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History question
(Note: Several interesting comments have been received in answer to this question. Be sure to see in particular RB’s excerpts from several Balkan historians.)
Could someone explain to us how it is that the Greeks and the Serbs, who lived under the Ottoman empire for centuries, avoided conversion to Islam?
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Alan Levine writes:
I am not sure that I can give an entirely satisfactory explanation as to why people in the Balkans did not, usually, convert. My impression is that there were several factors:
1) Society did not entirely collapse in the Balkans in the way it did when the Seljuks overran Anatolia. The conquered peoples were not as disorganized or demoralized as they were in Anatolia. (And even there the Greeks on the coast, not so exposed to disruption, remained Greek.Christians. )
2) The Ottoman conquest in the Balkans was relatively orderly with a new ruling class either entirely replacing or, sometimes, absorbing the pre-existing aristocracy. There was little incentive for the peasant majority to change religions. Furthermore, it was in the interest of the Turkish authorities, as tax-collectors, to be able to gather the head tax on those who remained Christian. Relgious duty conflicted with fiscal interests for the authorities.
3) In Anatolia and other areas that had been Christian and converted, the Sufic orders—not entirely orthodox Muslims—often acted as bridge for those who changed faiths. This was less true in the Balkans since the Ottoman authorities were not that friendly to the Sufis there.
4) The Bosnians who converted are usually thought to have been “heretical” Bogomils, not orthoodox Christians. Furthermore, many of their subjects were religiously Orthodox Serbs who had good reason to hate them as oppressive overlords, Bosnia having the dubious merit of being the last part of Europe to retain serfdom.
LA replies:
But the puzzle remains: It sounds as though Islam did not impose on the Balkan peoples the dhimmitude that elsewhere so crushed the subjects of Islamic rule that ultimately, in order to be able to live half-decently, many of them would finally convert to Islam.
Irish writes:
My wife is Greek. Over the laundry machine she has a little scrap from her church bulletin reading as follows:
A Bit of Anna’s Wisdom
By Anna Lozos
This is my translation of this little ditty sung by many Greek children going to school under cover of darkness during the occupation of the Ottoman
Empire:
“Fengaraki Mou Lambro”
My bright little Moon
Shine down on me
So I may walk and go to school
That I may learn my letters
My letters and lessons
And all God’s creations!”
The piece goes on to praise Greek Orthodoxy.
This struck me strongly because it reminded me of what my father told me of the “hedge schools” run in Ireland to evade the anti-Catholic Penal Laws.
Adela G. writes:
You write: “Could someone explain to us how it is that the Greeks and the Serbs, who lived under the Ottoman empire for centuries, avoided conversion to Islam?”
Heh heh. I’m guessing you don’t know too many Serbs. (I’ll let the Greeks answer for themselves.)
There is something inexorable and autocratic in the Serbian character. My grandfather was a Serb. He never raised his hand to anyone, yet his merest whisper was instantly obeyed.
A Serbian story has it that a pregnant Serbian woman went out to gather firewood and while out, gave birth to a son. When she’d recovered sufficiently, she took the baby and the firewood home, whereupon her husband beat her for being late bringing the firewood.
LA replies:
But maybe this tough, remorseless quality of the Serbs developed in response to the Ottoman occupation, as a way of surviving it, just as (so it seems) the hard-bitten Spanish character developed in the process of resisting the Moslem occupiers for 500 years and just as the Greeks seem to have developed their charming “Eff you” attitude the same way.
Adela G. writes:
You write: But maybe this tough, remorseless quality of the Serbs developed in response to the Ottoman occupation, as a way of surviving it, just as (so it seems) the hard-bitten Spanish character developed in the process of resisting the Moslem occupiers for 500 years and just as the Greeks seem to have developed their charming “Eff you” attitude the same way.
I don’t think so. I think the tough, remorseless quality of Serbs, Spaniards and Greeks developed prior to the Ottoman occupation in response to demanding geographical conditions. The Serbs, Spaniards and Greeks all come from mountainous areas ringing the Mediterranean.
When I studied Spanish literature (under a teacher who’d been born in Madrid), I was surprised how her stories of intransigent Spaniards sounded so much like the intransigent Serbs. But it made sense when you realized they’d come from similar lands and climates.
You see something of the same thing in mountainous areas like Afghanistan. The people who live in those areas are quite fierce.
RB writes:
“Could someone explain to us how it is that the Greeks and the Serbs, who lived under the Ottoman empire for centuries, avoided conversion to Islam?”
