A Balkan Ramadan
Celebrating Ramadan in Sarajevo is a unique experience
OOK! It’s Dino Merlin,” whispered the man beside me.
A well-groomed man in his early 50s wanders into the courtyard of Sarajevo’s Gazi Husrev-beg Mosque. He is wearing stylish sunglasses and regatta-chic clothes. He seats himself on a large stone block near the mosque’s veranda. Nobody bats an eyelid. People are too busy listening to the Qur’anic recitation echoing through the space. Some of them mouth the words silently as they follow the recitation in the Qur’ans they are holding.
“He is the most famous singer in Bosnia … probably the most famous person in Bosnia,” continued the man, who is about the same age as Merlin and is wearing a striped top and blue denim jeans. We are sat under a large tree in the courtyard an hour before Asr prayer and already the mosque is nearly full, both inside and out. People look for space on the woven plastic mats rolled out by the caretakers. Men sit on the right and women on the left, huddled in groups wherever the late afternoon shade falls. There are also many families who have come to pray together.
Merlin, whose real name is Edin Dervišhalidovi, is as transfixed by the words of the seven Qur’an reciters as we are. He stares intently at their images projected onto large screens on either side of the veranda. Anywhere else in the world, this chart-topping pop superstar may have felt out of place at a religious service in a mosque — but not here.
“I love Ramadan in Sarajevo. I love coming here… to listen to these amazing reciters from around the world. Today, there are three — from Saudi Arabia, Iran and Turkey. They recite Qur’an every day after Fajr and before Asr so that we can sit, listen and benefit from the beauty of their recitation. Even if you are working and cannot come here, you can hear the recitation around the town,” explained my striped companion who thumbed a tasbih in his right hand. The medieval Ottoman city of Sarajevo is indeed a wonderful place to be in Ramadan. Sitting proudly at the crossroads of East and West, Sarajevo embraces the Islamic holy month as naturally as it embraces Christmas or Easter. It is a truly Western Muslim city.
All around town, signs read “Ramadan Mubarak” and every restaurant offers a festive iftar menu. Special concerts, film screenings and open iftars are held throughout the month. Despite this, tourists and non-Muslim residents continue to eat alfresco and sip coffee served by fasting waiters. Shops and businesses open as normal — reducing hours as they see fit — but nothing stops. In fact, certain businesses face extra pressure in Ramadan.
“They work more now than at any other time of the year,” resident Elmedin Music explained as we stop at a bakery on the corner of a street halfway up the steep hills of Sarajevo’s Jekovac district. Twenty-five-year-old Music is the manager of Hostel MAK in the center of Sarajevo’s old town and like many locals, he has altered his working day for Ramadan. Having spent the morning greeting his guests, he napped for a few hours and is now determined to show us what makes Ramadan so special in his home town.
“The smell of cooked somun … that is the smell of Ramadan!”
The tiny bakery in Jekovac specializes in somun, the local flatbread that is a Bosnian iftar staple. Inside, a huge man sweeps flattened circular dough into a wood-fired oven with a large baker’s paddle. As soon as the raw dough is set down, he sweeps out cooked pieces. He repeats this over and over, stopping only to wipe the sweat from his brow using his whiteish apron. A young girl then stacks the somun neatly into large wicker baskets, ready for the hungry Muslims who will start queuing at the window shortly. Our guide leads us up to a section of an 18th century Ottoman fort built above Sarajevo called the Yellow Bastion, from where the view at sunset is breathtaking. A crimson glow shrouds the green mountains that surround the ancient city like a bowl. But it is not to admire the view that our guide has brought us here. The city of Sarajevo has reignited the tradition of firing a cannon at the end of each day during Ramadan to signal the end of the fast. This event is part of the city’s annual Ramadan Festival, now in its third year, and sees a small mock cannon loaded with fireworks set off just before the Maghrib prayer. It draws crowds of people who come armed with picnics to sit with friends, family and strangers to break their fast in what has become Sarajevo’s most popular open iftar.
“You can see everyone is mixing so freely here to celebrate a Muslim festival, even if they are not Muslim or fasting themselves,” Music said.
All around us, groups of young and old people sit together, plastic boxes are opened and home-cooked food is passed around. Some people have bought their iftar on the way up and flip open takeaway boxes. Toddlers chase each other between the legs of standing adults and the smell of delicious dishes fills the air. Behind the green hills, the final lingering rays of the setting sun disappear as the fairy lights atop the bastion light up. The day is done, but not for Ramadan in Sarajevo. Soon, the Taraweeh prayers will be heard across town, followed by the buzz of locals socializing into the early hours. Ramadan is a truly magical experience in Sarajevo, a capital city that is like no other.