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According to scholar Fine, the reason why conversion to Islam was more prevalent in Bosnia (and Albania) as opposed to other areas under Ottoman rule is because these areas had multiple competing churches, none of which were dominant. Thus Bosnians were less devoted Christians than other Balkanites. [5]
Almost all of Bosnian Muslims identify as Bosniaks; until 1993, Bosnians of Muslim culture or origin (regardless of religious practice) were defined by Yugoslav authorities as Muslimani (Muslims) in an ethno-national sense (hence the capital M), though some people of Bosniak or Muslim backgrounds identified their nationality (in an ethnic sense ...
According to the most recent census, conducted in 2013 and whose results were published in 2016, Muslims today constitute 50.70% of the population; traditional local Christians (Catholic and Orthodox), constitute 45.94%; and other groups, including Protestants, Jews and nonreligious persons, constitute 3.36%, [5] although these figures are often disputed by Bosnia's Serb community. [6]
Historians have debated how, and why, many ethnic Bosnians converted to Islam. [5] After their conquest of Bosnia, the Ottoman Empire tried to convert their Christian and pagan subjects to Islam. The gradual conversion of many medieval Bosnians to Islam proceeded at different rates, depending on area and group. Conversion was more rapid in ...
During the World War II, Bosnia and Herzegovina was part of the Independent State of Croatia (NDH), and majority of Bosnian Muslims considered themselves to be ethnic Croats. [74] Even in the early 1990s, a vast majority of Bosnian Muslims considered themselves to be ethnic Muslims, rather than Bosniaks. According to a poll from 1990, only 1.8% ...
For the 1961 census a new ethnic category was introduced–Muslims–with which 972,954 Bosnians identified. [15] In 1964, the Muslims were declared a narod ("people"), as the other five "peoples", but were not ascribed a national republic. [15] In 1968, the Bosnian Central Committee declared that "...Muslims are a distinct nation".
By the late 16th and early 17th century, Muslims are considered to have become an absolute majority in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The Albanian Catholic priest Pjetër Mazreku reported in 1624 that there were 450,000 Muslims, 150,000 Catholics and 75,000 Eastern Orthodox in Bosnia and Herzegovina. [53]
Conversely, during the couple of centuries Croatia was under Austro-Hungarian rule and Bosnia under Ottoman rule, Muslims from the north and west migrated into Bosnia, forming a heavily-Muslim pocket in its northwest corner around Bihać. The Ottoman period also saw the development of a Sephardic Jewish community in Bosnia, chiefly in Sarajevo.