92
Women in the ottoman Balkans
N’jesam, Fato, života mi moga,
No, Fata, on my life I am not,
života mi i moga i tvoga!
on my life and on yours as well!
Misliš, Fato, misliš, dušo moja,
Do you think, my Fata, do you think, my sweet,
da djevojci b’jelo lice ljubim?
that I am kissing her fair face?
N’jesam, Fato, tebe ne želio,
No, Fata, on my love for you I am not,
već se junak tobom oženio,
this hero was wedded to you for ever,
u dženetu na prvom konaku! in Paradise, at our first embrace!
Misliš, Fato, misliš, dušo moja,
Do you think, my Fata, do you think, my sweet,
da djevojci ruse kose mrsim?
that I am playing with her lovely hair?
N’jesam, Fato, nesuđeno zlato!
No, Fata, my gem that was not to be!
Misliš, Fato, misliš dušo moja,
Do you think, my Fata, do you think, my sweet,
da djevojci crne oči mutim?
that I am clouding her clear black eyes?
N’jesam, Fato, rumena jabuko!”
No, Fata, the apple of my eye!”
Tada reče gondže Mehmede:
Young Mehmed turns to speak to his bride:
“Čuješ li me, lijepa djevojko,
“Hear me, o pretty lady,
skini malo puli duvak s glave,
lift just a bit your veil,
da ti vidim lice i obrve!”
let me see your face and brows!”
Kad djevojka duvak podignula,
When the girl lifted up her veil,
sinu lice kano žarko sunce,
her face lit like the great bright sun,
a gr’oce kano mjesečina.
her eyes twinkled like the shining moon.
Tada reče beže Mehmede: Mehmed spoke to her thus:
“A Boga mi, prikladna djevojko,
“By God, my lady, you are a pretty one,
Buturović, Love and/or death?
93
i ljepša si i viša od Fate, so much taller and finer than my Fata.
ali n’jesi mome srcu draga.
But you aren’t dear to my heart like her.
Selam ćeš mi majci učiniti,
Bid farewell to my mother for me,
ja joj hoću svijet prom’jeniti!
I am about to depart for the other world!
Kad u jutru bijel dan osvane,
When the morning breaks and the new day begins,
nek’ sakupi hodže i hadžije,
let her gather the hodža s and hadži s,
nek’ me kuplju od ruže đulsijom,
let them bathe me in rosewater,
nek’ mi puste perčin niz tenešir,
lay me on my deathbed and let my hair loose,
što mi ga je Fata odgojila,
my hair for which Fata cared so dearly,
tri je fildiš češlja salomila,
three ivory combs did she break on it,
tri kutije jaga potrošila
three jars of oil did she spread on it,
dok mi ga je mlada odgojila.
before she managed to make it so fine.
Nek me nose neženjeni momci,
Let all unmarried men carry my body,
nek ne idu drumom širokijem,
let them not take me through wide streets,
nek me nose uskijem sokacim,
but let me go through narrow alleys,
ispred dvora plemenite Fate.”
all the way to my fair Fata’s home.”
Pa dohvati handžar s čivluka,
Then from the wall he grabbed a dagger,
handžarom se u prsa udrio,
and with the dagger he pierced his chest,
i na njemu srce izvadio,
and with it he pulled out his heart,
mrtav pade, žalosna mu majka.
he just fell dead, woe to his mother.
Kad u jutru zora osvanula,
Early next day, as night changed to dawn,
osvanula i sunce granulo,
morning came, the sun rose and shone,
94
Women in the ottoman Balkans
čudila se Mehmeda majka,
Mehmed’s mother wondered to herself,
što joj nema sina Mehmeda,
why her son Mehmed was not hurrying down,
pa se hvali l’jepim djevojkama,
she boasted to the beautiful girls,
kako mu je omiljelo zlato.
that his bride had enchanted his heart.
