Mehmed Spaho - Early Life

Early Life

Spaho was born in Sarajevo to a coppersmith family. His father Hasan was an expert of the Sharia law, and before the Austrian-Hungarian occupation, he was a judge in Jajce, Sofia, Damascus and Cairo. His mother was Fatima née Bičakčić. Spaho had also three sisters, Behija, Aiša and Habiba, and two brothers, Fehim and Mustafa.

Spaho attended elementary school in Sarajevo, where he was a good student. In 1906graduated from the Faculty of Law at the University of Vienna. At the end of 1907 he passed the doctoral exam and on 7 February 1908, he was officially named dr. iur. In Vienna, Spaho was a member of an organization called "Zvijezda" (The Star), an organization that gathered Muslim students. This organization promoted a closer cooperation between Serbs and Bosnian Muslims. Pro-Croat oriented Hakija Hadžić claimed that he challenged Spaho to a duel, while both of them were in Vienna, but Spaho refused to appear.

When he returned from Vienna in 1906, Spaho worked as a court clerck until 1908. In 1910 he become a lawyer clerck for Josef Fischer. When the Commercial Chamber was established in Sarajevo in 1910, on its session held on 11 November 1910, Spaho was elected to be its secretary with an annual payment of 6,000 kronas; he started to work on 1 January 1911. During that time, he had an ambition to enter the Diet of Bosnia, along with other group of Muslims educated outside Bosnia and Herzegovina. His group eventually failed to enter the Diet. In 1914, Spaho was elected to Sarajevo City Council, after his political associate and friend, Esad Kulović, stepped down. By this, Spaho dealt with both, economics and politics.