Hüseyin Pasha Boljanić

Husein-paša's Mosque in Pljevlja, built by Hüseyin Pasha Boljanić. It has the highest mosque minaret in the Balkans.

Hüseyin Pasha Boljanić (Turkish: Bodur Hüseyin Paşa "Hüseyin Pasha the Short"; Bosnian: Husein-paša Boljanić or Husein Boljanić; died 1595^[1][2][3]) was an Ottoman statesman and government official who served many high-level positions in the Ottoman Empire, including governorship (beylerbey or wāli) of Bosnia (1569–72, 1594–95), of Damascus (1582–83), of Diyarbekir, of Budin, of Aleppo, of Van, of Anatolia, and of Egypt (1573–74).^[1][4][5]

Biography

Hüseyin was born in the village of Boljanići, close to the city of Pljevlja, (now in Montenegro), born to the then-famed Boljanić family. He had three brothers, named Sinan, Ali, and Davud, and two sisters, Maksûme and Zulkâde. His older brother Sinan married the sister of grand vizier Sokollu Mehmed Pasha, which gave Hüseyin important connections throughout his life. Sokollu Mehmed Pasha took young Hüseyin to Istanbul, the capital of the empire, to be educated for joining the bureaucracy in the Enderun palace school.^[1] He was described and nicknamed as bodur, meaning "short" in Turkish.

After a successful stint as a bureaucrat in Popovo field, he became the bey (governor) of Sanjak of Herzegovina from 1567 to 1569, a position his brother Sinan had also held right before him from 1563 to 1567.^[6] After 1569, Hüseyin Pasha became the governor of Bosnia. Three years later, he was appointed the governor of the Diyarbekir Eyalet, a prestigious post. Before long, he became a vizier and was appointed the governor of Egypt Eyalet in 1573.^[4][5] Succeeding Koca Sinan Pasha as the governor of Egypt and only holding the office for around a year, he was described by a European source as "affectionate to men of learning, of a mild and modest disposition, and highly averse to all cruelty."^[7] However, such qualities were anachronistic for that time, as tensions in Egypt between the governor, the sipahis of the army, and the local Mamluks were rising; the same source recounts that robberies and bandits ran abound during his term.^[7] He then returned to Istanbul in 1574.

Little is known about his life for the ten years between 1575 and 1585, but in 1585, Hüseyin Pasha was appointed the governor of Baghdad Eyalet. In 1594, he was again made the governor of Bosnia. After retiring within a few months, he died in 1595.^[3]

Legacy

He had the famous Husein-paša's Mosque in Pljevlja built between 1573 and 1594, which still holds the distinction of being one of the largest mosques in the region and having the highest minaret of any mosque in the Balkans, although that was a later addition after his original minaret was struck down by lightning in 1911.

See also

• Husein-paša's Mosque
• List of Ottoman governors of Egypt
• List of Ottoman governors of Damascus
• List of Ottoman governors of Bosnia

References

1. Mehmet Süreyya (1996) [1890], Nuri Akbayar; Seyit A. Kahraman, eds., Sicill-i Osmanî, Beşiktaş, Istanbul: Türkiye Kültür Bakanlığı and Türkiye Ekonomik ve Toplumsal Tarih Vakfı
2. Yılmaz Öztuna (1994). Büyük Osmanlı Tarihi: Osmanlı Devleti'nin siyasî, medenî, kültür, teşkilât ve san'at tarihi. 10. Ötüken Neşriyat A.S. pp. 412–416. ISBN 975-437-141-5.
3. "Middle East Kingdoms." Kingdoms of the Arabs. N.p., 02 Jan. 1999. Web. 11 Oct. 2013. .
4. Philip Sidney (2012). The Correspondence of Sir Philip Sidney. Oxford University Press. p. 359. ISBN 978-0-19-955822-3.
5. Muhedin Fijuljanin (2010). Sandžački Bošnjaci: monografija. Centar za Bošnjačke Studije. ISBN 978-86-85599-14-9.
6. Kratka uputa u prošlost Bosne i Hercegovine s.184-185
7. Accounts and Extracts of the Manuscripts in the Library of the King of France. R. Faulder. 1789. p. 18.

• Article with an image of him