My Bosnian question

[Curious]

I'd like to hear ur opinions, theories and above all answers if anyone has them.

Its about how bosnia is majority muslim country now. The ottomans ruled greece, macedonia,bulgaria, bosnia for 500 years, my questions is, why is it that only in bosnia did the local population convert to islam? I mean serbs, greeks, macedonians and bulgarians all stayed orthodox but in bosnia they converted.....i'd luv to hear ur views on this.

[star]

Well now, this question is politically charged obviously. Do you want a brutally honest academic answer or the politically correct one?

[CroatianSerbAbroad]

Curious, you have stumped me with this one, if i am honest i have never even really thought about it.

I know that in history the turks were far more hostile to the catholics than the orthodox believers, many Catholic churches were burnt down and people converted in Bosnia. Indeed, one of the Mufti's had Serb relations and Serbia was occupied by the Turks.

The turks never penetrated Croatia as much due to the Krajina where Croatians and Croatian Serbs stood at the frontier of Western Europe to stop the advance of the turkish army. My guess would be that the Orthodox believers were never seen as a big threat to the turks so forced conversion was never imposed unlike on the Catholics but they could only expand so far and as such only worked their way as far as Bosnia.

You make the comment "they" converted, i would say that the majority of converts were Catholics in Bosnia and this is why today you see them Bosnian Croats as the minority of the three nations in Bosnia.

[star]

Thats right. The Orthodox Church had favoured status within the Ottoman administration. The Patriarch in Constantinople answered directly to the Sultan so there was no threat to the Turks from that quarter.

The Turks distrusted Catholics obviously though. The Pope was still free and organized many Crusades against the Turks. Bosnia was entirely Catholic at one point since it fell under the jurisdiction of Rome. Then in the 9th century and onwards the Bogomil heresy, known as the Cathars in the West, spread throughout Bosnia. In the Early 15th century the Pope sent franciscan missionaries to reconvert them which was successful. But only a decade later the Turks invaded with Serb auxillaries.

They did not trust Catholics since their loyalty could not be guaranteed like with the Orthodox. Plus the Muslims considered Catholics as "idolaters" which made things worse. The Catholics in Bosnia were given a choice, either Orthodoxy or Islam. Some converted to Orthodoxy to maintain a Christian identity. Many more converted to Islam since it provided enormous economic benefits and social mobility in the Ottoman aparatus. The hardcore Catholics feld to the mountains of Hercegovina or Croatia.

[Curious]

My questions had nothing to do with politics, if it did i would have said that the all the muslims in bosnia were croats at one stage. I just wanted to know why only bosnian did locals convert and so far the answers u guys gave me make sense.

Thanx

[quest]

Guest-Curious said:

I'd like to hear ur opinions, theories and above all answers if anyone has them.

Its about how bosnia is majority muslim country now. The ottomans ruled greece, macedonia,bulgaria, bosnia for 500 years, my questions is, why is it that only in bosnia did the local population convert to islam? I mean serbs, greeks, macedonians and bulgarians all stayed orthodox but in bosnia they converted.....i'd luv to hear ur views on this.

According to the statistics there are about 40-45% muslims in Bosnia (1991.). There are no actual numbers so we don't know how is it today. However there are many reasons why the muslims make the biggest group of people. One is because of the conversions, but it's also because huge numbers of muslims from neighboring countries which were conquered by the Ottomans (parts of Croatia, Hungary, Serbia, ...) fled to Bosnia after their teritory was reclaimed by the christian forces (Croatia, Hungary - about 1700.) or became independent (Serbia - about 1850.). Bosnia was an Ottoman province all the time.

[curoius]

Again i didnt ask how many muslims there were or who is the majority, my questions was WHY did the locals convert only in bosnia and not anywhere else and the answers that star and croserb gave me are very interesting

[quest]

Are you sure it's all because of the conversions and it's only in Bosnia? You have a lot of Muslims in Albania and Kosovo too. Actually you have it everywhere, where the local people didn't have a strong national feeling. I would say it's because the majority people in Bosnia aren't the real Bosnians. Huge numbers of people were "imported" from outside Bosnia (Orthodox) or fled into (many Muslims from neighboring countries). So it was impossible for them to feel like a single nation oppressed by the foreigners.

And btw, I just said that according to the last census the Muslims do not form the majority in Bosnia, it's the Christians and another wrong thing is that Bosnia wasn't an orthodox country like blg or greece, it was catholic when the Ottomans arrived.

