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Our previous pages show that
the Serbs settled and
ruled Bosnia since 7th century. The Turks conquered
the Serbian lands of Bosnia in mid 15th century. Some
Serbian nobles and peasants
converted to Islam in order
to reap privileges by serving the foreign oppressor. Their
offspring are today's Bosnian Muslims.
Muslims oppressed Christians in Bosnia
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From mid-15th century for the next four centuries(!) the Serbian and
Croatian Christians of Bosnia suffered tyrannical rule.
Four (4) centuries of Islamic tyranny in Bosnia
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If any single factor made the Balkans what
they were in history -- and what they still
are today -- it was the ordeal of the Turk...
For the 18th and 19th Centuries, the image
of Turkey was that of a rotting empire, of
a corrupt, incompetent and sadistic national
elite preying on the subject Balkan peoples -
of a cynical government WHOSE
VERY METHOD OF RULE WAS ATROCITY.
[T]hey forbade the building of all but the meanest
churches, and likewise outlawed the ringing
of church bells.
What was damaging to the Balkan peoples was [that]...
they had been stripped of pride and freedom. As
Christians, they were now despised...
[T]he Turkish overlordship created a Balkan mosaic of
legal, social and economic relations... What was uniform
to all [subdued Christians] was the experience of alien
overlordship and the legacy of violence as the cohesion
and power of the Empire declined. When the Empire passed
its apex of power in the 17th and 18th Centuries, the
conditions of the subject peoples took a catastrophic turn
for the worse... It was in these... years that the proverb
came into vogue: "Where the Turk trod, no grass grows."
Within the Empire, the 17th and 18th Century military
officials, the beys and dahis, savagely
oppressed the people; they were scarcely to be
distinguished from the robber bands...
On the frontiers, [which is where Bosnia was] war --
and with it the parallel evils of yearly murder, rape
and arson -- became as regular as the cycle of season.
The above quote is from:
"The Balkans," pp 43 - 45
Time-Life World Library
by Edmund Stillman and the Editors of LIFE
Time Inc., New York, 1967
In the Serbian regions, the most fanatical opponents of
Christian emancipation were the Muslims Bosniacs...
A systematic enquiry into the condition of the
Christians was conducted by British consuls in
the Ottoman Empire in the 1860s. Britain was
then Turkey's strongest ally. It was in its own
interest to see that the oppression of the
Christians would be eliminated in order to
prevent any Russian or Austrian interference.
Consul James Zohrab sent from Bosna-Serai (Sarajevo)
a lengthy report, dated July 22, 1860, to his
ambassador in Constantinople, Sir Henry Bulwer,
in which he analyzed the administration of the
provinces of Bosnia and Herzegovina. He stated
that from 1463 to 1850 the Bosniac Muslims
enjoyed all the privileges of feudalism.
During a period of nearly
400 years Christians were subjected to much
oppression and cruelty. For them no other law
but the caprice of their masters existed...
Under false accusations imprisonments are of
daily occurrence. A Christian has but a small
chance of exculpating himself when his opponent
is a Muslim."
The above quote is from:
"Origin
of the Myth of a Tolerant Pluralistic Islamic Society"
Bat Ye'Or
Chicago, August 31, 1995
In the year 1413 the southern Serbian provinces
were unable longer to hold out against the Turks.
Serbia in 1459, Bosnia in 1463, and Herzegovina
in 1481 were all finally conquered and became
Turkish provinces.
The basis of Ottoman power was the sword and the
Ottoman State was and is an organised theocracy.
The Mohammedan religion is not a religion in the
Christian sense of involving principally the problems
of morality, spiritual growth, and immortality.
Mohammedanism is a state of society founded on a
collection of laws and legal principles dealing
with and ruling every event of individual and
public life. The vast community of believers in
various countries of the world basing the entire
political, social, and religious fabric on that
collection of laws, and the mystical, ethical,
and philosophical tenets given by Mahomet in the
Koran, afterward developed by the masters of the
"Four Schools" of Mohammedan teaching, forms "Islam."
For that reason where Islam is master no other
civil status is recognised except in tolerance
and in subordination to Islam. There can be no
assimilation with people of other creeds or
civilisation. The perception of that fact was
vividly set forth in the arguments of that Sultan,
in the seventeenth century, who urged that as Moslem
victor and Christian vanquished could never make
one people, Ottoman domination could become
secure only by the universal slaughter of all
Christians in conquered territories. Up to our
own time that conclusion has haunted Stamboul
[Istanbul] like an evil dream.
