The Muslim News

Muslim teen donates his allowance to help preserve Franciscan artifacts

30-06-2004

FOJNICA, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) A 15-year-old Muslim boy donated his $21 allowance to a drive Wednesday to raise money to help preserve centuries-old artifacts rotting in the damp basement of a Franciscan monastery damaged in the Bosnian war.

The monastery, built in 1888 in Fojnica by priests who have lived in the central Bosnian town for 650 years, suffered substantial structural damage in Bosnia's 1992-95 war.

Some 40,000 books 12,000 of them older than 200 years are ``virtually falling apart and unless urgent action is undertaken, will be gone forever,'' monastery guardian Fra Mirko Majdandzic said.

Other artifacts in jeopardy included a document bearing the 1463 order by Turkish Sultan Mehmed II allowing Catholics to freely worship in Bosnia.

Majdandzic offered no details on how much money had been raised during the one-day conference in Fojnica, some 30 miles northwest of Sarajevo.

But, he said, the most impressive donation, ``not because of the amount of money but because of its moral message,'' was from Edin Vejzovic, a 15-year-old Muslim boy from the southern town of Mostar who sent his allowance for the month.

The government-sponsored conference was attended by Dragan Covic, one of the presidency's three members; Niko Lozancic, president of the Bosnian Muslim-Croat Federation and business and church leaders.

The 1992-1995 war pitting Orthodox Serbs opposed to Bosnia's independence from then-Yugoslavia against Muslims and Roman Catholic Croats backing it claimed about 250,000 lives and left about 20,000 missing and presumed dead.