Iza toga mnogo i ne prođe,
Not much time had passed when
rasrdi se nesmiljena majka,
she became angry and rushed upstairs,
udri nogom u bojali vrata,
with her leg she kicked the door,
odmah su se vrata otvorila.
and the door opened right away.
Na golemo čudo udarila: Upon which she was deeply shocked:
do koljena u krv ugazila,
up to her knees she walked into blood,
a djevojka staše u budžaku,
as the young bride sat in the corner,
u budžaku pod puli duvakom.
in the corner and still fully veiled.
Progovara lijepa djevojka: The bride turned to her and began to speak:
“Bog t’ ubio, Mehmeda majko,
“May God strike you, Mehmed’s mother,
što ga ženi nedragom djevojkom,
why did you marry him to me,
što ga n’jesi Fatom oženila,
why not to Fata, whom he truly loved,
jer umrije Meho od žalosti,
now Meho lies dead, killed by his sorrow,
sve lijepu Fatu spominjući.
as he died he only spoke of his fair Fata.
Selam ti je Meho učinio,
He wished to bid you farewell,
da sakupiš hodže i hadžije,
and asked you to gather the hodža s and hadži s,
da ga kuplju od ruže đulsijom,
let them bathe him with rosewater,
da mu puste perčin niz tenešir,
lay him on the deathbed and let his hair loose,
Buturović, Love and/or death?
95
da ga nose neženjeni momci,
let the unmarried men carry him,
da ga nose uskijem sokacim,
through the narrow alleys,
ispred dvora plemenite Fate.”
until they reach the home of his fair Fata.”
Majka curu dobro saslušala,
The mother sat and listened with grief,
i sakupi hodže i hadžije,
then she gathered the hodža s and hadži s,
ponesoše gondže Mehmeda,
they carried young Mehmed away,
ispred dvora plemenite Fate.
all the way to his fair Fata’s home.
Vezak vezla plemenita Fata
Fata was doing her embroidery with her yarn
na čardaku, na visokoj kuli;
in the bower, on the tallest turret;
puhnu vihor s visokih planina,
just then a cool wind began to blow,
i odnekle miris nanosaše.
carrying a scent that perked her up.
Kad pogleda plemenita Fata,
When fair Fata looked down,
veliko je čudo opazila:
she saw something very strange:
napr’jed idu neženjeni momci,
a procession led by unmarried men,
koji nose gondže Mehmeda,
who carried her young Mehmed,
a za njima hodže i hadžije.
and behind them came the hodža s and hadži s.
Odmah se se jadu dosjetila,
Instantly she knew what had hap
pened,
da je Meho, žalosna mu majka!
she knew it was Meho, woe unto his mother!
Ona pade po sadef đerđefu, She fell down onto the embroidery frame,
kako pade, više ne ustade.
as she fell, she never rose up again.
Misli majka izgubi se Fata,
Her mother rushed thinking Fata had fainted,
al’ se Fata s dušom rastavila.
but Fata had given up the ghost.
96
Women in the ottoman Balkans
Tad zakuka Fatijina majka: Fata’s mother cried thus:
“Stan’te, stan’te, hodže i hadžije,
“Wait, wait o you hodža s and hadži s,
pričekajte i ovog mejita.”
Wait and carry this lifeless body too.”
Kad su bule Fatu opremile,
Women came to prepare Fata for burial,
ponesoše obadva mejita,
and then the two bodies were carried off,
naprijed nose Fatimu djevojku
ahead they carried young Fata,
a za njom gondže Mehmeda.
and behind her young Mehmed.
Mezare im blizu iskopaše,
They dug two graves side by side,
a kroz mezar ruke proturiše,
and through the earth they pulled out their hands,
a u ruke metnuše jabuke,
and in each hand they placed an apple,
kad se prenu, nek se poigraju.
so that when they rise, they can play a while.