The conquered Christian
populations were disarmed
and dispossessed of all property, and were soon
pressed into a condition of serfdom under Turkish
masters. They were called "giours" and in the mass
the "rayah," "the herd." Whoever renounced his faith
and became a Mohammedan was thereby instantly
naturalised into Islam, receiving the status and
all the life-chances of a born Osmanili [Turk].
That was the sole means in his power of escaping
from the subjected masses or of opening a door
of opportunity.
The Serbians in general refused to accept that
door of escape from durancevile, and remained
true to their Christian and national faith, even
though the long night of practical extinction,
hoping for a dawn though long deferred.
Many of the Serbian nobles and numbers of the
common people fled to Serb lands under Venice
or those under Hungary [i.e. to Krajina]. Certain
ones among the nobles and others became Moslems,
thereby preserving their lands and castles, and
authority was given to them under the Turks as
Pashas, Beys, Agas, and Spahis. They became ranged,
in the eyes of the general populations, on the
side of the conquerors, and were looked upon by
the people as Turks.
In Bosnia and Herzegovina, where the inhabitants
had not only been subject to Turkish attack, but
had been obliged as well to stand, ever beating
back Hungarian invasions, the greater part of
the nobles, mostly Bogomils, went over in body
to Mohammedanism.
Large numbers of Serbs, loyal to their faith
and home traditions, escaped to the mountain
fastnesses from which they were able to harass
the Turks of the plains and so maintain a
relative independence.
The Serbians of the
Rayah lived under great oppression and humiliation,
their only means
of protection being through the Serbian Patriarch
so long as one existed.
In case
of acts of injustice or violence suffered
at the hands of individual Turks, there was
no possible redress. The Christians were
forbidden the use of horses or camels, only mules
and asses being allowed them. They were forbidden
to ride even a mule or an ass in the presence of
a Turk. It was not permitted that their houses
should have a better appearance than Turkish houses.
For their faith they had much to suffer. The
clergy, few in number, were kept in miserable
conditions, and churches which had been destroyed
were not allowed to be rebuilt, the building of
new churches being strictly forbidden. The
sound of church bells was forbidden as was also the
reading aloud of the Holy Scriptures or the
pronunciation of the name of Jesus Christ.
It was not lawful to make the sign of the cross,
to show a cross, or to eat pork in sight of a Turk.
The Rayah were not allowed openly to bury their
dead; Christian burials tookplace at night or
in secret; mourning for the dead was strictly
prohibited either by costume or by symbol or
in any other way.
Church services were often held in some secluded
spot in forest or glen, sometimes under a chosen
tree marked with a cross; or ordinary houses were
built as if for a family, with a central hearth,
and sometimes with surrounding storehouse and
stable to avoid suspicion, and were consecrated
and used secretly as churches. Such houses still
exist in Macedonia.
The above quote is from:
"THE SERBIAN PEOPLE"
by P. Lazarovich-Hrebelianovich & Eleanor Calhoun
New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1910
The excerpt is from Chapter VII:
"The Serbians under Turkish rule from about 1470 to about 1800"
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In Ottoman Empire Christians were but slaves at nonexistent
mercy of their Muslim lords. Many, many Western books write
about different horrors the Christians endured. One form of oppression
was that Muslims gave themselves "right of the first night".
In practice it meant that Turkish (or local Muslim Slav) lord would
spend the first night with the new Christian bride. The groom had
to take shoes off and silently circle the house while the Turk
makes love to his wife.
Still, by far the worst horror the Christians had to endure
was the Turkish Janissary system. Western schollars frequently downplay
the importance of this "Tax in Blood" as Christian subjects
nicknamed it:
Conversion to Islam - through kidnapping
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While any
subject boy might aspire to the highest rank in the
Turkish Empire, he had to convert to Islam to do so;
when the security of the Ottoman state demanded, there
were forced conversions. Every
four years the most vigorous boys were taken from the
towns and villages, willingly or not, to be trained as
Janissaries (a word from the Turkish yeni cheri,
or new troops).
The above quote is from:
"The Balkans," page 44
Time-Life World Library
by Edmund Stillman and the Editors of LIFE
Time Inc., New York, 1967
The DEVSHIRME system is well known. Begun by the Sultan
Orkhan (1326-1359), it existed for about 300 years.
It consisted of a regular levy of Christian children
from the Christian population of the Balkans. These
youngsters, aged from fourteen to twenty, were Islamized
and enslaved for their army. The periodic levies, which
took place in contingents of a thousand, subsequently
became annual. To discourage runaways, children were
transferred to remote provinces and entrusted to Muslim
soldiers who treated them harshly as slaves. Another
parallel recruitment system operated. It provided for
the levy of Christian children aged six to ten (ICHOGHLANI),
reserved for the sultans' palace. Entrusted to eunuchs,
they underwent a tyrannical training for fourteen years.
