Bosnia Journey 2026 — Day 6

Bismillahir-Rahmanir-Rahim

We took our breakfast at the hotel restaurant at our leisure and in peace. The sun had begun to spread its gentle rays over the city of Mostar, entering through the windows softly, as if it were waking the place with a quiet awakening, without any violence. The people in the restaurant were between a silent one contemplating his new day and one speaking softly, while the scent of coffee and hot bread rose, putting into the soul something of companionship and peace. We sat at the table taking our food in the calm of the traveller who has grown accustomed to journeying — he does not prolong his stay in a place, yet he does not cease to reflect on what he sees of people's conditions and the country.

After breakfast I turned to some of my work, reviewing what I had written in the previous days, replying to letters that had accumulated, and arranging the affairs of the next journey. The traveller sometimes imagines that travel is a cutting-off from work, but in truth it is a movement from work to work, and from fatigue to fatigue — only that the fatigue of travel is lightened by the renewal of scenes and the variation of faces and places.

We left the hotel in the city of Mostar at half past nine in the morning, heading for Sarajevo. The road extended between mountains and rivers in a quiet beauty that put something of serenity into the soul. The bus cut its way up and down, while small villages and houses scattered on the slopes were revealed before us, and rivers appeared between the rocks like threads of silver running in a wide green robe.

Our silence in the bus did not last long; my companions began asking me about various matters connected with the conditions of family and marriage, the rulings of divorce and the waiting period, and the details of fiqh and its problems that branch out from them, then the conversation moved to questions of prayer, purification, and other matters that people need in their daily life and worship. It was strange that these questions, despite their many and varied nature, were not questions of debate and ostentation, but questions of the seeker after peace, the enquirer who wants to be guided to what he sees is closer to the truth and gentler to the people.

I would answer them with what Allah had opened for me, drawing on what I had memorised of the jurists' statements and their proofs, trying to combine precision of knowledge with the facility of the Shariah, for religion was not made to torment people or to put them into hardship, but was made as guidance, mercy, and life-rectification. Some of them would follow up the answer with another question, and so our conversations branched out, until the bus on the road turned into a small gathering of knowledge, in which travel was mixed with reflection, and the beautiful scene with calm juristic investigation.

I saw the joy apparent in the students' faces when they heard the answers, not because they had merely received fatwas, but because they felt that when knowledge is mixed with gentleness and sincerity, the heart expands to it and the soul finds peace in it. Perhaps the greatest thing that gives satisfaction to a teacher's soul is to see the effect of his talk in the minds of his listeners, and to feel that knowledge is still capable of uniting people in a time whose causes of division and disturbance have multiplied.

The bus continued cutting its way towards Sarajevo, while the conversation went on sometimes and paused sometimes. The mountains around us were quiet and majestic, as if they too were listening to the conversation in the bus about religion and life. We then dismounted near the Tunnel of Hope close to Sarajevo airport — a place that one does not see at first glance except as a small modest building, but as soon as you hear its story you realise you are standing before a bleeding page of modern history, written by suffering and patience and a will that does not break.

With us was a retired officer of the Bosnian army, whose beard had grown white and whom the years had weighed down, but his voice still carried something of the heat of fighters who had lived through war and seen death face to face. He stood and talked to us at length about the days of the siege, and about Sarajevo when all the passages were closed upon it, so that it became a besieged city between mountains and fires, connected to the outside world only by an airport controlled by UN forces. When people wanted to leave or bring in some food and medicine, they were forced to cross the airstrip on foot, running, under the eyes of snipers who watched the movement from surrounding positions, so that death there was not an accidental event but was present in every step and every glance.

Then he told us about that courageous decision taken by the Bosnian army when all ways were cut off — to dig a tunnel under the airport connecting the besieged city with the outside world. The digging began from a small modest house of the Kolar family, in a quiet neighbourhood where no one imagined that under its ground would be born a lifeline for an entire city. The work on the tunnel began from two sides: from Dobrinja and from Butmir, while shells were falling, groundwater was obstructing the diggers, and sniping surrounded them from every direction. Despite this, the work continued for months until the tunnel was completed in the summer of 1993.

Translation note: This article was translated by AI. View the original Telegram post.