Ali Pasha Rizvanbegović

Ali-paša Rizvanbegović was born in the Begovina neighbourhood of Stolac in 1783. In 1813, being thirty years old, he was appointed as the captain of his native city, a position he would hold until 1833 and which would turn out to have a crucial importance.

Ali Pasha was a heterodox Muslim, belonging to a sect led by certain Shekih Sikirica from Visoko, who found a skull with a few strands of hair, and proclaimed it a saint. Ali Pasha and his sons, as well as some other beys from Bosnia and Herzegovina visited Sikirica once a year for worship, which looked like a "small Kaaba". The local mufti of Mostar considered Sikirica a heretic. Ali Pasha later became a Sufi dervish.[2]

In 1822, the Ottoman governor of Bosnia Celaludin Pasha executed Ali Pasha's father.[3]

Territories under the control of Ali-paša Rizvanbegović and his allies (in darker shade).

Ali-paša Rizvanbegović was strongly opposed to the 1831 Bosnian uprising, led by Husein Gradaščević. He made Stolac a rallying point for the forces loyal to the Ottoman government – in conjunction with fellow loyalist Smail-aga Čengić, Captain of Gacko, who acted similarly in his own place.

In the early phase of the uprising, Ali-paša gave refuge in Stolac to the Ottoman governor Namik-paša, who had fled after the rebels' capture of Travnik. A rebel army set out from Sarajevo to attack Stolac, but this was put on hold when the rebels found that Namik-paša had left the city.

In the final months of 1831, however, the rebels launched an overall offensive against the loyalist captains, aimed at ending domestic opposition to the uprising and bringing the whole of Herzegovina under rebel rule. Rebel forces led by the captain of Livno, Ibrahim-beg Fidrus, attacked and defeated Sulejman-beg, captain of Ljubuški.

That victory placed most of Herzegovina in rebel hands, leaving Stolac isolated and under a rebel siege. Ali-paša Rizvanbegović conducted well the city's defense. In early March 1832 he received information that the Bosnian rebels' ranks were depleted due to the winter and broke the siege, counterattacking the rebels and dispersing their forces. At the time, a rebel force under the command of Mujaga Zlatar had been sent from Sarajevo with the intention of reinforcing the force besieging Stolac – but was recalled by the rebel leadership on 16 March 1832, after news arrived of an impending major Ottoman offensive.

With the Ottoman armies closing in on Sarajevo in a following months, Ali-paša Rizvanbegović advanced with his own forces, as did his fellow loyalist Smail-aga Čengić of Gacko. Their armies arrived on 4 June at Stup, a small locality on the road between Sarajevo and Ilidža, where a long, intense battle had already been going on between the main Ottoman armies and the rebel army led by Gradaščević himself.

Herzegovinian reinforcements sent by Ali-paša Rizvanbegović eventually captured the Tsar's Mosque in Sarajevo and overthrew Bosnians disloyal to the Sultan.

The Herzegovinian loyalist troops broke through defenses Gradaščević had set up on his flank and joined the fighting. Overwhelmed by the unexpected attack from behind, the rebel army was forced to retreat into the city of Sarajevo itself, where their leaders decided that further military resistance would be futile. The imperial army entered Sarajevo on 5 June and Gradaščević went into exile in Austria.

As a reward for confronting Husein Gradaščević and Bosnia Eyalet, Ali-paša Rizvanbegović was awarded his very own Pashaluk of Herzegovina by Mahmud II, it was later dissolved in the year 1851.

While Ali-paša Rizvanbegović hoped to establish a long lasting hereditary viziership, whereby he would eventually transfer power to his descendants, this was at odds with the Ottoman government's plans for the region. Despite Ali-paša's earlier support against the Gradaščević rebellion, Sultan Abdülmecit I felt that Ali-paša was beginning to act too independently and feared that Herzegovina would secede from the Empire (the sultan who had empowered Ali-paša, Mahmut II, had already died in 1839). Furthermore, Omar Pasha, who had then been put in command of the military in Bosnia, got wind that Ali-paša was conspiring against him at a secret meeting in Sarajevo. On orders from the Porte, Ali-paša was preemptively arrested and subsequently executed on 20 March 1851 by Omar Pasha in a humiliating and cruel manner,[9] and the Pashaluk of Herzegovina was abolished and its territory was merged with the Pashaluk of Bosnia, forming a new entity known as Bosnia Vilayet.

• Alipasini Izvori
• Pashaluk of Herzegovina
• Herzegovina
• History of Herzegovina
• History of Bosnia and Herzegovina

• Hamdija Kapidžić, Ali-paša Rizvanbegović i njegovo doba, ANUBiH i Filozofski fakultet u Sarajevu, Sarajevo 2001., str. 190