WI Islamic Balkans.

WI if the Ottoman controlled Balkans was 80-90% Muslim by 1800 how would that effect the Ottomans and Europe.
 
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It'd be very hard to do. The Balkans are highly mountainous similar to Ethiopia. The Balkans also had high numbers of brigands known as klephts and hadjuks who were revered as heroes by the public. Vlad Drakul is considered a folk hero by Romanians to this day in fact. The Balkans are situated in a way to resist Islamisation.
 
WI if the Ottoman controlled Balkans was 80-90% Muslim by 1800 how would that effect the Ottomans and Europe.

Would require serious butterflies on Ottoman actions and policies. As far as I know, Islamization was successful in only Bosnia and Albania. There were plenty of Turks in OTL Bulgaria, Northern Greece and Black Sea portions of OTL Romania but they were Turks and not conversions to Islam. Romania, Serbia, Greece were mostly Christian. Bulgaria experienced a portion of their population converting to Islam, known today as Pomaks, basically Slavic Muslims.

You would have to have an Ottoman Empire than was more successful in their conversions, have greater incentives for Christians to convert or more success in settling Turks throughout the Balkans.

Perhaps you could have a more thorough Devshirme system (boy harvest that would deplete villages of young boys to be taken back to Constantinople), a weakening of the Orthodox which was responsible for maintaining and teaching the culture.

To answer your question, even if the populations were Islamicized, they may still view themselves as not Turkish and potentially not siding with the Ottomans when nationalism comes around. But then again, maybe not. In OTL the Albanians were some of the most loyal Ottoman European subjects and last to declare independence. OTL territory of Bulgaria was, by some measurements, almost half Turkish in population and Ottomans could not retain those territories at the end of the war.
 
I believe the thing about the Ottoman Empire forcing greater Islamization is that
1) It kind of erodes their tax base
2) It pisses off the natives even more and even earlier...ie. rebellions everywhere
or in other words: if the Ottomans try to spread Islam much more than in OTL, they also risk losing the Balkans much earlier than in OTL.

If we just say it somehow happens anyway...I suspect the development of nationalism will be more gradual and not necessarily opposed to the Ottoman state, at least not initially. The development of modern-type nationalism among Balkan Christians was influenced not just by different religion and culture, but social problems as well. These Muslims would presumably have the same privileges, rights and obligations as their Turkish counterparts, so there are fewer motives for outright separatism. In OTL, most Muslim communities considered themselves Ottomans/Muslims first; and many even considered themselves Turks despite being descended from one of the native ethnic groups and speaking a different language.
 
I believe the thing about the Ottoman Empire forcing greater Islamization is that
1) It kind of erodes their tax base
2) It pisses off the natives even more and even earlier...ie. rebellions everywhere
or in other words: if the Ottomans try to spread Islam much more than in OTL, they also risk losing the Balkans much earlier than in OTL.

If we just say it somehow happens anyway...I suspect the development of nationalism will be more gradual and not necessarily opposed to the Ottoman state, at least not initially. The development of modern-type nationalism among Balkan Christians was influenced not just by different religion and culture, but social problems as well. These Muslims would presumably have the same privileges, rights and obligations as their Turkish counterparts, so there are fewer motives for outright separatism. In OTL, most Muslim communities considered themselves Ottomans/Muslims first; and many even considered themselves Turks despite being descended from one of the native ethnic groups and speaking a different language.

Does it also have anything to do with that weird system where each religion was administered separately?
 
If the Ottomans abolished the millet system and never propped up the Patriarchate of Constantinople, then who knows what would or could have happened. The Ottomans utilized the patriarchate as a tool to stabilize their Orthodox holdings, take away Ottoman backing and then the resilience of Orthodox Christians would be in question.
 
I agree with prism, however, how did mountainous Albania and Bosnia largely get converted?

Bosnia - heresy, and conflict between mainstream Christians (especially the last two Catholic kings) and heretics immediately before the Ottoman conquest. So a lot of people were alienated due to internal Christian conflicts, and the religion was less well-organized in general.

Albania - I have no idea, although I believe it involved a very heavy Dervish presence and activity.

It should be noted that around a third of Albania's and around half of Bosnia's inhabitants still never converted.
 
So what would happen during the 19th century if most of the Ottoman balkans was Muslim.

Before or after the greek war of independance ? Is Greece Muslim, too ? It would be interesting to know, how Serbian identidy is altered.There had been a few threads in the past about a muslim Serbia.
 
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Before or after the greek war of independance ? Is Greece Muslim, too ? It would be interesting to know, how Serbian identidy is altered.There had been a few threads in the past about a muslim Serbia.

The entire Balkans is Muslim and this is before the French Revolution.
 
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