The above quote is from:
"Origin
of the Myth of a Tolerant Pluralistic Islamic Society"
Bat Ye'Or
Chicago, August 31, 1995
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The first presentation above sounds almost idyllic: A boy
dreams of obtaining "high rank in the Empire" or
some boys "were taken" from their parents in
order to achieve glorious carrier in Turkish Army.
What it actualy meant was that the hated Turks would kidnap
your child and - even worse - return it, now as a Muslim and
your worse enemy!
How can anyone put it in words? Dr. Ivo Andrich, who was born
in Bosnia was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1961
for his novels about Bosnian Christian suffering. Encyclopedia
Britannica (Micropedia, Edition 1986, Vol 1, Page 393, entry:
Andric, Ivo) said (quote):
Andric's work reveal his deterministic philosophy
and his SENSE OF COMPASSION AND ARE WRITTEN OBJECTIVELY AND
SOBERLY, in language of great beauty and purity. The Nobel Prize
committee commented particularly on the "ephic force"
with which he handled his material, especially in "The
Bridge on the Drina".
Let the master of literature talk. Here is an excerpt from
the above mentioned Nobel Prize book "Bridge on the Drina,"
which describes how this "tax in blood" felt, as
it is told and retold chilling blood of generations of
surviving Christians of Bosnia.
On that November day a long convoy of laden horses
arrived on the left bank of the river and halted there to spend the night. The Aga of the janissaries,
with armed escort, was returning to Stambul after collecting from the villages of eastern Bosnia the
appointed number of Christian children for the blood tribute.
…the necessary number of healthy, bright and good
looking lads between ten and fifteen years old had been found without difficulty, even though many parents
had hidden their children in the forests, taught them how to appear half witted, clothed them in rags and
let them get filthy, to avoid the Aga's choice.
Some even went so far as to maim their own children,
cutting off one of their fingers with an axe.
…a little way behind the last horses in that strange
convoy straggled, dishevelled and exhausted, many parents and relatives of those children who were
being carried away forever to a foreign world where they would be circumcised, become Turkish and,
forgetting their faith, their country and
their origin, would pass their lives in the
service of the Empire. They were for the most
part women, mothers, grandmothers and sisters of the stolen children.
[The women would get driven away but…] ….gather
again a little later behind the convoy and strive with tear-filled eyes to see once again over the
panniers the heads of the children who were
being taken from them. The mothers were especially
persistent and hard to restrain. Some would
rush forward not looking where they were going, with bare breasts and
dishevelled hair, forgetting everything
about them, wailing and lamenting as if at a burial, while others
almost out of their minds moaned as if
their wombs were being torn by birthpangs and blinded with tears ran
right onto the horsemen's whips and replied
to every blow with the fruitless question: "Where are you taking
him? Why are you taking him from me?" Some
tried to speak clearly to their children and give them some last
part of themselves, as much as might be
said in a couple of words, some recommendation or advice for the way...
"Rade,
my son, don't forget your mother...'
"Ilija,
Ilija, Ilija!" screamed another woman, searching desperately with her glances for the dear well-known
head and repeating this incessantly as if she wished to carve into the child's memory that name which
would in a day or two be taken from him forever.
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Mother's cries must still be echoing Bosnian mountains.
It should not pass without mention that once Westerners conquered
Bosnia, recently, one of the first thing they did in the course of
"engineering democracy" (and while trying to impose Muslim
rule on Bosnian Serbs) was
to ban
use of Dr. Andrich's works from
school books for the Serbian children. It is as if one was to ban Shakespeare
in England!
Andrich's books were translated in all languages of the West.
His, above cited book "The Bridge on the Drina" can be
found in any decent size library in the West.
It tells volumes about total collapse of Western culture and morality
that the same Western nations which praized Bosnian author in 1961 -
banned his works few decades later.
Bosnian Muslims outdid Turks in atrocity
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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
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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, pp 20-21
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.
The above quote is from:
"A Short History of the Yugoslav Peoples"
by Professor Fred Singleton,
Cambridge University Press,
Edition 1985, page 75
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 HOLY WAR 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 TYRANNIZE OVER HIS CHRISTIAN SUBJECTS, a king in all but name.
The above quote is from:
Encyclopedia Britannica,
Edition
1910
Volume 4, page 284
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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.
On our next page we are giving
you integral text of her presentation given at Chicago
Conference, August 31, 1995.
NEXT:
[ Bat Ye'Or: The Myth of a Tolerant Pluralistic Islamic Society ]
BACK TO:
[ Bosnian Muslims ]
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Last revised:
September 18, 2004
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