Zeki Effendi (1845-1916) was born Moshe ben Rafael Attias (Atijas) to a prominent Sephardic Jewish family in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. He was also known as Moše Rafajlović.

He was a tax advisor, a scholar of Islamic religion and culture and of medieval Persian literature, a collector of Bosnian-Sephardic heritage, a translator, and a historian of Bosnian Jewry.

After having completed his secondary schooling at an Ottoman state school in Sarajevo, he continued his education in Istanbul, focusing on Islamic religion and culture, especially on the…