[Karagoz]

Bosnians did not converted to Islam.They volunteered to changed their religion Christinaity to Islam.The reason was, as you know Yeniceri(Janissarry)'s are the elite units of The Ottoman Empire and only Muslims were allowed to become Janissary and that time Bosnians families wanted to be their sons join to Janissary company because they were really disciplanary,well trained and they were earning good salaries.Cutting long story to short, Bosnian people switched their religion Christinaty to Muslim was totally willingly by themselves

[star]

Guest-Karagoz said:

Bosnians did not converted to Islam.They volunteered to changed their religion Christinaity to Islam.The reason was, as you know Yeniceri(Janissarry)'s are the elite units of The Ottoman Empire and only Muslims were allowed to become Janissary and that time Bosnians families wanted to be their sons join to Janissary company because they were really disciplanary,well trained and they were earning good salaries.Cutting long story to short, Bosnian people switched their religion Christinaty to Muslim was totally willingly by themselves

Some but not all. The elite did out of financial concerns and some of their serfs followed them. The rest were converted by the devshirme or "blood tax" where the Ottomans would go around the villages and take the best young boys to Istanbul to learn Islam and become Janissaries or state officials. They were then sent back to administer the area or fight against their old families.

Classic divide and conquer technique.

[Shannon]

I've heard about this practice of the Ottoman Empire, whereby they took children from their families to bring them up as loyal and Muslim.
My Greek in laws tell me that the same happened to children from Greece, taken from their families and sent away.
Brutal, but an effective way to get a pool of converts from the local ethnic population, and to ensure the co-operation of the family left behind.

[DAKS]

one of THE REASONS WHY ISLAM became established in BOSNIA IS AS FOLLOWS

turks had a tradition of taking 3 yr old croatian males taking them back to turkey and bringing them up in military institutions
these men when they grew up would be sent to bosnia for military service taking with them their turkish wives
Croatian mothers in BOSNIA during ottoman rule used to tattoo cross`s on the hands of all new born males so the children would know that they were catholic

the JANISERRIS were one of the most feared cavalary units made up of these type of men .

Also certain croatian dukes sold out to keep their land and title

regards
daks

[Euro Princess]

The Bosnian people who converted did it because they believed the Quran was correct and made more sense to them than the Bible that is the answer simply put and it was their own choice to do so and this question by any means isn't really that hard to answer. The people who converted believed in the Quran and not the Bible that's all there is to it.

[TipratTiprat]

The real answer
Turks favoured Orthodox over Catholics. Ottomans let Serbs come in and build orthodox church’s etc.
Turks raped and pillaged Bosnia, Bosnia feel to the ottomans
The western front, which is modern day Croatia never fell. Croatia for a long time have been the defenders of the catholic religion in Europe, (and the Vatican knows that and loves us for it, as we do the Vatican) if Croatia fell then Islam would have been spread well into the other catholic nations in Europe.
Bosnian Muslims were basically forced and killed into been Muslims
When the ottomans took over, over 1 millions Croats were killed and another 1.5 million were sent as slaves to the Middle East. The rest were forced to convert to being Muslims. That’s just how it is, The Bosnian history is basically the Croatian history, they speak our language and all, but that were raped by the ottomans. I don’t know how other people feel but I don’t understand how modern day Bosnian Muslims can be proud of that fact and there history on how they came to existence…?

Euro princess is way off, no offence but she must be a Bosnian Muslim

[CroatianSerbAbroad]

The real truth is that yes the Ottomans did favour the Orthodox faith over the Catholics due to hostilities between the Catholics and the Muslims, the crusades being a prime example. This was also supported by that fact that one of the Mufti's were Serbian in origin so under that period the two did co-operate.

In terms of protecting Christianity, Austria created the "Krajina" in 1553/1578, inviting Serbs to the region to fight against the Ottoman Empire and Muslims and it would be fair to say that ethnic Croatians also played a big part in this repulsion of Islamic forces, it is not however fair to say that this was purely down to ethnic Croatians and is a distortion of history.

This Krajina should also not be confused with the one that was created in the early 90's, they were not the same. The Vojna Krajina was administered by Vienna and was only re-integrated back to Croatia in 1869.

Present day Muslims are the offspring of converts from Christianity, both Serb and Croat but who can argue that any of us are "pure" in this part of the world? They are proud of their land and i can understand this. We must respect this and them as a nation, co-operation is the key, respect them as people and not their past.