Persecution of Muslims during the Ottoman decline

The Turkish presence and the Islamisation of native peoples in the Balkans Ottoman military expeditions shifted from Anatolia to Europe and the Balkans for the first time with the occupation of the Gallipoli peninsula in the 1350s. After the region was conquered by the Muslim Ottoman Empire, the Turkish presence grew. Some of the settlers were Yörüks, nomads who quickly became sedentary, and others were from urban classes. They settled in almost all of the towns, but the majority of them settled in the Eastern Balkans. The main areas of settlement were Ludogorie, Dobrudzha, the Thracian plain, the mountains and plains of northern Greece and Eastern Macedonia around the Vardar river. Between the 15th and 17th centuries, large numbers of native Balkan peoples were forcibly converted to Islam. Places of mass conversions were in Bosnia, Albania, North Macedonia, Kosovo, Crete, and the Rhodope Mountains. Some of the native population converted to Islam and became Turkish over time, mainly in Anatolia. Motives for the persecution Hall points out that atrocities were committed by all sides during the Balkan conflicts. Deliberate terror was designed to instigate population movements out of particular territories. The aim of targeting the civilian population was to carve ethnically homogeneous countries. ==Great Turkish War==

Even before the Great Turkish War (1683–1699) Austrians and Venetians supported Christian irregulars and rebellious highlanders of Herzegovina, Montenegro and Albania to raid Muslim Slavs. The end of the Great Turkish War marked the first time the Ottoman Empire lost large areas of territory in Europe to Christians. Most of Hungary, Croatia, Dalmatia, Slavonia, Montenegro, Podolia and the Morea were lost, and the Muslim minorities were killed, enslaved, or expelled to Muslim-ruled lands such as Bosnia. The Ottomans regained the Morea quickly, and Muslims soon became part of the population or were never thoroughly displaced in the first place. Most of the Christians who lived in the Ottoman Empire were Orthodox and so Russia was particularly interested in them. In 1711 Peter the Great invited Balkan Christians to revolt against Ottoman Muslim rule. Habsburg Empire In 1697, Prince Eugene of Savoy's troops took advantage of a weakened Ottoman military presence in Europe and penetrated into Ottoman Bosnia, where they reached the capital city of Sarajevo. On 23 October, the Habsburg troops set fire to the city, which quickly spread out of control and scorched most of the city. Most mosques were burnt to the ground, and the majority of the imams and muezzins burned to death in the flames as well. Only a few mosques and a church reportedly survived the inferno. The city's Catholic population were evacuated alongside the Habsburg forces, who retreated from Bosnia on 25 October. They resettled in Slavonia, then a part of the imperial realm. The city took nearly two centuries to recover, still having less than half the pre-1697 population into the early 19th century. After the Siege of Pécs, local Muslims were forced to convert to Catholicism between 1686 and 1713, or left the region. The city of Hatvan became a haven for Turkish merchants and became a majority-Muslim settlement, but after it fell to the Hungarian troops in 1686, all Turkish settlers were forcibly expelled and their holdings in the city became property of foreign mercenaries that fought in the Liberation of Buda. About one quarter of all people living in Slavonia in the 16th century were Muslims who mostly lived in towns, with Osijek and Požega being the largest Muslim settlements. Professor Mitja Velikonja explains that Muslims and non-Slavs who lived in Hungary, Croatia (Lika and Kordun) and Dalmatia, had fled to Bosnia-Herzegovina, following the loss of the occupied territories in these regions after the Habsburg-Ottoman war of 1683–1699. Velikonja states that it was considered the first example of cleansing of the Muslim population in the area that "enjoyed the benediction of the Catholic Church". Around 130,000 Muslims from Croatia and Slavonia were driven to Ottoman Bosnia and Herzegovina. Basically, all Muslims who lived in Croatia, Slavonia and Dalmatia left or were exiled, killed or enslaved by the Habsburg and Venetian conquests. Thousands of Serb refugees crossed the Danube and populated the territories of Habsburg Monarchy left by Muslims. Leopold I granted ethno-religious autonomy to them without giving any privileges to the remaining Muslim population who therefore fled to Bosnia, Herzegovina and Serbia spreading anti-Christian sentiment among other Muslims there. The relations between non-Muslim and Muslim population of Ottoman held Balkans became progressively worse. In the early 18th century, the remaining Muslims of Slavonia moved to Bosnian Posavina. The Ottoman authorities encouraged hopes of expelled Muslims for a quick return to their homes and settled them in the border regions. The Muslims were two thirds of the population of Lika. Like the Muslims who lived in the rest of Croatia, they were forced to convert to Catholicism or be expelled. Almost all Ottoman buildings were destroyed in Croatia, after the Ottomans left. Northern Bosnia In 1716, Austria occupied northern Bosnia and northern Serbia until 1739, when those lands were ceded back to the Ottoman Empire at the Treaty of Belgrade. During this era, the Austrian Empire outlined its position to the Bosnian Muslim population about living within its administration. Two options were offered by Charles VI: conversion to Christianity, retaining property and remaining on Austrian territory or a departure of the remaining Muslim to other lands. Montenegro At the beginning of the 18th century (1709 or 1711), Orthodox Serbs massacred their Muslim neighbors in Montenegro. ==National movements==