This is a question that also greatly interested me when I was doing research for my internet paper on Islamic expansion. I think Mr. Levine has it essentially right. The circumstances in the Balkans were also similar to those that occurred in India. I’ll give you three excerpts which I think are relevant. These are too lengthy and scholarly to make a reasonable blog posting but perhaps you’ll find them of private interest in shedding some light on your question. The first is:
In a number of respects the circumstances facing the Muslim conquerors in the Balkans were similar to those facing the invaders of India. Both areas were the home to large settled populations. In both India and the Balkans, the conquest was never unchallenged, large areas were frequently quasi-independent or even in open rebellion. Even at the height of Muslim power in India, unconquered territory continued to exist in the South as well as along the eastern and northern fringe. Similarly, in the Balkans the Ottomans were faced with independent and militarily powerful neighbors just across the frontiers in Russia, Austria and Poland, in addition to the always annoying naval power of Venice.
Kinross [Ottoman Centuries] describes the occupied Balkan territories as follows:
“The Ottoman conquerors were relatively few in number. Now here confronting them in Europe were populations far in excess of any of the conquered lands of Asia, moreover far more various and complex in their racial, religious and political character.”
Despite the brave resistance of the native peoples of both the Balkans and India, had Muslim rule continued uninterrupted in both regions, the slow process of conversion might, eventually, have produced Muslim majorities as it did elsewhere. But both the Mogul and Ottoman empires entered a period of decline and came under increasing pressure from technologically advanced Europeans. The Austrians, Venetians, Poles and Russians disrupted Ottoman rule and protected Christians in the Balkans; the British in India overthrew Mogul rule and, inadvertently perhaps, helped the Hindu majority revive their beleaguered culture.
The second set of excerpts also embodies the hypothesis that the Turks in the Balkans were past their most primitive proselytizing stage and some of their leaders might have cynically realized that preserving a non Muslim population on which to parasitize was useful.
The strength of Christian institutions in the Balkans coupled with a moderating of the Turkish impulse to convert in the Ottoman period preserved a large Christian population from which the Sultans could draw slaves or other humble converts for the military and administration; converts who had no problematic power base but were completely dependent on their Ottoman patrons. The continuance of a large Christian “reservoir” was, undoubtedly, the reason that the Ottoman dynasty lasted much longer than other Islamic regimes. It may well be that the more far-seeing Ottoman rulers were willing to curb the zeal of their Muslim subjects for converting non-Muslims, in order to maintain this advantage.
Lapidus [A History of Islamic Societies] compares and contrasts the experiences of India, Anatolia and the Balkans under these later Muslim conquests:
“In Anatolia, as in the rest of the Middle East, the conjunction of Muslim state power, the decline of organized Christian societies, and the social and cultural relevance of Islam facilitated mass conversions to the new religion.
In the Balkans, however, the spread of Islam was limited by the vitality of the Christian churches. It came at a later stage of the Turkish conquests, at a time when Ottoman policy favored Christian nobles and churches as vehicles of Ottoman administration … Most Balkan peoples, buttressed by the continuity of organized Christian community life, remained loyal to their faith.
The history of Islam in India most closely resembles that of the Balkans. … In most of India … as in the Balkans, the appeal of Islam was relatively restricted. Only in the Northwest Frontier, the Punjab, Sind, and Bengal were populations converted en masse. In these regions the transition from hunter-gatherer and pastoral activities to settled agriculture was the occasion for a total reconstruction of society under Muslim leadership and for the development of new Islamic identifications. Conversion to Islam on a mass scale was most likely among disorganized populations.”
However, in some parts of India as in Anatolia, with fragmented and demoralized populations, conversions were abundant. It is also interesting that the northwest India frontier peoples were, like certain mountain peoples of the Balkans, notably, Albanians and Bosnians attracted to Islam. Moreover, in parts of India as in Anatolia “the adaptability of Sufism to traditional religious cultures was important in the transition … to Islam.”
Gilbert B. writes:
“It was the Catholic Church which suffered most under the Ottomans, since it was the Church of most of the Ottomans’ European enemies, and thus the Serbian Orthodox Church was treated fairly well. That toleration of the Orthodox Church explains why Serbia did not convert to Islam to the same degree as Bosnia. Catholic Croatia, similarly, became a haven for Catholics fleeing Ottoman occupation in other Balkan regions, and thus it similarly had no desire to convert to Islam.” [link]
“The Turkish occupation did not mean the same thing for all Balkan nationalities. The Greeks, for example, who had played such an important role in the Byzantine world, were viewed with the greatest respect by the invader. The Turks were good fighters and eager to participate in the spoils of war, but when it came to bureaucracy and administration in general they were sadly lacking. It was not long after the fall of Constantinople that the city’s Greek, Venetian, and Jewish communities began to bustle with activity and opulence. Someone had to provide the continuity in commerce, administration, and in understanding the affairs of the Balkan mosaic. By all standards, in the reality of the period, the Greeks were the most suited for this function. ” [link]
Posted by Lawrence Auster at May 28, 2008 12:05 PM | Send
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