An excellent interview on TheWorld website looks at the reconstruction of mosques in Banja Luka , the capital of the Serb-run part of Bosnia. The backdrop of the rebuilding is the capture last month of Radovan Karadzic. The discussion is with Andras Reidlmayer, an expert of Islamic architecture at Harvard, Bedrudin Gusic, the president of Banja Luka's Islamic community at the time, and Muhamed Hamidovic, a former professor of architecture from Sarajevo. Jeb Sharp, the reporter, reminds readers that all 16 of the city's mosques were destroyed by Serb forces. The conversation focuses on the efforts to recreate the Ferhadija, which was built in the 1570s and blown up in 1993. The wreckage after the explosion was scattered throughout the city, when "Serbs went to extraordinary lengths to obliterate any evidence." Two-thirds of the fragments of the mosque have been recovered.
These pictures are from the TheWorld website.The first picture is the Ferhadija mosque. The second photo shows the pieces, which have been collected of the Ferhadija after it was destroyed.
