A Serb woman found a Quran in the dirt after Bosnian Serb forces blew up the 16-century Aladza mosque in the eastern Bosnian town of Foca 27 years ago, and on Friday the holy book was returned to the newly renovated mosque.
After the Friday prayer, the owner of a grocery shop in nearby Gorazde, Mensur Kadric, handed over the holy book to the Aladza mosque's imam.
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“I fulfilled my duty,” Kadric said. “The lady of Orthodox faith has asked me to return the Quran to the people it belonged to. I did that. I am happy and relieved,” he said.
Bosnian Serb authorities that had taken over Foca in 1992 and blew up all of the town’s mosques as part of a plan to turn the territories they controlled into pure Serb land.
Half of Foca’s pre-war population was Muslim and faced persecution and ethnic cleansing.
The day after the mosque was blown up with dynamite, a Serb woman passed by the ruin and found the Muslim holy book on the street, covered in dirt. She picked it up, took it home, wrapped it in towels and kept it hidden even from her own family for 27 years.
On May 4, the reconstructed Aladza mosque was reopened in a grand ceremony. On May 5, the woman took the Quran and travelled to nearby Gorazde, entered Kadric’s shop, first looked around as if wanting to buy something and then approached the Muslim owner and asked him if he was religious.
When he said he was, she handed him the holy book and asked him to return it to where it belongs.
“I asked her how I can pay her because this book is very valuable, she said: mention me in your prayers because I am also religious,” Kadric said.
During Friday’s prayer, he mentioned this woman who refused to identify herself for safety reasons, he said.
The imam of the Aladza mosque said this gesture made the first Friday prayer in the renovated mosque even more beautiful.
“This is a wonderful gesture, to return the honourable Quran our fellow citizen found after the destruction of the mosque,” Imam Dzenan Krajisnik said.
The story touched the hearts of many believers and showed that, at the worst of times, there are good people who love their own but respect others as well. The believers expressed hope that this act does not remain the only testimony to the centuries-long atmosphere of tolerence in Bosnia.
