Next year, Foča will get the reconstructed Aladža Mosque that was demolished in 1992. Currently in progress are works on the construction, and everything goes as planned.
Mile and Miro from Foča are workers who work on the reconstruction of the Aladža Mosque in Foča. When asked whether the divisions between people can be felt in their town, Miro says:
“Media are the greatest evil in the world! They are those who send out the wrong image about the world, fill people’s heads with divisions, when the truth should be said. These politicians now, they are those who create divisions. Their aim was always to mislead, and then rule. Media are the same, because they live of lies. Low people never divided among themselves.”
His colleague Mile adds:
“Ordinary people never divided. Ordinary people always lived together. What matters is to be human”.
Miro says he was born in Foča and he still maintains contact with his friend Enes from Sweden.
“I am a Serb, but I build this mosque, what is the problem there? Why would that bother me? Should I care about anyone’s religion, what is in there for me? Let us work.”
Investor of the project is the Islamic Community in BiH, the Mufti Office of Goražde, the Majlis of Islamic Community Foča. Faruk Džankić, Secretary of the Majlis of Islammic Community Foča, stated that they hope for coexistence in Foča, especially after the reconstruction of Aladža that used to be the symbol of the former Foča.
“When you say Foča, you would automatically think of Aladža, it was the symbol of Foča. While talking to our neighbors, we find out that 99 percent of them believe that it should have never been demolished. That is the healthy, inter-neighborly and interreligious thinking and in this context we should work and move forward and create coexistence,” Džankić said.
Currently, more than 10 meters of Aladža Mosque and over 13 meters of the minaret are built.
“Works are going well, everything goes as planned, according to the foreseen dynamics and I hope it will keep that way and that we will complete the mosque soon,” said Džankić.
Aladža Mosque was built in 1549 in Foča. It was one of the larger mosques and the first mosque in BiH built in the classic Ottoman style. It was built by the close associate of Mimar Sinan and its greatest value is that all later mosques were built based on the idea of the Aladža Mosque.
Aladža Mosque was entirely demolished by Serb authorities in August 1992. Its reconstruction started on December 12, 2004 and the completion of reconstruction is expected in 2017.
(Source: klix.ba/photo:
