Bosnia · a Light

A 1531 endowment in Sarajevo still pays for its own library

In 1531 Gazi Husrev-beg, the Ottoman governor of Bosnia, endowed a mosque in Sarajevo and, in the same deed, a madrasa, a library, a public bath, a soup kitchen and a covered market whose rents were to pay for the rest. The endowment survived empires and still funds the library, which now holds more than ten thousand manuscripts in Arabic, Turkish, Persian and Bosnian. During the siege of Sarajevo between 1992 and 1995 the collection was moved by hand between hiding places, box by box, and came through intact. The city's National and University Library was less fortunate: it was shelled and burned in August 1992, and something like a million and a half books and periodicals were lost.

Sarajevo · endowed 1531