From: kutluk@ccl.umist.ac.uk (Kutluk Ozguven)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.bosna-herzgvna
Subject: Grand Vazeer Wanted (Bosnian prefered). (was Re: Raja i Papci)
Date: 1 Oct 92 23:17:41 GMT
Organization: Manchester Computing Centre

In <1992Sep27.215630.21198@sol.ctr.columbia.edu> deniz@mandolin.ctr.columbia.edu (Deniz Akkus) writes:

>An interesting note is that of all the Muslim population of the Ottoman 
>Empire, the Bosnian Muslims were the only ones not exempt from the levy
>of boys, although the founding rules of the Yeniceri Ocagi states that
>the levy of boys will be derived from strictly non-Muslim population of
>the empire.  I don't know how this came about.  

Three points come to my mind.
   The Bogomils' mass conversion, although took place in late 15th
century, have continued within families and villages as a gradual
process. Also, accepting the full cultural and philosophical standards
of Islam as Ottomans perceived took time. This may be the argument Ottoman
government justified its action, desperate to recruit new members to
its expanding military establishment (we are talking about 16th
century). Therefore Janissary system both accelerated the Islamization
of the Bogomil and satisfied the need to find well-built warlike boys
for the military elite.
   It wasn't the Habsburgs at the beginning that created the
threat for the Ottoman expansion, the initial pressure was from the
Serbs. The Ottomans first deprived the Serbs from their fiercest
allies, Albanians, who defected to the Ottoman side, and then Bosnians
accepting of Islam was the last blow to the Serbs. A final relocation
of Serbs from Serbia to what is Croatia now reduced the Serbian power,
apart from local bandits, gangs and uprisings, to a non-entity until
the late 19th century. 
   Like the most of  Empires, the only concern of the Ottomans
was to maintain the Empire as it was, and once the Serbs or Greeks or
whatever non-Muslim nation, was pascifized, nobody in Istanbul really
cared to impose a gradual Islamization let alone Turkification. Nobody
circa 1520 thought these ethnoreligious massacres could happen while
the people in Istanbul cared nothing but the Michael Jackson concert. 
   Secondly, there is no possibility the Bosnians dislike
the  idea of having children as a part of the establishment, which
means wealth and influence, if he climbs up the ladder of Enderun or
the elite schools. In other words, it was more of a privilage to be
recruited to the Janissary, than a burden.
   But the most important factor why the Bosnian let in the Ocak while the
Anatolian Turk was not is the concept of Ottoman family among the
Turks. In the early days, many noble families or sometimes even the
ordinary tribes often took the Ottoman just a family that happened to
rule the Empire, for most of these were already something of
importance while the unimportant Kayi tribe (Ottomans) immmigrated to
Anatolia from Turkistan. If a boy from Karaman had risen to the status
of Grand Vazeer, then one had to count its titular tribe in the power
politics. Once he climbed up, it could be more and more difficult to
get rid of him. The Balkan converts or the people from newly converted
communities knew no one but the Ottoman as their ruler, and it was
highly difficult for them to bring their families into the power
politics of the empire, for they were surrounded by non-Muslims and
had neither the option nor the intention to uprise in order to support
a local boy. For the house of the Ottoman, especially in
the early days, the memories of the post-Tamerline interregnum and the
consequent power-politics were fresh and the Turk was more suspicious
an entity than the Bosnian. 

Kutluk