The Ottoman 'Wild West'

Nikolay Antov is Assistant Professor of History at the University of Arkansas. His research has been supported by the Social Science Research Council, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the American Research Institute in Turkey. It focuses on the history of Islam and Muslim communities in the Balkans, the historical development of heterodox Muslim dervish groups in the Ottoman Empire and the wider Islamic world, conversion to Islam, and the relations between Muslims and non-Muslims.

'The Ottoman Wild West makes substantive contributions to the history of Muslim communities in the early modern northeastern Balkans and, simultaneously, to the history of the imperialization of the Ottoman Empire. Through meticulously documented and carefully reasoned analyses of social, economic and religious primary sources, Antov delineates the intertwined processes of Turcoman colonization and conversion to Islam while simultaneously demonstrating the impact of Ottoman state policies on these processes at both the central and regional levels. The result is an incredibly rich and robust story of 'Islamization' that is quite simply exemplary.' Ahmet T. Karamustafa, University of Maryland

• 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, settlement, and faith in the Balkans in the Early Ottoman period (ca. 1352 to early sixteenth century); 3. The northeastern Balkans from the late Medieval period to the late fifteenth century: pre-Ottoman Turcoman invasions and migrations, the Ottoman conquest, and the 'turbulent' fifteenth century. Deliorman and Gerlovo as a 'special case'; 4. The repopulation of Deliorman and Gerlovo's countryside in the sixteenth century; 5. The development of the urban network in sixteenth-century Deliorman. The emergence of Hezargrad and Eski Cuma, the transformation of Shumnu into an Islamic city, and the decline of Chernovi; 6. Religion, culture, and authority: two case studies; 7. Issues in religion, culture, and authority: conversion to Islam and confessionalization.