The Ottoman 'Wild West': The Balkan Frontier in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries [Hardcover]

An analysis of Balkan Islam and the formation of one of the largest Muslim communities in the early-modern Ottoman Balkans.An analysis of Balkan Islam and the formation of Muslim communities in the early modern Ottoman Balkans. This book will be of interest to Balkan, Ottoman and Islamic World historians, as well as scholars of early modern empires, political scientists, and sociologists and anthropologists of religion.An analysis of Balkan Islam and the formation of Muslim communities in the early modern Ottoman Balkans. This book will be of interest to Balkan, Ottoman and Islamic World historians, as well as scholars of early modern empires, political scientists, and sociologists and anthropologists of religion.In the late fifteenth century, the north-eastern Balkans were under-populated and under-institutionalized. Yet, by the end of the following century, the regions of Deliorman and Gerlovo were home to one of the largest Muslim populations in southeast Europe. Nikolay Antov sheds fresh light on the mechanics of Islamization along the Ottoman frontier, and presents an instructive case study of the 'indigenization' of Islam  the process through which Islam, in its diverse doctrinal and socio-cultural manifestations, became part of a distinct regional landscape. Simultaneously, Antov uses a wide array of administrative, narrative-literary, and legal sources, exploring the perspectives of both the imperial center and regional actors in urban, rural, and nomadic settings, to trace the transformation of the Ottoman polity from a frontier principality into a centralized empire. Contributing to the further understanding of Balkan Islam, state formation and empire building, this unique text will appeal to those studying Ottoman, Balkan, and Islamic world history.Introduction; 1. The broad historical context  the rise of the Ottoman empire and the formation of Muslim communities in the Balkans as an integral part of the Ottomanization of the region; 2. Colonization, sl³!