Bosnia is a typical example of the policy of gradual conquest which the Osmanlis applied almost systematically on the Balkan peninsula and elsewhere. The subjection was realized in three consecutive stages.
First, they sought to establish partial or total suzerainty over the country. Then they made an effort to tale over direct control by eliminating the native dynasty. Finally they employed a policy of progressive incorporation of the land into their organization by temporarily including non-Moslem leaders and their warriors in the Osmanli timar-system and by converting the people to Islam.
The Osmanlis knew well the art of politics which they had learned from the Byzantines, especially from those who had entered their service and had turned to Islam. In order to prepare a country for subjugation they began with incessant incursions into its peripheral regions. The destruction of economic life, the decimation of the population, and the creation of personal insecurity made people lose their faith in their native authorities, and they were forced to seek refuge in the interior of the country, while local nobles, as well as the administration, tried to hold them where they were and to impose new burdens on them necessitated by defense.
Meanwhile, the Osmanlis endeavoured to split the native ruling class and to form a pro-Turkish group by utilizing the existing discords among the nobles and by promising advantages. Among the native masses they spread rumours that it was much better under Turkish rule where there was freedom, security and an easier economic life.
Under these circumstances, the nobles as well as the princes sought their survival in becoming vassals of the Sultan by recognizing his supremacy, paying tribute and furnishing auxiliary troops. This vassalage lasted a longer or shorter period depending on the strength of the country and the power of the Osmanlis. In the meantime, the Turks gradually took into their hands certain fortified places, garrisoned them with their forces and began to control the strategic routes.
At a favourable moment, they then eliminated the ruling dynasty by military expeditions, posted their garrisons in fortresses of strategic importance, demolished other fortified places, organized an administration of a rather military character (sandjaks) and gave military holdings (timars) to sipahis (cavalry men) who formed the main force of the Osmanli army.
The third stage imposed a careful policy. First of all, the division of the state's population into Mohammedans, members of the Islam community, and other tolerated religious groups living outside the Osmanli political society on the same territory, did not facilitate integration, not to speak of assimilation. Besides, the occupation was not secured despite the executed tahrir, tax-assessment, and the partition of the land into timars. It would have been necessary to immobilize a large army in the country to carry out this task. Instead, the Sultans included local Christians into their military and timar organizations, disregarding the religious differences and their political consequences in a Moslem society. These Christian timar-holders were not only the Sultan's instruments in ensuring Osmanli control and administrative integration, but they also represented the means of political and religious assimilation.
The first stage of the conquest of Bosnia had commenced even before the definitive subjugation of Serbia which served as a buffer for the Bosnian kings against the oncoming peril. As early as in 1386, when the Turks occupied Nish in Eastern Serbia, their irregular horsemen, akindjis, crossed the entire Serbian territory and penetrated into the Bosnian region of the Neretva. From then on, their incursions were undertaken at certain intervals as a well-conceived plan for the subjection of the country.
After the battle of Kosovo in 1389, the devastations in the Bosnian frontier regions were intensified. Serbia had become a vassal state of the Sultan, and Turkish garrisons were stationed in the fortified places from Skoplje to the Eastern frontier of Bosnia. The action against Bosnia was directed by the Osmanli sandjak-bey who was entrusted with the control of the Serbian vassal princes and who represented the interest of the Sultan against the West. Attacks were now organized on a larger scale with the help of the garrisons and the Turkish colonies.
Besides, the Osmanli pressure was aggravated by the conflicts among the ambitions and quarrelsome Bosnian nobles . Already in 1411, a noble, Sandaly Hranich, sought friendship with the Osmanlis ; he even had a Turkish mercenary army. Another noble, Hrvoye Vukchich, asked the sandjak-bey in Skoplje for help when he was threatened as a traitor by the Hungarian King Sigismund. The sandjak-bey invaded Bosnia in agreement with Vukchich in 1414. A year later, after their victory over the Hungarian army, the Osmanlis strengthened their influence in Bosnia . The weaker nobles began now to look for Turkish support against other feudal lords. In 1415, the family of Pavloviches attempted to put themselves under the protection of the Sultan. For his part, their opponent Hranich recognized the supreme authority of the Osmanlis in 1418, and the sandjak-bey helped Hranich against the Pavloviches to take the region of Konavle "by the grace and gift of God and the great Sultan Mehmed-beg", as Hranich emphasized in one of his charters. Now, the Osmanlis not only intervened in the conflicts among the native nobles, they were also able to dispose of Bosnian land.
By 1426, during an irruption into Bosnia, the Turks retained certain mountain passes. Still more important was the year 1428, or 1429, when the King of Bosnia was forced to recognize the supremacy of the Sultan and to pay annual tribute. Since the king did not fulfill the latter obligation, the Turks temporarily occupied some Bosnian fortresses. From that time onward, the Turks even intervened in the conflicts between the Bosnian nobles and the Republic of Ragusa. The definite establishment of the Osmanlis in Bosnia, however, did not take place until 1448 or 1451. That year, the Turks occupied among others the royal towns of Hodidjed and Vrhbosna laying the foundation for their military domination of Bosnia. From then on to the end of the second stage, there was only one more step to be taken : In 1463, Mehmed II conquered Bosnia and established his direct control over the country.
As far as the third stage is concerned, Bosnia represents the greatest success of the Osmanlis on the Balkan peninsula. After their occupation the Turks did not change the old order of the country very much. On account of their proven loyalty to the Sultan the native nobles were allowed to maintain their hereditary lands with property rights (bashtina-timar), while in other Balkan regions the nobles were obliged to abandon part of their holdings, properties and rights if they were accepted as timariotes into the Osmanli military organization.
