Bosnian Muslims outdid Turks in atrocity

 

From: "A Short History of the Yugoslav Peoples" by Professor Fred Singleton, Cambridge University Press, Edition 1985, pp 20-21

 

 

Again, the Serbian grief was amplified by the fact that these returning children, now Janissaries were the most intolerant, most militant Muslims. As the time was passing and the central rule in the Empire was dying out, it was Janissaries who actually governed Bosnia. They were the ones who were the most oppressive and cruel. When Great Britain (in trying to repel Russia from the Balkans, in its self-imposed, everlasting "Great Game") insisted that Turkish sultan should give equal rights to his Christian subjects, Janissaries of Bosnia were the ones who started a rebellion to topple the sultan.

 

Worse "Turks" than Turks

 

During the heyday of the Ottoman rule in Europe the Bosnian Muslims played an important part in administration of the empire, one of them, Mehmet Sokolovic, rising to be grand vizier to the sultan, Suleiman the Magnificent, in the sixteenth century. Bosnian Muslims also provided the Ottoman bureaucracy in Hungary after the battle of Mohacs in 1526. At lower level of administration, the Orthodox and Roman Catholic Christian peasants of the raya were governed by Slav Muslim landowners, who, whilst retaining their Slavonic speech, adopted the manners and dress of the Turkish court. Like many converts, they often 'out-Ottomaned the Ottomans in their religious zeal'.

 

 

The above quote is from: "A Short History of the Yugoslav Peoples" by Professor Fred Singleton, Cambridge University Press, Edition 1985, page 75

 

 

The janissaries, who were once the elite corps of the sultan army, had degenerated by the end of the eighteenth century into an unrully and lawless rabble, who were at best an embarrassment and at worst threat to their rulers... Sultan Mahmud I (1730-54) attempted to disband the janissaries and to put in their place a modern force, modelled on the standing armies of his European enemies. Unfortunately for the Serbs, he was only partly successful. In an attempt to remove the influence of the janissaries from Istanbul, where they naturally formed a powerful opposition to his reforms, Mahmud tried to buy them off by offering them a virtually free hand in garrisoning the remote provinces of the empire [like Bosnia and Hercegovina]. There they could plunder and abuse the local peasantry with impunity, even dispossessing them from their lands.... Mahmud may have bought time for himself, but he stored up trouble for his successors.

 

 

From: Encyclopedia Britannica, Edition 1910, Volume 4, page 284

 

 

The reform of the Ottoman government contemplated by the sultan Mahmud II (1808-1839) was BITTERLY RESENTED in Bosnia... Many of the janissaries had married and settled on the land, forming a strongly conservative and FANATICAL caste, friendly to the Moslem nobles, who now dreaded the curtailment of their own privileges. Their opportunity came in 1820, when the Porte [the Turkish government] was striving to repress the insurrection in Moldavia, Albania and Greece. A first Bosnian revolt was crushed in 1821, a second, due principally to the massacres of the jannissaries, was quelled with much bloodshed in 1827. After Russo-Turkish War of 1828-29, a further attempt at reform was initiated by the sultan and his grand vizier, Reshid Pasha. Two years later came a most formidable outbreak: the sultan was denounced as false to Islam, and the Bosnian nobles gathered in Banjaluka (Bosnia), determined to march to Constantinople, and reconquer the Ottoman Empire for the true [Islam] faith.

 

A Jihad was preached by their leader, Hussein Aga Berberi, a brilliant soldier and orator, who called himself “Zmaj Bosanski” [dragon of Bosnia], and was regarded by his followers as a saint. The Moslems of Herzegovina, under Ali Pasha Rizvanbegovic, remained loyal to the Porte, but in Bosnia Hussein Aga encountered little resistance. At Kossovo he was reinforced by 20,000 Albanians, led by Mustapha Pasha, and within a few weeks the united armies occupied the whole of Bulgaria, and large part of Macedonia. Their career was checked by Reshid Pasha, who persuaded the two victorious commanders to intrigue against one another, secured the division of their forces, and then fell upon each in turn.

 

The rout of the Albanians at Prilipe and the capture of Mustapha at Scutari were followed by an invasion of Bosnia. After a desperate defence, Hussein Aga fled to Esseg in Croatia-Slavonia, his appeal for pardon was rejected, and in 1832 he was banished for life in Tribizond.

 

The power of the Bosnian nobles, though shaken by their defeat, remained unbroken, and they resisted vigorously when their kapetanates were abolished in 1837, and again when a measure of equality before the law was conceded to the Christians in 1839.

 

In Herzegovina, Ali Pasha Rizvanbegovic reaped the reward of his fidelity. He was left free to tyrannise over his Christian subjects, a king in all but name.

