its people with a circle of existence, from which an infinite

218 Epilogue

multitude of radii lead to the centre, guaranteeing every individual and collective freedom. The reduction and denial of that Bosnian individuality and universality is our common concern. The chaosis at its most complex among Bosnian Muslims: their deniers and killers hope to delegate to them the task ofcompleting the destruction.

111 The models that prevail in the consciousness of its people determine the moral and spiritual position of every country. The Bosnian model of the simultaneous individuality and universality of every sacred tradition manifested itself as superior in relation to those of its neighbours. These neighbours have established ideologies that have generated opposition among those who do not accept the prevailing collective aims, or who do not wish to take part in achieving them with all possible means. However, even the members of the opposition seem dangerously close to consenting to the principle that the followersof different faiths cannot livepeacefully together. Looking back at the intricate history of Bosnia it is possible to claim that the advocates of the Bosnian model were always aware of the necessity for dialogue between every participant in diversity. However, they were also aware, or were forced to become aware, of the danger of conflict if the participants in this dialogue forgot or forsook the essence and forms of their tradition. Only those that know how to find the possibility of the multitude of roads towards the One and Only in the being of their own sacred tradition can surpass divisions and thus become God’s Eye, Ear and Hand. This group of people may, in outer appearance, belong to numerousdifferenttraditions, whose centralunitythey all acknowledge. Such a group could serve as a foundation for the idea of Bosnia as a country which acknowledges the depths of human sprirituality and recognises their affirmation in the multitude of forms, but never gives priority to form over content. Bosnian Muslims are being persuaded to separate their identity from Bosnia the Good, its land and sky, and to withdraw from acknowledgement of the unity of diversity so that their community may appear an unlawful blot on European land. With the loss of their touch on the spiritual rope,

Epilogue 219

their community will fray into a tangle of opposing views of their own identity. The alienated majority wouldeventually defeat the spiritually aware minority, and ensure total ruin for all. Obliviousness to the universal nature of the Bosnian model would generate total opposition to Catholics and the Orthodox, and forever remove the possibility of constructing active forces, within which trust would be harmonised with the authentic unity of different sacred traditions. The repeated sufferings of the Bosniac nation have resulted from the long development of a distorted consciousness, manifest in the inability to recognise the trends of history. Small groups, devoted to sacred tradition, advocated the Bosnian model, but thus far their perseverance and sacrifice have failedto produce a complete and clear precept about Bosnia. The participants in Bosnia have adopted varying positions a t different times, depending on thestrength of the group upholding the validity of the Bosnian model. Whenever the community of Bosnia’s defenders have withdrawn into seclusion, to wait for a lull in the storm, the majority have turned to the enemy of Bosnia, not in order tocommence a dialogue, but to accept the position into which they have been driven. And yet, when, as for example after World War Two, the advocates of the Bosnian model prevailed on the political stage, numerous members of theopposition hypocritically joined them and tried to present themselves as determined advocates of the nonexistent public Bosnian precept. By their ignorant and therefore destructive participation, they prevented the transformation of the Bosnian precept into a living hand, ready to act upon and to defend that precept. When the anti-Bosnian leaders, ideologies, organisations and perpetrators demonstrated their power and readiness to destroy the Bosnian model, the hypocrites disintegrated: they joined different parties, or fled. T h e Bosnian crisis can only be resolved through pledging allegiance to ‘the sources of all Bosnia’s sacred traditions and to their driving principles of tolerance and coexistence, as a prerequisite for individual and collective salvation. T h e inner dialogue between the participants in Bosniaisof potentially world-wide import: it could help establish a simultaneous dialogue with global contemporary development and enable understanding of the regular patterns of history and their possible outcomes in the future.

