Rusmir Mahmutćehajić (1948–2026)

Rusmir Mahmutćehajić, the leading Bosnian Traditionalist, died in Sarajevo on 5 April 2026.

Mahmutćehajić discovered the writings of René Guénon and Frithjof Schuon as a young man. He trained as an electrical engineer, did a PhD in Italy, and taught electrical engineering in Croatia during the last period of Yugoslavia. 

When the Bosnian war started, he joined the Bosnian defense, arranging the provision of arms to the defenders of Sarajevo and serving in the first Government of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina as Minister of Energy, Mining and Industry and as Vice President. He resigned from the government in protest at the Dayton Agreement, which ended the war but accepted the de facto partition of Bosnia and Herzegovina into Muslim, Serb and Croat entities. As a believer in the transcendent unity of religions, Mahmutćehajić also believed in the unity of Bosnia and Herzegovina, for which he worked with devotion after Dayton in a private capacity, though without success—the forces keeping the three entities apart were too strong for anything or anyone to counter. 

Mahmutćehajić founded the International Forum Bosnia and the journal Dijalog, wrote many articles and  books (several of which were translated into English), and played an important part in the reception of Traditionalism in Bosnia, described in Samir Beglerović and Mark Sedgwick, "Islam in Bosnia Between East and West,” for which see here. 

Of his books in English, the three most notable are:

• The Denial of Bosnia (Pennsylvania State University Press, 2000)
• Bosnia the Good: Tolerance and Tradition (Central European University Press, 2000)
• Sarajevo Essays: Politics, Ideology, and Tradition (State University of New York Press, 2003)

My thanks to ND for bringing this news to my attention.

Traditionalist-inspired Bosnian art

A new article deals with a Sufi- and Traditionalist-inspired Bosnian artist, Meliha Teparić (born 1978). It is “Diving Deep into the Word of God: A Sufi Approach to Religious and Trans-Religious Images” by Haris Dervišević and Meliha Teparić, Religions 2024, 15(12), 1525, available open access here. 

Shown to the left is one of three versions of Teparić’s Gens Una Sumus [We are one people] (2017-2018), which shows the Virgin Mary in a mihrab, and is inspired by Frithjof Schuon’s conception of the transcendent unity of religions, and also by the Maryami understanding on the figure of Mary. It is especially relevant in Bosnia, where the sectarian divisions that emerged during the Bosnian War of 1992-1995 are still not fully resolved.

As well as the work shown, Teparić has also worked with re-imagined Arabic calligraphy, as can be seen on her website at http://melihateparic.com/paintings/.

Her work is inspired not only by Islam and Maryami Traditionalism, but also by “the abstract forms of artists like Kazimir Malevich, Piet Mondrian, Barnett Newman, Mark Rothko, and Ad Reinhardt.” This synthesis might be seen as not very traditional, but “Her deconstruction of Islamic calligraphy is not an act of rejection but rather a method of renewal—an attempt to bring the script into conversation with contemporary art while preserving its spiritual significance.”

Teparić graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts at the University of Sarajevo in 2002. In 2003 she joined the Naqshbandi tariqa of Shaykh Mesud Hadžimejlić (1937-2009), who came of a long line of Bosnian Naqshbandi shaykhs, and whose son Ćazim Hadžimejlić (born 1964) was teaching calligraphy at the Academy of Fine Arts. Professor Hadžimejlić later succeeded his father as Shaykh Ćazim.

New book on Traditionalist thought published (coming soon in US)

Mark Sedgwick, Traditionalism: The Radical Project for Restoring Sacred Order is now available in Europe and Canada. Readers in the US will have to wait until July 6. 

Official UK price is £25, but Amazon.co.uk is selling for £22 and £12.99 on Kindle. In Canada, $53.95 and $17.99 Kindle, and in Europe €22.19 and £18.75 Kindle. 

One of the first reviews is in The Scotsman, and says (in part) "This very fine book is a forensic look at the movement and its influence, and has several points where you both realise something and ponder 'why did I never realise that?'” That is rather what I had hoped for.

The book looks at the intellectual foundations of Traditionalism, its application both to various projects, and "post-Traditionalism." Each chapter looks first at the general intellectual background to the issue it discusses, and then at Traditionalist understandings, starting in most cases with René Guénon and ending as much as possible with living Traditionalists.

Forthcoming book on Traditionalist thought

One of the criticisms that have been made of my original Against the Modern World is that I did not pay enough attention to Traditionalist thought. I agree, and therefore a new book will come out in June 2023 focusing on ideas: Traditionalism: The Radical Project for Restoring Sacred Order. The book is a companion to Against the Modern World, not a replacement--it goes over different ground.

The publishers are Oxford University Press in the US (see cover without tree) at $29.95 (pre-order here) and Pelican in the UK (see cover with tree) at £22 or £9.99 on Kindle (pre-order here). Two very different covers, but the text is the same. 

 

The chapters are:

INTRODUCTORY
1. Traditionalism and the Traditionalists  
2. Historical perennialism  
 
PART I: FOUNDATIONS
3. Traditionalist perennialism   
4. Traditionalist history   
5. The Traditionalist critique of modernity   
6. Traditionalism, thought, and society    

PART II: CORE PROJECTS
7. Self-realization    
8. Religion    
9. Politics    

PART III: FURTHER PROJECTS
10. Art    
11. Gender    
12. Nature    
13. Dialogue  
  
PART IV: POST-TRADITIONALISM
14. The radical right   
 
CONCLUDING
15. Conclusion    

New article on Traditionalism in Bosnia

A comprehensive study of Traditionalism in Bosnia has just been published: Samir Beglerović and Mark Sedgwick, "Islam in Bosnia Between East and West: The Reception and Development of Traditionalism," Journal of Religion in Europe 13, no. 1-2 (December 2020): 145–172, https://doi.org/10.1163/18748929-20201498.

According to the abstract, 

The article looks at the reception and development of Guénonian Traditionalism in Bosnia from the 1970s to the present day. Traditionalism was initially received in Yugoslavia as esotericism, but then its reception became more Islamic, based in Sarajevo’s Islamic Theology Faculty. After the Bosnian War, Islamic Traditionalist works became popular among young Bosnians who wanted to combine Islam with European identities. Some Bosnian ulama taught Traditionalist works to their students, a development unparalleled elsewhere, and wrote their own Traditionalist-influenced works, mostly dealing with interreligious dialogue. The Bosnian reception and development of Traditionalism is unique, and it is argued that this reflects Bosnia’s special position between East and West. 

Samir Beglerović (1973–2020) was an associate professor of aqida (dogmatics), Sufism and Comparative Religion at the Faculty of Islamic Sciences, Sarajevo. He died of COVID-19 on 9 November 2020 as the final touches were being put to this article. An obituary in English can be read at https://www.unsa.ba/en/novosti/prof-dr-samir-beglerovic-passed-away.

Traditionalism in Bosnia

The following was peviously posted on the old Traditionalists.org addenda page.

Traditionalism is indirectly influential in Bosnian public discourse. Traditionalists writings guided Rusmir Mahmutćehajić--later a leading Bosnian public intellectual and for a time a politician--from a youthful involvement with an underground group deriving from the Muslim Brothers to a Traditionalist understanding of Islam and other religions. Mahmutćehajić resigned from the government of Alija Izetbegovic when Izetbegovic accepted the de facto partition of Bosnia, and worked for the restored unity of Bosnia on the basis of what was ultimately a Traditionalist understanding of the unity of religions. Traditionalism is an important element in Mahmutćehajić's thought, but only one element in a wide-ranging and original analysis.