Djamila
Bosnjakinja
Religious Fables
This bridge is the famed Stari Most (Old Bridge) of Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina. It was built more than 400 years ago during the Ottoman Empire and still today remains the oldest, tallest, and longest stone bridge in Europe.
There is a religious fable regarding this bridge, one of the most beautiful I know - one that reflects the values and traditions of Bosnia with its words.
I'd love to share it with you all!
They say, when God first made the world, it was a soft and as perfectly rounded as fresh, warm clay. God gave this beautiful gift to man and this made the devil jealous. With his claws, he dug deep into God's earth - at Bosnia - and carved deep scars into the landscape.
These scars became the Dinaric mountains of central Bosnia, and their effect was heartbreaking. The peaks and the valleys separated God's beloved creation, men, from each other. With time, the people on one valley no longer viewed those in the next as being the same. The people on one mountain peak did not feel a sense of shared purpose with those on another.
Wars and violence broke out and all of this upset God so greatly that he sent an angel to Bosnia. This angel, a beautiful young woman, went to Mostar - to the Neretva River. There she kneeled down in the waters and spread her wings from one bank of the river to the other - thus the men were able to cross over her back.
The Stari Most was built to take the place of this angel, it's graceful curves meant to mirror the shape of her heavenly wings. Thus it was that men came to learn how to build bridges, and thus it is that bridges will always be a symbol of tolerance and of peace.
So, for Bosnians, a bridge is sacred. And whether it is just a log across a river, or the grand masterpiece of Stari Most - it must be left alone, and allowed to serve its purpose for as long as God has ordained that it should stand.
There is a religious fable regarding this bridge, one of the most beautiful I know - one that reflects the values and traditions of Bosnia with its words.
I'd love to share it with you all!
They say, when God first made the world, it was a soft and as perfectly rounded as fresh, warm clay. God gave this beautiful gift to man and this made the devil jealous. With his claws, he dug deep into God's earth - at Bosnia - and carved deep scars into the landscape.
These scars became the Dinaric mountains of central Bosnia, and their effect was heartbreaking. The peaks and the valleys separated God's beloved creation, men, from each other. With time, the people on one valley no longer viewed those in the next as being the same. The people on one mountain peak did not feel a sense of shared purpose with those on another.
Wars and violence broke out and all of this upset God so greatly that he sent an angel to Bosnia. This angel, a beautiful young woman, went to Mostar - to the Neretva River. There she kneeled down in the waters and spread her wings from one bank of the river to the other - thus the men were able to cross over her back.
The Stari Most was built to take the place of this angel, it's graceful curves meant to mirror the shape of her heavenly wings. Thus it was that men came to learn how to build bridges, and thus it is that bridges will always be a symbol of tolerance and of peace.
So, for Bosnians, a bridge is sacred. And whether it is just a log across a river, or the grand masterpiece of Stari Most - it must be left alone, and allowed to serve its purpose for as long as God has ordained that it should stand.
