Ferhat Pasha Mosque
Ferhat Pasha Mosque, also known as the Ferhadija Mosque, is a central building in the city of Banja Luka and one of the greatest achievements of Bosnia and Herzegovina's 16th century Ottoman Islamic architecture in Europe. The mosque was demolished in 1993 at the order of the authorities of Republika Srpska, and was rebuilt and opened on 7 May 2016.
Commissioned by the Bosnian Sanjak-bey Ferhat-paša Sokolović, the mosque was built in 1579 with money that, as tradition has it, were paid by the Auersperg family for the severed head of the Habsburg general Herbard VIII von Auersperg and the ransom for the general's son after a battle at the Croatian border in 1575, where Ferhat-paša was triumphant.
The mosque with its classical Ottoman architecture was most probably designed by a pupil of Mimar Sinan. There is no written data about the builders who erected the mosque, but from analysing its architecture it appears that the foreman of the works was from Sinan's school since the mosque shows obvious similarities with Sinan's Muradiye mosque in Manisa, which dates from 1585.
Architectural ensemble
The ensemble of the Ferhadija mosque consisted of the mosque itself, the courtyard, a graveyard, the fountain, 3 mausoleums and the surrounding wall with the gate. The original canopied wall was pulled down after 1884 and a more massive wall partly of masonry and wrought iron was built with a new gate and a drinking fountain. In the courtyard there was an ablutions fountain with a stone basin and twelve pipes. The water for the fountain was brought from a spring that is still known as Šadrvan. Above the stone basin was a decorative wrought iron trellis, and in the 19th century a wooden baldaquin and dome and painted attic in the so-called Turkish baroque style was added which was demolished in 1955. One of three small adjacent mausoleums - Ferhad Pasha Turbe - contained the tombs of Ferhat-paša Sokolović, the others were for his granddaughter Safi-kaduna, and his ensign. A clock tower was added later.Like most buildings of this type in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the mosque was on a modest scale: 18 meters wide, 14 meters long and 18 meters high at the top of the main dome. The minaret was 43 m high. According to legend, when the mosque was completed in 1579, Ferhat-Pasha had the masons locked inside this minaret, sentencing them to death so they could never make anything so beautiful, but one night they made wings and flew away.
Ferhadija was listed as a Bosnia and Herzegovina cultural heritage site in 1950. It was subsequently protected by UNESCO until its destruction in 1993. Today the site, with the mosque's remains, is listed as a national monument of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Destruction
The mosque was one of 16 destroyed in the city of Banja Luka during the Bosnian War between 1992 and 1995.The Republika Srpska authorities ordered the demolition of the entire Ferhadija and Arnaudija mosque complexes, which stood approximately apart. Both mosques were destroyed in the same night within 15 minutes of each other.
The Serb militia blew up the Ferhadija Mosque on the night of 6–7 May 1993. May 6 is the date of the Serbian Orthodox holiday of Đurđevdan. The minaret survived the first explosion, but was then razed to the ground.
Most of the debris was taken to the city dump; some stone, and ornamental details, were crushed by the Serbs for use as landfill. The leveled site was turned into a parking lot. Several weeks after the destruction of Ferhadija the nearby Sahat Kula, one of the oldest Ottoman clock towers in Europe, was also destroyed.
At the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia a Serb leader from Banja Luka, Radoslav Brđanin, was convicted for his part in organizing the destruction of Muslim property including mosques, and also in the ethnic cleansing of non-Serbs. He was sentenced to a single prison term of 32 years.
The Brđanin case proved that the destruction of the mosques was orchestrated as part of the ethnic cleansingFerhat Pasha Mosque#Notes and references|1
Reconstruction
In 2001, a building permit was granted to the Islamska Zajednica Banjaluke to reconstruct the mosque. On May 7, Serb nationalists attacked about 300 Bosniaks attending the ceremony to mark the laying of the cornerstone. The New York Times reported that about 1,000 Orthodox Christian Serbs participated in the attack and that they threw rocks and burned vehicles, a bakery, Muslim prayer rugs, and the flag on the Islamic center, where they hoisted the Bosnian Serb flag; drove a pig onto the site of the mosque as an insult to Muslims; and trapped 250 people in the Islamic center including the head of the UN in Bosnia, the ambassadors from Great Britain, Sweden and Pakistan, and other international and local officials. Bosnian Serb police eventually released them. More than 30 Bosniaks were injured and at least eight were taken to the Banja Luka hospital. One died later from head injuries. The disrupted ceremony took place on the 8th anniversary of the mosque's destruction, a date subsequently chosen as Bosnia and Herzegovina's official Day of the Mosques. A few days later, in secret and under heavy security, the ceremony was performed successfully. But because of the earlier attack, reconstruction was not undertaken.Although most of the mosques destroyed in Banja Luka in the Bosnian War have been reconstructed since 2001, Ferhadija is still a contentious issue. Work was delayed by the complexities involved in rebuilding it authentically. The Sarajevo School of Architecture's Design and Research Center had prepared preliminary studies, and the cost of reconstruction was estimated at about 12 million KM. A local magistrate ruled that the authorities of Banja Luka, which is Bosnian Serb-controlled, must pay $42 million to its Islamic community for the 16 local mosques that were destroyed during the 1992-1995 Bosnian War. However, this ruling was subsequently overturned by the highest court in Sarajevo when the Serb Republic objected to paying for the damage caused by individual people.
The site, with its original architectural remains, is listed as a National Monument of Bosnia and Herzegovina. By Ruling of the Institute for the Protection of the Cultural, Historical and Natural Heritage of Bosnia and Herzegovina the building was placed under state protection and entered in the register of cultural monuments. The Regional Plan for Bosnia and Herzegovina to 2002 listed the Ferhad-paša mosque in Banja Luka as a Category I building under serial no. 38.
In June 2007 repairs were completed on the foundations that survived the destruction, and reconstruction of the masonry and the rest of the building was completed over the next nine years, with the mosque reopening in on 7 May 2016.