Notes
1. Buturović and Buturović 2002: 7.
2. Grunthal 1995: 7.
3. Morgan 1996: 29.
4. Henderson 1912: 31.
5. Derrida 1992: 74.
6. Morgan 1996: 1–2.
7. Porter 1980: 11–26.
8. Gummere 1959: 70.
9. Ibid.; also Morgan 1996: 13.
10. Grunthal 1995: 9–10.
11. Cheesman 1995: 88.
12. For
more discussion see Memija and Hadžiosmanović 1997; Nametak 1986:
234–44.
13. Lord 1972: 298–318.
14. Dundes 1996.
15. V
argyas 1967.
16. Gilbert and Grubar 1979.
17. Buturović 2000.
18. See Petrović 1988: 128–47.
19. Ibid, 132–33.
Buturović, Love and/or death?
97
20. Ibid.
21. Maglajlić 1997: 24–26.
22. Henderson 1912: 5.
23. Mor
gan 1996: 5–7.
24. Maglajlić 1978: 155–56.
25. For
the evolution of such class-based gender segregation in Islam, see Mernissi
1991.
26. Cited in Buzov 2005: 9.
27. Hodža means teacher, and hadži means pilgrim. As in the Turkish hacılar ve
hocalar, the two words together signify a group of religious dignitaries.
28. See Hirschon 1978: 66–88; Simic 1999: 1
1–30.
29. See Bringa 1995.
30. Girard 1977: 93.
31. Buturović and Buturović 2002: 93–97.
References
Bringa, Tone. Being Muslim the Bosnian Way: Identity and Community in a
Central Bosnian Village (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995).
Buturović, Amila. “The Bosnian Phoenix: Remembering Macaronic Poetry in
Ottoman Bosnia.” Connect 1 (2000).
Buturović, Djenana and Lada Buturović. Antologija bošnjačkih usmenih
lirskonarativnih pjesama [An Anthology of Bosniak Oral Lyric-Narrative
Songs] (Sarajevo: Svjetlost, 2002).
Buzov, Snježana. “Bosnian Women in Public Space,” unpublished paper (2005).
Cheesman, Tom. “Intersubcultural Dialogue on Husband-Killing: ‘Elise,’ a
Popular Ballad in Nineteenth-Century Germany,” in Ballads and Boundaries:
Narrative Singing in an Intercultural Context, ed. James Porter and Ellen
Sinatra (Los Angeles: UCLA Department of Ethnomusicology and Systematic
Musicology, 1995).
Derrida, Jacques. “This Strange Institution Called Literature,” in his Acts of
Literature, ed. Derek Attridge (New York: Routledge, 1992).
Dundes, Alan. The Walled-Up Wife: a Casebook (Madison: University of
Wisconsin Press, 1996).
Gilbert, Sandra M. and Susan Grubar. The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman
Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination (New Haven: Yale
University Press, 1979).
Girard, René. Violence and the Sacred, trans. Patrick Gregory (Baltimore: The
Johns Hopkins University Press, 1977).
Gummere, Francis Barton. The Popular Ballad (New York: Dover Publications,
1959).
Grunthal, Satu. “Borders of the Ballad Genre: The Changing and the Preserving
Ballad,” in Ballads and Boundaries: Narrative Singing in an Intercultural
Context, ed. James Porter and Ellen Sinatra (Los Angeles: UCLA Department
of Ethnomusicology and Systematic Musicology, 1995).
98
Women in the ottoman Balkans
Henderson, T.F. [Thomas Finlayson]. The Ballad in Literature (Cambridge, UK:
Cambridge University Press; New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1912).
Hirschon, Renée. “Open Body/Closed Space,” in Defining Females: the Nature of
Women in Society, ed. Shirley Ardener (London: Croom Helm, 1978).
Lord, Albert. “The Effect of the Turkish Conquest on Balkan Epic Tradition,”
in Aspects of the Balkans: Continuity and Change, ed. Henrik Birnbaum and
Speros Vryonis (The Hague: Mouton, 1972).
Maglajlić, Munib. Antologija bošnjačke usmene lirike (Sarajevo: Alef, 1997).
