POČITELJ U VRIJEME OSMANSKE VLADAVINE

The village of Počitelj was an important crossroad. It was the reason why the castle of Bivolje Brdo above the left side of today’s town Čapljina, which was quite far from the banks of river Neretva, the bridges above her and roads which passed beside its banks, after 1404 when Humska zemlja become part of the feudal region of Kosača was abandoned, and instead of her a new one was built under name of Počitelj. Under the treat of Ottoman occupation of the feudal reign of Kosača/Herzegovina, her master Stipan Vukčić Kosača gives up the castle to the Ugrims / Hungarian in year 1465, and they placed its garrison in it. The Republic of Dubrovnik gave promises to renovate the castle, and supply troops with ammunition and other necessities. The commander in chief of the Herzeg district which was a part of the Bosnian sanjak, Hamza-bey Obrinović, the castle of was Počitelj surrounded on the 16th September and occupied on 20th September 1465. The Hungarian garrison withdrew without battle, to the island of Posrednica on the river Neretva near the town Opuzen. A 21 Ottoman crew occupied the castle. Počitelj experienced a bloom during the Ottoman reign. Near the castle a new town was built, and documents of it was found in the wider record of Herzegovina sanjak from year 1585, in which were at that time 12 houses. In the year 1562/1563, hajji Alija, son of Musa-aga, built a mosque and beside it a mekteb (elementary school). Around the mosque, a new street, Mahala mesjjida hajji Alije, arose. In the same time, in town, once a week started market day at the end of XVI century and with that, the town of Počitelj gained conditions to be a provincial town (kasaba). Thanks to two endowers (waqifs) hajji Omer-aga, and his son Šišman Ibrahim pasha, from Počitelj, who was a high ranking officer in Ottoman Empire, Počitelj experienced an urban transformation beginning of XVII century. The first of the mentioned officers built a house for sleepover (han) and a public kitchen (imaret) and the second one a new mosque and beside it he built a high school (medresa) with the library, clock tower, and many small shops, whose income was used for maintenance of the endowed institutions. In the provincial town lived many scholars and copyists of books. The most important recognition of Počitelj was gained with establishment of the captaincy /port director’s office in the year 1713 and the qadi’s office/jurisdictional district in 1782. The most prominent Muslim family from Počitelj was t