 

 

Is this not exactly opposite of the current claim the Western media repeatedly promotes? Are they not telling us that "Islam is a tolerant religion?" Since when!? Are we all from Mars? How can anyone delete the horror of Muslim oppression over Christians and Jews which lasted for centuries and stretched over continents?

 

Where are the roots of the above myth wondered author Bat Ye'Or. She then spent decades studying the issue. Finally she wrote a few books on the subject.

 

Historical Islamic demographic warfare in Kosovo

 

In the early 7th century, Serbs settled in Balkans (including Kosovo). In the 12th century, according to the Byzantine Empress Anna Angelina Komnenos, the Serbs were the main inhabitants of Kosovo (Eastern Dalmatia and former Moesia Superior). Archaeological findings from the 7th century onwards show a Serb (Slavic) cultural domination in case of glagolithic letters, pottery, cemeteries, churches and monasteries.

 

 

Th century

 

The Dečani Charter from 1330 contained a detailed list of households and chartered villages in Metohija and north-western Albania:

 

3 of 89 settlements were Albanian, the other being Serb.

 

 

Th century

 

The ethnic composition of Kosovo's population during this period included Serbs, Albanians, and Vlachs along with a token number of Greeks, Armenians, Saxons, and Bulgarians, according to Serbian monastic charters or chrysobulls (Hristovulja). A majority of the given names in the charters are overwhelmingly Serbian (Of 24,795 names, 23,774 were ethnic Serb names, 470 of Roman origin, 65 of Albanian origin and 61 of Greek origin). This claim is supported by the Turkish cadastral tax-census (defter) of 1455 which took into account religion and language and found an overwhelming Serb majority.

 

 

1455: Turkish cadastral tax census (defter) of the Brankovic dynasty lands (covering 80% of present-day Kosovo) recorded 480 villages, 13,693 adult males, 12,985 dwellings, 14,087 household heads (480 widows and 13,607 adult males). Totally there were around 75,000 inhabitants in 590 villages comprising modern-day Kosovo. By ethnicity:

 

 

13,000 Serb dwellings present in all 480 villages and towns

75 Vlach dwellings in 34 villages

46 Albanian dwellings in 23 villages

17 Bulgarian dwellings in 10 villages

5 Greek dwellings in Lauša, Vučitrn

1 Jewish dwelling in Vučitrn

1 Croat dwelling

 

 

1487: A census of the House of Branković

 

Vučitrn district:

 

 

16,729 Christian housing (412 in Priština and Vučitrn)

117 Moslem households (94 in Priština and 83 in rural areas)

 

 

Ipek (Peć) district:

 

 

City of Ipek - 68% Serbs

121 Christian household

33 Moslem households

 

 

Suho Grlo and Metohija:

 

 

131 Christian household of which 52% in Suho Grlo were Serbs

 

 

Kline e Poshtme/Donja Klina - 50% Serbs

Dečani - 64% Serbs

Rural areas:

 

 

6,124 Christian housings (99%)

55 Moslem houses (1%)

 

Th - 18th century

 

The Great Turkish War of 1683–1699 between the Ottomans and the Habsburgs led to the flight of a substantial part of Kosovan Serbian population to Austrian held Vojvodina and the Military Frontier - about 60-70,000 Serb refugees total settled in the Habsburg Monarchy in that time of whom many were from Kosovo. Following this an influx of Muslim Albanian[14] from the highlands (Malesi) occurred, mostly into Metohija. The process continued in 18th century.

 

Noel Malcolm suggests that the Great Migration of the Serbs from Kosovo is only a myth created by Serbian nationalism to justify the Albanian majority already in Kosovo[15], but a number of historians who reviewed his work, including Mile Bjelajac, Istvan Deak, Thomas Emerat and Tim Judah refute this[16].

 

A study done in 1871 by Austrian colonel Peter Kukulj for the internal use of the Austro-Hungarian army showed that the mutesarifluk of Prizren (corresponding largely to present-day Kosovo) had some 500,000 inhabitants, of which:

 

 

318,000 Serbs (64%),

161,000 Albanians (32%),

10,000 Roma (Gypsies) and Circassians

2,000 Turks

 

 

Miloš S. Milojević travelled the region in 1871–1877 and left accounts which testify that Serbs were majority population, and were predominant in all cities, while Albanians were minority and lived mostly in villages. According to his data, Albanians were majority population in southern Drenica (Muslim Albanians), and in region around Djakovica (Catholic Albanians), while the city was majorly Serbian. He also recorded several settlements of Turks, Romas and Circassians.

 

 

Source:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_history_of_Kosovo