Muslim Slavs

(1506-1579), Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire (1565-1579), one of the most notable Muslims of Slavic ethnicity.]]
, Bosnia and Herzegovina]]
Muslim Slavs or Slavic Muslims are ethnic groups or sub-ethnic groups of Slavs historically distinguished by their adherence to the Islamic religion. The term is most often used in the study of the Balkans, Southeastern Europe, Caucasus, Crimea, and Volga region.
The majority of Slavic Muslims are found in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Albania, Kosovo, Montenegro, Bulgaria, and some republics of Russia. Slavic Muslims are one among the indigenous ethnic groups who are native Europeans of the Islamic faith; the others are the Muslim populations of Albanians, Greeks, Romani, Balkan Turks, Pomaks, Yörüks, Volga Tatars, Crimean Tatars, unlike the Muslims in Western Europe which are mostly non-European recent immigrants or the descendants of old immigrants.
South Slavic Muslims
South Slavic Muslims can be divided in two main groups:
* South Slavic Muslims of Bulgaria: Muslim Bulgarians (or Pomaks);
* South Slavic Muslims of former Yugoslavia and its successor states, encompassing several ethnic groups and sub-groups (in alphabetical order):
** Bosniaks, by majority adherents of Islam; concentrated in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and also in Serbia, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Croatia and Slovenia;
** Gorani people, a small ethnoreligious community in Serbia, Kosovo, Albania, and North Macedonia;
** Muslim Croats, adherents of Islam among Croats;
** Muslim Macedonians (or Torbeši), adherents of Islam among ethnic Macedonians;
** Muslim Serbs, adherents of Islam among Serbs;
** , one of six constitutive peoples in former Yugoslavia; since 1993 mainly opted to adopt ethnic Bosniak designation; remaining communities who kept previous designation are concentrated mainly in Serbia and Montenegro.
Ethnic Slavic Muslims in the Western Balkans follow Hanafi, a subcategory of Sunni Islam. According to the religious ideology of Christoslavism, coined by Michael Sells, "the belief that Slavs are Christian by nature and that any conversion from Christianity is a betrayal of the Slavic race" as seen in Croatian and Serbian nationalism, Slavic Muslim are not regarded part of their ethnic kin, as by conversion to Islam, they become "Turks".

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