220 EpiIope

The killing ofa single human being is equivalent,in principle, to thekilling of all humanity. If a tradition claims otherwise, then it cannot be sacred, since it denies the sanctity of every individual, the principle that generates the sanctity of everytradition. It must be recognisedin every sacredprecept and sacred art of every credible tradition. The cyclic genocideagainst Bosnia’s Muslims must be confronted with the Muslim aspiration for the perfection and salvation of humanity. The comprehensive wisdom of the Bosnian Muslim tradition covers the totality of horizons and human selves.This comprehensiveness is offeredto humanity as an image of salvation: the killing of Bosnian Muslims is the denial of this potential and therefore negates all possibility that the perpetrators will ever free themselves from the lower spheres of being, governed by darkness and illusions. Faced with the hostilility which genocidal elites, ideologies, organisations and perpetrators display towards those they perceive as others, we should point to the masa’jid as the most comprehensive characteristic of those others, when the Muslim nation is in question. Hence the dogged determination of the destroyers to erase all msa’jids in the areas they intend to rule, for the masa’jia’ is the most fundamental and complete expression ofthe Muslim aspiration to perfection. Bosnia’s Muslims,both as own way of life, sufferers on behalf of, andas defenders of, the right to their can strengthen their decision to resist evilby constant reference to the message ofthe masdjid. The human journey towards perfection involvesrecognising the symbols that guide us through the stages of wisdom on our way towards the Most High. Human beings are pervaded by fear in its dual manifestation-the desire to flee from the source of fear or to destroy it. By recognising the nature of this fear, humanity enters a position in which both flight and attack become meaningful,on the road to salvation. The being that is pervaded by fear, while passingthrough the stages of wisdom, finally achieves the condition in which sublime love makes its appearance-the condition of peace and tranquility, dissolved in the infinity of space and selves filled with the grace of creation. Our vision generates our yearning to extinguish the self in total absorption and focus onthe point that is at the same time both nothing and All. Out of this yearning, humanity can journey towards the One Object, in comparison to which we, as the subjects, are nothing. This desire for All draws usto Oneness, either by our absorption in It or Its absorption in us.

Epilope 221

These six stages of wisdom-fear: flight and attack; love: patience and passion;knowledge: discernment and unification-are condensed in the perfection of the symbols expressed by every mardjid. There is nothing in the structure of the mus$id, from the door to the mihrub, from right to left, up and down, that does not participate in the abundance and splendour of the garments that theindividual ‘puts on’ to achieve the fulfilment of human potential.

V For Bosnian Muslims it is of crucial importance to address the relationship between the Bosnian formula and the sources of its sacred traditions. Can any of these sources justify the dissolution of the Bosnian unity in diversity? The abuse of sacred traditions to promote the abolition of the Bosnian formula, or to excuse the refusal to defend it, is one of the most depressing features of the plan to destroy Bosnia. Every indication of acceptance that Bosnian Muslims are other within European unity and integrity assists the projects against them and enables the reduction of their culture to imbecile politics and the simple struggle for material and transitory gains, driving the people to ever lower regions of darkness and evil. Once the deletion of Bosnia is complete, the advocates of genocide will build their visionary ‘great’ national states on the ruins. Faced with these programmes, and their apparent consonance with liberal democracy as a prevailing and universal value, it seems almost impossible for the advocates of the Bosnian model to resist the dissolution of their country and its institutions. Many seek sanctuary in forms that testify to the power of the destroyer: pessimism prevails. The world is troubled by the effects of the antiBosnian crusade, but not by its sources: few realise that this is not merely a complex but transitory conflict on the Balkan periphery of the world. These few perceive, in the destruction of Bosnia, the polarity between two models-a model which will generate more and more killings across the world; and a model which perceives and offers diversity as the best illustration of the multiple paths to human perfection and salvation. If Western culture fails to understand the danger of its tacit or unconscious hostility to different ways of life and to the rights of individuals and groups to choose these ways, the destruction of Bosnia is a sign of the win-

222 EpiIogue

ter that must permeate that culture. If, on the other hand, the genocide against Bosnian Muslims can be understood and its recurrence prevented, this will testify to the seed of salvation present in the prevailing trend of modem development. We should confront the genocide against Bosnia’s Muslims with faith in human tradition, convinced that the small numbers of those who are likeminded is in no way a sign of weakness, but testifies insteadto thesuperiority of qualityover the perilous rule of quantity. For thedeath of the Bosnian model does not concern only the destruction of a single stone in the edifice of mankind: it concerns the destruction of that nucleus without which human survival is impossible.If the people of Bosnia fail to recognise the crucial importance of their model and instead accept the simple and vicious alternatives offered by the killers, their abettors and accessories, then they themselves must bear the guilt of having allowedtheir suffering to be without purpose.

