page_title: Bosniaks
section_title: Islamization and Ottoman Empire
hierarchical_section_title: Bosniaks / History / Islamization and Ottoman Empire
caption_attribution_description: Македонски: Парк Шума Гази Баба, во мај 2015 English: Gazi Baba Forest, Skopje Macedonia This is a photo of a natural area in North Macedonia, with ID: E01 This image was uploaded as part of Wiki Loves Earth 2015. aragonés&#160;| العربية&#160;| asturianu&#160;| azərbaycanca&#160;| български&#160;| বাংলা&#160;| brezhoneg&#160;| català&#160;| čeština&#160;| Cymraeg&#160;| Deutsch&#160;| Ελληνικά&#160;| English&#160;| español&#160;| eesti&#160;| euskara&#160;| فارسی&#160;| français&#160;| galego&#160;| hrvatski&#160;| հայերեն&#160;| Bahasa Indonesia&#160;| italiano&#160;| 日本語&#160;| ქართული&#160;| 한국어&#160;| македонски&#160;| മലയാളം&#160;| मराठी&#160;| Bahasa Melayu&#160;| norsk bokmål&#160;| नेपाली&#160;| Nederlands&#160;| norsk&#160;| polski&#160;| português&#160;| português do Brasil&#160;| русский&#160;| sicilianu&#160;| shqip&#160;| српски / srpski&#160;| svenska&#160;| ไทย&#160;| українська&#160;| 中文&#160;| +/−
context_page_description: The Bosniaks or Bosniacs are a South Slavic nation and ethnic group native to Southeast European historical region of Bosnia, which is today part of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
  A native minority of Bosniaks live in other countries in the Balkans; especially in the Sandžak region of Serbia and Montenegro, and in Croatia and Kosovo. Bosniaks are typically characterized by their historic tie to the Bosnian historical region, traditional majority adherence to Islam since the 15th and 16th centuries, common culture and Bosnian language. As of 2017 Bosniaks are also recognised as a national minority in Albania.English speakers frequently refer to Bosniaks as Bosnian Muslims or simply as Bosnians, though the latter term can also denote all inhabitants of Bosnia and Herzegovina or apply to citizens of the country.
  Over two million Bosniaks live in the Balkans, with an estimated additional million settled and living around the world. Ethnic cleansing and genocide during the Bosnian War have had an effect on the territorial distribution of the population.
context_section_description: Upon his father's death in 1461, Stephen Tomašević succeeded to the throne of Bosnia, a kingdom whose existence was being increasingly threatened by the Ottomans. In the same year, Stephen Tomašević made an alliance with the Hungarians and asked Pope Pius II for help in the face of an impending Ottoman invasion. In 1463, after a dispute over the tribute paid annually by the Bosnian Kingdom to the Ottomans, he sent for help from the Venetians. However, no help ever arrived to Bosnia from Christendom; King Matthias Corvinus of Hungary, Skenderbeg of Albania and the Ragusans all failed to carry out their promises, while the Venetians flatly refused the king's pleas. In 1463, Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror led an army into the country. The royal city of Bobovac soon fell, leaving Stephen Tomašević to retreat to Jajce and later to Ključ. Mehmed invaded Bosnia and conquered it very quickly, executing the last Bosnian king Stephen Tomašević and his uncle Radivoj. Bosnia officially fell in 1463 and became the westernmost province of the Ottoman Empire.
  The Croatian humanist and poet Marko Marulić, known as the Father of the Croatian Renaissance, wrote Molitva suprotiva Turkom (Prayer against the Turks) – a poem in 172 doubly rhymed dodecasyllablic stanzas of anti-Turkish theme, written between 1493 and 1500, where he, among others, included Bosniaks as the one of peoples who resisted the Ottomans.
  The rise of Ottoman rule in the Balkans modified the religious picture of Bosnia and Herzegovina as the Ottomans brought with them a new religion, Islam. Throughout the entire Balkans people were sporadically converting in small numbers; Bosnia, by contrast, experienced a rapid and extensive conversion of the local population to Islam, and by the early 1600s approximately two thirds of the population of Bosnia were Muslim. Slovenian observer Benedikt Kuripečič compiled the first reports of the religious communities in the 1530s. According to the records for 1528 and 1529, there were a total of 42,319 Christian and 26,666 Muslim households in the sanjaks (Ottoman administrative units) of Bosnia, Zvornik and Herzegovina. In a 1624 report on Bosnia (excluding Herzegovina) by Peter Masarechi, an early-seventeenth-century apostolic visitor of the Roman Catholic Church to Bosnia, the population figures are given as 450,000 Muslims, 150,000 Catholics and 75,000 Orthodox Christians. Generally, historians agree that the Islamization of the Bosnian population was not the result of violent methods of conversions but was, for the most part, peaceful and voluntary. Scholars have long debated the reasons that made this collective acceptance of Islam possible among the Bosniaks, although the religious dynamic of medieval Bosnia is frequently cited. Peter Masarechi, saw four basic reasons to explain the more intensive Islamization in Bosnia: the 'heretical past' of the Bosnians, which had left them confessionally weak and capable of transferring their allegiance to Islam; the example of many Bosnians who had attained high office through the devşirme, and as powerful men were in a position to encourage their relatives and associates to convert; a desire to escape from the burdens of taxation and other services levied on non-Muslim citizens; and finally, an equally strong desire to escape the proselytizing importunities of Franciscan monks among the Orthodox population.
  Always on a purely religious ground, it is also said, by the orientalist Thomas Walker Arnold for instance, that because of the  major heresy in the region at the time, oppressed by the Catholics and against whom Pope John XXII even launched a crusade in 1325, the people were more receptive to the Ottoman Turks. In fact, in the tradition of Bosnian Christians, there were several practices that resembled Islam; like for instance; praying five times a day (reciting the Lord's Prayer).
  In time, hesitant steps were made towards acceptance of Islam. At first, this Islamisation was more or less nominal. In reality, it was an attempt at reconciling the two faiths. It was a lengthy and halting prog
caption: The türbe of the King's daughter in Skopje, an Islamic mausoleum dedicated to the last Bosnian princess Catherine, the daughter of King Stephen Thomas and Queen Catherine. After the Ottoman conquest of Bosnia in 1463, the princess Catherine and her brother prince Sigismund became the last known members of the Medieval Bosnian royalty.
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