In spite of this special treatment, the majority of the Bosnian nobles preferred to embrace Islam , either in the first or following generations, because they knew that as non-Moslems they could not expect to preserve their privileges for ever. Besides, there had already been many conversions before the definite conquest of Bosnia, because Islamisation opened the door to the highest positions in the Empire, as is shown by the consequent period when the entire central administration was in the hands of Bosnian Moslems. Indeed Serbian was spoken by the Sultan as well as at his court, and it served as the diplomatic language in communication with Christian neighbours. Last but not least, the former struggle against the pressure of the Christian Churches as well as some superficial contiguities between Patarenism and Islam encouraged the change in religion. Outward conversion was made easy by the fact that it was sufficient to undergo circumcision and to learn how to recite the shahada, the confession of the Moslem faith.
With the masters, many of their tenants and servants were converted to Islam at the very beginning. But the bulk of the Bosnian population embraced Islam only gradually after they had passed through a long period of syncretism. Besides the impact of the new conditions in their society, the most significant factor in mass Islamisation was Patarenism, which, at the same time, was also responsible for the syncretism and the slow process of conversion.
Patarenism is an offshoot of Bogomilism which appeared in Bulgaria first. From there it infiltrated into Serbia where its influence was arrested by concerted action of the state and the national Orthodox Church at the end of the 12th century. The Bogomils took refuge in Bosnia where they were called Patarenes and where their teachings spread throughout the country. This became the religion of the upper class because of the weakness of Orthodoxy and Catholicism within the country and because of the pressure exerted upon Bosnia by her powerful Orthodox and Catholic neighbours.
Bogomilism showed two basic trends. From the view point of doctrine it was a dualistic cosmology denying the dogma of the unity of God and the incarnation of Christ. With regard to ethics it was a revolutionary reformism of existing Christian society in its medieval structure. The Bogomils repudiated the sacraments and the liturgy as well as the sign of the cross and spurned all prayers with the solitary exception of the Lord's Prayer which they recited at regular intervals with appointed prostrations. They rejected the Christian conception of the Church as the mystical Body of Christ and as a hierarchical institution on earth. By preaching rigorous moral purity and by attaching the wealthy and powerful they transposed to the social plane the cosmic struggle between Good and Evil thereby propagating a hind of social anarchism. These teachings caused their persecution by the Orthodox Church as well as by the state personified in its privileged nobility.
In Bosnia, the original Bogomil tenets underwent considerable changes. Here, the Patarenes made compromises in many respects with the exigencies of social and political life. They observed the slava (the holiday of the Saint- Protector of the Orthodox Serbs), they recognized marriage and took part in political life. In the struggle between the Catholic King and Hungary on one side and the feudal nobility on the other, the Patarenes made common cause with the Bosnian nobles who defended religious freedom. In this way, the Patarene faith was blended with a hind of patriotism and it became the religion of the community, if not of the state stricto sensu. These circumstances explain the survival of Patarenism in Bosnia, and, besides other motives, give the reasons for the willingness of the Patarenes, especially the nobles, to join the Mohammedan Osmanlis against the Orthodox and Catholics.
The conversion of the Bosnian nobility left the Patarene population without leaders, and the religious community was weakened by this desertion because there never existed a strong institutional church around which the masses could rally. The remaining will to resist was undermined by the particular tolerance of the Turks towards this and other similar sects. The example of the former leaders, the superficial contiguities between the two religions, the easy conditions of conversion and the promise of amelioration of material life could not but slacken the peoples' religious distrust, their reserve and their obstinate traditionalism.
In time, hesitant steps were made towards acceptance of Islam. At first, this Islamisation was more or less nominal. In reality, it was an attempt at reconciling the two faiths. It was a lengthy and halting progress towards their final abandoning of their beliefs. The Turks were somewhat suspicious of these Potures, as they were now called. For centuries, they were not considered full-fledged Mohammedans, and they paid taxes like Christians.
This process of Islamisation was not yet finished in the 17th century, as is witnessed by a keen English observer, Paul Rycaut, who describes the Potures in a very interesting and conclusive way:
those of this Sect who strangely mix Christianity and Mohametan ism, are many of the Souldiers that live on the confines of Hungary and Bosna ; reading the Gospel in the Sclavonian Tongue, with which they are supplyed out of Ragusa ; besides which, they are curious to learn the Mysteries of the Alchoran. and the Law of the Arabick tongue ; and not to be counted rude and illiterate they affect the Courtly Persian. They drink wine in the month of Fast called the Ramazan, but to take off the scandal they refuse Cinnamon or other Spices in it, and then call it Hardali, and passes current for lawful Liquor. They have a Charity and Affection for Christians, and are ready to protect them from injuries and violences of the Turks. They believe yet that Mahomet was the Holy Ghost promised by Christ ; and that the descending of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost was a Figure and Type of Mahomet, interpreting in all places the word "parakletos" to signify their Prophet, in whose Ear the white Dove revealed the Infallible directions to happiness. The Potures of Bosna are all of this Sect, but pay taxes as Christians do ; they abhore Images and the Sign of the Cross : they circumcise, bringing the Authority of Christ's example for it."
Although it is hard to say when this syncretism disappeared completely, the last Patarene family seems to have been converted to Islam in 1867. It is safe to say, however, that by the 18th century, the majority of the Potures was absorbed fully into the Moslem community.