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INDEX OF NAMES

‘Abd Allah (father of the Prophet) 66,

113,122,146,167,175,179,182, 211,225 Abdul-Fetah, Sheikh 148 Abraham (the prophet) 9,59,81,82, 83, 101, 111, 123, 128, 143, 179, 181 Abu’l Husayn an-Nuri 67 Abu-Dawud 178 Adam (the prophet)65,87,92,111,128, 130,177,179 Ahmad, see Muhammad 90,110,111, 112,123,126,128,178,228 Ahmed, Sheikh 76 ‘Ali ibn Abi Talib (the Imam) 4,39,52, 105,223 ‘Ali ibn al-Husayn (the Imam) 50,112, 178,223,225 ‘Ai, see ‘Ali ibn Abi Talib 4,39,52, 105, 223 Anderson, Benedict 52,223 AndriC, Ivo 197 Applebaum, Anne 210,223 Aquinas, Thomas 19,2 1 Arberry, Arthur J. 182,223 Arius of Alexandria 117

Amdt, Ewald 148,228 Athanasius 118 Augustine, Aurelius 19,20,21, 184 Baigent, Michael 146,223 BakoviC, Ante 183,209,223 BaliC, Smail 146,223 Barnabas (the apostle) 110 BaSagiC, Safvet-beg 109,223 Bayhaqi, Ahmadibn al-Husayn al- 112, 178,225

Begum Sahib, Fatimah J. 175,182 Bejtid, Alija 112,223 Belloy, Pierre de 16 BeSlagiC, Sefik 111,223 Beus, Spomenka 148,226 Bilal (companion of the Prophet) 92 Bodin, Jean 16 BojaniC-LukaE, DuSanka 147,223 BoriC, Ban 119 Bosnawi, Abdullah Abdi 148,223 Bosnawi, Ali-dede 109 Bosnawi, ReSid Mehmed 148,223 BoSnjak, ReSid 127, 148 BoSnjoviC, Ilijas 146 Brandt, Miroslav 52,223

2 30 Index of Names

Bukhari, Muhammad ibn Isma’il al-78, 110,182,225

Burckhardt, Titus 78,79,109,112,224 Bums, John F. 211,224 Bush, George 187 ButkoviC, Gost Radin 99 Calvin, John 20 Casamaris, Ivan de 121 Celebi, Evli 127, 148,224 Celebi, Sulejman 109,228 Chacornac, Paul 52,224 Chalk, Frank 209,224 Chittick, William C. 50,. 113,223,224 . Christ, Jesus 2 1, 89,90, 110, 11f8, 122, 123,146, 153,168,175

Christos 146 Cigar, Norman 210,224,228 Claes, William 190 Comnenus, Emmanuel 119 Constantine 19 Coomaraswamy, Ananda K. 7,s:2,224 CosiC, Dobrica 51, 196 CoviC, Bote 52,210,223,224 CubriloviC, Vasa 52,224 CvetkoviC, DragiSa 133 CvijiC, Jovan 27, 52, 224 Damasus, Pope 110 Daudet, Leon 34 Descartes, RCne 56 Dickey, Stephen M. 76,227 Dickson. Peter 50. 224 Dizdar, Mak 11,12,91,97,110,224 DraSkoviC, Vuk 210,224 Duguit, Leon 17 DuretiC, Veselin 211 DuSan, Stefan 26, 28 DBaja, SreCko M. 52,224 Eckhart;Meister 59, 182, 227 EjuboviC, Mustafa 99 Emeric, King 119 Eusebius of Caesarea 19 Evans, C. de B. 182,227 Eve 87

Farlati, Daniele 146,224 Fatih, Sultan Mehmed al- 127 Ferhad-pasha 98 Fir’awn (Pharaoh) 38, 39 FiSiC, Ladislav 2.52, 224 Forey, Alan 146,224 Frishman, Martin 78,224 Fukuyama, Francis 25, 51, 187, 188, 189,190,210,224

GaraSanin, Ilija52,224 Gazali, Abu Hamid al- 148 Gelasium, Pope 110 Gellner, Ernest 52,224 Ghazi Khusrew-bey 87,98,110,148,223 Goldhagen, Daniel J. 211, 224 Gregg, Robert C. 146,224 Groh, Dennis E. 146,224 Guenon, Rene 34,52,56,58,76,182,224 Gutman, Roy 210,225 Habazin, Andelko 2 10 HadiiC, Mehmedalija 52,223 HadZijahiC, Muhamed 112,225 Had&-MuhamedoviC,Amra 146,179,225 Hallaj, al- 177 Haman 38,39 HandLiC, Adem 148,225 Hanson, Richard P. C. 146,225 Harun (the prophet) 92 Hassan 76 Hegel, Georg W. F. 14, 15, 22,50, 188, 189,210,225,226

Heiler, Friedrich 77,225 Heraclius, Emperor 110 Hirawi, Nadjib M. 78,225 Hitler, Adolf 28,2 11,224 Hobbes, Thomas 17 Honorius, Pope 110,121 Horvat, Karlo 147,225 Huntington, Samuel P. 16, 30,50, 52, 133,191,192,210,225