Maglajlić, Munib. 101 Sevdalinka (Mostar: Prva Književna Komuna, 1978).
Memija, Emina and Lamija Hadžiosmanović. Antologija bošniačke poezije na
orientalnim jezicima [Anthology of Bosniak Poetry in Oriental Languages]
(Sarajevo: Alef, 1997).
Mernissi, Fatima. The Veil and the Male Elite, trans. Mary Jo Lakeland (Reading,
MA: Addison-Wesley Inc., 1991).
Morgan, Gwendolyn A. Medieval Ballads: Chivalry, Romance, and Everyday
Life (New York: Peter Lang, 1996).
Nametak, Fehim. “Vrste i oblici u našoj književnosti na orijentalnim jezicima”
[Genres and Forms of Our Literature in Oriental Languages], Život 32
(1986).
Petrović, Ankica. “Paradoxes of Muslim Music in Bosnia and Herzegovina,”
Asian Music 20, 1 (1988).
Porter, James. “Principles of Ballad Classification,” Jahrbuch Volksliedforschung
25 (1980).
Simic, Andrei. “Machismo and Cryptomatriarchy: Power, Affect, and Authority in
the Traditional Yugoslav Family,” in Gender Politics in the Western Balkans:
Women and Society in Yugoslavia and the Yugoslav Successor States, ed.
Sabrina P. Ramet (University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press,
1999).
Vargyas, Lajós. Researches into the Mediaeval History of Folk Ballad (Budapest:
Akademiai Kiado, 1967).
4
Women Founders of Pious Endowments
in Ottoman Bosnia
Kerima Filan
As a religious and social institution, pious endowments played an important
social and economic role in the Islamic world during the second period, from
the mid-eighteenth century to the late nineteenth. Established in the thirteenth
century, the Ottoman Empire inherited this institution, together with the term vakf
that denoted it,1 from earlier Islamic states. This
institution acquired a stable form
following the foundation of the Ottoman Empire—a form that was maintained,
mostly unchanged, until the beginning of the twentieth century.
The foundation of vakuf s took place through a legal act in which individuals
declared, of their own free will, that they had set aside a part of their property and
endowed it with the intention of coming closer to God [ qurbat]. The endowed
property became a vakuf which served Islamic-religious, cultural-educational,
and humanitarian causes.2
As the foundation of a vakuf is a legal act, certain conditions had to be met for
the procedure to be legally valid. One of the key conditions was that the endower
had to be the owner of the property and had to have the capacity to dispose of it.3
With regard to the property being endowed, Islamic law stipulates the condition
that it must be a property that can yield constant proceeds and perpetually serve
the purpose for which it is endowed. This is why, according to the definition of
vakuf in Islamic law, an endowment can only be movable property and real estate
of which the endower disposes as the owner. Since, however, movable property
cannot serve perpetually the purpose defined by the endower, it may be the object
of endowment if it is related to real estate. For this reason, founders of vakuf s
only endowed fixed property which could yield proceeds over time. Money also
yielded income through being lent at the condition that the sum would be repaid,
increased in accordance with Islamic legal principles by an amount predetermined
by the benefactor; thus, endowing money is also permitted under Islamic law.4
The purpose for which the vakuf was founded did not necessarily have to be
achieved immediately, in accordance with its foundation. In that respect, there
100
Women in the ottoman Balkans
are two kinds of vakuf. One category includes those endowments whose proceeds
were used immediately upon the foundation of the institution for the final purpose
defined by the benefactor. These were called vakf-ı hayrî. The other kind was the
family vakuf [ vakf-ı ehlî], in which the benefactor could decide that he or she
personally, or his or her family members, would initially dispose of the proceeds
yielded by the vakuf that he or she had established, and that after a certain period
of time (the duration of which would be set by the benefactor) the proceeds would
Women in the Ottoman Balkans: Gender, Culture and History Page 18
