Karađoz-Begova Džamija

Karađoz-Bey's mosque stood roughly in the middle of Mostar, thus crowning itself as the main mosque in this historic city. As with other mosques, Karađoz-Bey's was proud to have a well-kept graveyard adjacent to it. Its fountain was working, and so was its toilets, but the small rooms in its compound seemed long-abandoned. I peeked into them and saw a great collection of books and old 'scriptures' shrouded- almost hidden- by the mesh of cobwebs and dusts.

Taking the whole story a few steps back, we actually weren't overjoyed at the first sight of this mosque. Nubli was very quick to notice that it wasn't hosting worshippers, but instead tourists. Men and women with hats and cameras walked into its main hall after paying 2 Mark at a post guarding its door. I could have done the same, but there was an honest aversion emerging from the very bottom of my heart. As a matter of principle, I don't walk into a mosque-cum-musuem and joyfully snap pictures to add into my photo collection. In fact, the last thing I want to do was to celebrate the loss of Islam, in this case as signified by a dysfunctional mosque.

Our interpretations and judgements again proved to be totally inaccurate. Izzudin, a tall clean-looking man who was selling the tickets quickly recognized our Islamic inclinations, probably from the very different attitude we were showing towards this 'museum'. He did try to sell the tickets to us, an act that rendered us speechless; a very wise reaction especially when you were feeling awkward already. "Muslim??" he thoughtfully asked, to which we quickly and happily nodded. What a relief!

As a record, maybe he was the first 'true', practising Muslim whom we spoke to in this entire journey. He proved to be very helpful, just as how we would find other Bosnian Muslims are. Unbelievably, his perfect English, according to Him, was acquired from watching english films. This fact is the most disturbing to me, for as far as I have tried, it has never worked on me! Soon the proud autodidact Izzudin was bombarded with questions we have always wanted to ask, but until then have never found a friendly, reliable person to speak to. He advised us to come back at 1pm for zuhr prayers, and promised to help us then. Oh, how I loved the idea! So this 'museum' is still a mosque after all.