Ibn al-Arabi, Muhyi al-din 113, 128, 147,147,224

Ibn ‘Ata ‘Allah 225

Index of Names 23 1

Ibn Kathir 225 Ibn Khaldun 14,50,225 Ibn Taymiyya 85,109,225 Ibrahim, see Abraham 92,101,160 Idris (the prophet)92 ImamoviC, Mustafa 52,225 ‘Isa (Tesus) 146 IshakoviC, Isa-beg 125, 147 IzetbegoviC,Alija 10 Jabir (Ibn Hayyan) 78 Jacob (the prophet) 75,96 JeliC, Luka 147,225 Jellinek, Georg 17,42, 52,225 Jelovac, Dejan 2 11,225 Jethro, see Shu’ayb 92 JevtiC, Miroljub 183,209,211,225 Jibril (Gabriel) 122 Jili, Shaykh 177 JireEek, Konstantin J. 146,225 John the Baptist 123 John (the Evangelist) 88, 110 Jonassohn, Kurt 209,224 Jones, Francis R. 8, 12, 148, 224,226 JoviC, Mirko 183,209,225 Kaimija, Hasan 94,99 KalajiC, DragoS 210,225 Kant, Immanuel 14,15, 50,225 Kara (George), see Karadorde 204 KaradZC, Vuk 27,204 Karadorde 196,197,204 Karagoz-bey 98 Karpat, Kemal H. 149,225 Karun (Korah) 38,39 KasumoviC, Ismet 109, 148,226 Khan, Hasan-Uddin 78,224 Kissinger, Henry 50,224 Kojhe, Alexandre 15,50, 188 KosaEa (the family) 112,226 KreSevljakoviC, Hamdija 112, 226 Kulin, Ban 121 Kuper, Leo 210,226 Leigh, Richard 146,223 Levi, Peter 211,226

Lewis, Bernard 193,210,226 Lilek, Emilian 79, 112,226 Lings, Martin 78,111,112,178,180, 181,182,226

Lubarda, Vojislav 210,226 LukaEeviC, Oto 8 Luke (the Evangelist) 178, 179,210 Luther, Martin 20,41,52,226 Machiavelli, Niccolo 17,226 MaEek, Vlatko 133 Mahdi, al-, the Restorer 92 MahmutCehajiC, Rusmir 52,78, 148, 223,224,226

Majlisi, Muhammad Baqir 78, 179,226 Malcolm, Noel 146,226 Mark (the Evangelist) 109, 110, 179 MarnaviC, IvanTomko 147 Marnavich, Giovanni 147,225 M a n , Karl 15,189 Mary (the motherofJesus) 90, 122,146 Maryam (Mary) 146 Masih al- 146 Matthew (theEvangelist) 52, 53,95, 109,110,112,113, 179

Maurice Hauriou 17 Mawhamana 110,126 Maybudi, Rashid al-Din 113,226 Messiah 92,95, 127 MeStroviC, Ivan 209,211,226 Meyerovitch, Eva deVitray 148,227 MiloSeviC, Slobodan 10, 195, 196, 198, 200,202,207,210,228

Mortazavi, Djamchid 148,227 Moses (the prophet)82,85,91,92 Muhammad, the Prophet23,51,62,65, 66, 83,88,98, 110, 111, 113, 122, 123, 126, 128, 146, 179, 180,210, 226,227,228 MujezinoviC, Mehmed 109, 111, 147, 148,226 Mustafa, see Muhammad 52,99, 126, 127,225

Nametak, Abdurahman 109,226 Nametak, Fehim 148,226

232 Index of Names

Nasr, Seyyed Hossein 53,226 NedeljkoviC, Mile 2 11,226 NemanjiC, Sava Nicholson, Reynold A. 182,226 Nicholson, Richard C. 182 Niebuhr, Reinhold 20 Nietzsche, Friedrich 22 NjegoS, Petar PetroviC 183, 197,209, 226

Noah (the prophet) Norris, Harry T. 146,226 Northbourne, Lord 53,227 Nwyia, Paul 77,226 Osmankadik, Merima 8 Palavestra, Vlajko 112,226 Pallis, Marko 52, 224 Paraclete, see Parakletos 122, 123, 147 Parakletos 110, 121, 123, 126 Paryklitos, see Parakletos 126 Paul (the apostle) 41, S2,77, 123, 147, 210,224,226,227,228

