Donald Reeves and the Ferhadija Mosque | A Promise Kept in Banja Luka

An Englishman in the Balkans is a weekly podcast about the people, places and everyday life of Bosnia and Herzegovina, told by David Bailey, who has lived here for more than 25 years. New episodes arrive every Tuesday.

Ten years ago, on the eve of the reopening of the Ferhadija Mosque in Banja Luka, I sat down in a hotel coffee bar with the Reverend Donald Reeves.

Donald was an Anglican priest, broadcaster, campaigner and peace builder, and a man Margaret Thatcher once described as “very dangerous”.

But his connection with Bosnia and Herzegovina came through something rather different.

After arriving in the Balkans around 2000, Donald and his small organisation, the Soul of Europe, became involved in the long and difficult effort to bring the Ferhadija back to Banja Luka.

The 16th-century mosque had been destroyed during the war in May 1993. After years of reconstruction, it finally reopened on 7 May 2016. I recorded my conversation with Donald the day before.

Listening to that recording again now feels very different. Donald died in October 2024 at the age of 90.

What strikes me most is his willingness to admit mistakes. He talks candidly about outsiders arriving in post-war Bosnia with confident ideas about justice, forgiveness, peace and reconciliation, and how experience eventually taught him to listen rather than explain.

He talks about the people here who became his teachers.

And he remembers the moment he drove into Banja Luka and saw the rebuilt Ferhadija minaret.

“Something we've done in this country has worked.”

This isn't really an obituary, and it isn't simply the story of a building.

It's a conversation about rebuilding, humility, persistence and what can happen when somebody stops making speeches and helps put the stones back

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