Mahala: Magical Islands

A Nissological Perspective on the Historical Landscape of Sarajevo

Abstract

This paper investigates the mahale (singular mahala), the Ottoman residential neighbourhoods of historical Sarajevo. These consist of clusters of courtyard houses grouped around mosques and were formerly organised as self-administered and self-sufficient neighbourhoods. Today they form a historical landscape that is mostly detached from the contemporary architectural and urban discourse. The investigation looks into the history and origins of the mahala archetype, as well as its contemporary re-emergence, arguing for a critical assessment and re-invention. This is undertaken by linking the mahala’s original concept to the idea of the urban island, using the methods and metaphors of nissology, the geographical study of islands. By following a critical historiography of key examples of the type, the mahala, as an island, is understood as an ambivalent device, one that incorporates both a military apparatus for imperial colonisation and a decolonial social apparatus for the empowerment of local settlements. The paper concludes by proposing a re-invention of this apparatus, understanding it as a bottom-up decolonial idea: a “magical” island formed by social (and mythical) practices that reiterate local communal “interiors”.