Pennington, Anne 211,226 Periklytos, see Parakletos 110 Perry, Whitall N. 78,210,227 Peter (the apostle) 21, 50, 52,2 11,224, 226,227

Pfeiffer, Franz 182,227 Pirenne, Henri 189,210,227 Plato 35 ProtiC, Stojan 198 PruSEak, Hasan Kafi 99 Quets, Gail A. 210,228 Quinn, Patrick 2 11,227 Radi, as-Sayyid ar- 52, 223 RadiC, Stjepan 30,52,227 RadoniC, Jovan 146,225 RakiC, Bogdan 76,227 RaSkoviC, Jovan 210,227 Razi, al-Kulayni, ar- 111,225 Rengjeo, Ivan 111,227 Robson, James 182,227 Rumi, Djalal al-Din 127, 227

RuSdi, Muhammed 109,226 Rycaut, Paul 123, 147,227 SabanoviC, Hazim 147, 148,224,227 Safadi, Yasin H. 78,227 Salih (the prophet) 92, 109, 148,226, 228

SamiC, Jasna 109, 112,227 Sanjek, Franjo 146, 147,227 3ariC (the family) 111 Schimmel, Annemarie 77,78,227 Schuon, Frithjof 52,77,78, 109, 112, 179,180,210,227

SelimoviC, MeSa 76,227 Seydel, Maxvon 17 Shi’it 92 Shu’ayb (the prophet) 92 SikiriC, Sirija 99 Sinan-pasha 98 SmiEiklas, Tadija 146, 147,227 Smith, Margaret 182,227 Solomon (the prophet) 89,92,94,111,119 Solovjev, Aleksandar147,227 Sonnenfeld, Viktor D. 210,225 SrSkiC, Milan 183 StarEeviC, Ante 29 Staub, Ervin 209,227 StratimiroviC, Dorde 148,228 Suljkik, Hivzija 112,225 Tabari, at- 111 TanaskoviC, Darko 2 11,228 Taylor, Charles 52,228 Thackston, Wheeler M. 78 Theiner, Augustin 146,147,228 Thompson, JohnL.P. 2 10,228 Tirmidhi, al-Hakim at- 67,77, 111,228 Tirmidhi, Muhammad b. Isa at- 228 Toma, King 124 Townsend, Peter N. 52,227 Trako, Salih 109, 148,226,228 Trismegistus, Hermes 78 Truhelka, Ciro 112, 146,228 Tudman, Franjo 10,29,196,198,202,207 UbiparipoviC, Dragomir 211,228

Index of Names 2 33

VelimiroviC, Nikolaj 28, 52,228 VujaEiC, Marko A. 209,228 Waitz, George 17 Weber, Max 22 Wensinck, Arent J. 112,228 Wenzel, Marian 109,110,111,228 Williams, Paul 2 10,228

Zarzycki, Miron 148,228 Zayn a1 “Abidin, see ‘Ali ibn al-Husayn 50,223 ZeEeviC, Mojsije 183 Zikrija, Ibrahim 109,228 Zovko, Ivan 147,228 ZukiC, Hasan 99 Zulch, Thilman210,228 ZvizdoviC, Angel 127

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BY THE SA21IE AUTHOR

Original works fihkort (Fragiliq),Sarajevo, 1977. Kn, i tinta (BloodandInk), Sarajevo, 1983. ZemGa i more ( L a d and Sea), Sarajevo, 1986. fiva Boma (Living Bosnia),Ljubljana, 1994 and 1995. Living Bosnia, London, 1996. 0 nauku znaka (On the Science o f s i p ) , Sarajevo, 1996. filigrafiki listovi dazima Had2imejliCa (The Calligraphic leaves by dazim Hadiimejlik), Sarajevo, 1997. Krivapolitika (Twktedpolitics),Tuzla-Sarajevo-Zagreb, 1998. The Denial ofBosnia,Pennsylvania, 2000.

Translations Martin Lings, &a je m$mm?, Zagreb, 1994. Titus Burckhardt, Uputaprema unutarnjem uCenju islama, Zagreb, 1994. ‘Ali ibn EbiTalib, Nehdfu-l-ltelaga (with Mehmedalija HadZiC), Zagreb, 1994. Martin Lings, Muhammed, Ljubljana, 1995. Imam ‘Ali ibn el-Husejn,Sahifn (with Mehmedalija HadZiC), Sarajevo, 1997. RenC GuCnon, Omm‘na tesavuf i tao,Sarajevo, 1998.

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