Serbian Revolution After the Dahije, renegade janissaries who defied the Sultan and ruled the Sanjak of Smederevo in tyranny (beginning in 1801), imposing harsh taxes and forced labour, went on to execute leading Serbs throughout the sanjak in 1804, the Serbs rose up against the Dahije. The revolt, known as the First Serbian Uprising, subsequently reached national level after the quick success of the Serbs. The Porte, seeing the Serbs as a threat, ordered their disbandment. The revolutionaries took over Belgrade in 1806 where an armed uprising against a Muslim garrison, including civilians, took place. During the uprising urban centers with sizeable Muslim populations were violently targeted such as Užice and Valjevo, as the Serbian peasantry held a class hatred of the urban Muslim elite. During the revolts 15,000–20,000 Muslims fled or were expelled. In Belgrade and the rest of Serbia there remained a Muslim population of some 23,000 who were also forcibly expelled after 1862, following a massacre of Serbian civilians by Ottoman soldiers near Kalemegdan. Some Muslim families then migrated and resettled in Bosnia, where their descendants today reside in urban centres such as Šamac, Tuzla, Foča and Sarajevo. Greek Revolution In 1821, a major Greek revolt broke out in Southern Greece. Insurgents gained control of most of the countryside while the Muslims and Jews sheltered themselves in the fortified towns and castles. Each one of them was besieged and gradually through starvation or surrender most were taken over by the Greeks. In the massacres of April 1821 some 15,000 were killed. Bulgarian uprising In 1876 a Bulgarian uprising broke out in dozens of villages. The first attacks were made against the local Muslims but in a short time the Ottomans violently suppressed the uprising. From 1876 until 1989, Muslims from Bulgaria (Turks, Tatars, Pomaks and Muslim Roma) were expelled to Turkey; such as during the Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878), Balkan Wars (1912–1913), and the 1989 expulsion of Turks from Bulgaria. ==Russo-Turkish war==

Bulgaria The Bulgarian uprising eventually lead to a war between Russia and the Ottomans. Russia invaded the Ottoman Balkans through Dobrudzha and northern Bulgaria, attacking the Muslim population. Russia led a coalition consisting of itself, the Bulgarian Legion, Romania, Serbia, Montenegro, as well as the Guard of Finland. Despite some initial resistance, the Ottoman forces were ultimately heavily defeated and lost ground rapidly. By March 1878, the Ottoman military collapsed and was forced to sue for peace. As coalition forces advanced, they began to commit large-scale atrocities against the Muslim population in the areas they operated in. As a result, it is estimated that up to 400,000 Muslim civilians were massacred from 1877 to 1878, and up to 500,000–1.5 million were displaced and/or became refugees. British reports from the period contain information on the massacres. According to these reports, 96 of the 170 houses and schools in the Turkish village of Issova Bâlâ (Upper Isssova) were burned. It is stated that the Muslims of the village of Upper Sofular were massacred, before that, the school and the mosque of the town were burned. 18 Turks were killed and their bodies were burned in the village of Kozluca. According to Ottoman reports, Muslims were also massacred in the town of Kızanlık, 400 of them were murdered by a group of Russians and Bulgarians. The Cossacks killed around 300 Muslim men after torturing them in various ways. As elsewhere, the Russians first collected the weapons of Muslims. Then they distributed these weapons to the Bulgarians. The Bulgarians then massacred the Muslims with these weapons. The Russian soldiers, who entered the houses under the pretext of searching in the first days of the occupation, took whatever they found valuable. Especially after the Russian army withdrew, the city was completely left to Cossacks and Bulgarians. They brutally killed the Muslims in the Taşköy and Topraklık villages. It is worth noting that in several instances, the Russians, under pressure from foreign generals, would not directly carry out massacres themselves, but rather would leave it to the battle-hardened Cossacks and Bulgarian militia. Muslim women and girls were also sexually violated and raped by the Russians and Bulgarians on a large scale, with some being sent to brothels. In the report sent to the Ottoman Government by the Tırnova memorandum about the murders and destruction committed by the Russians and Bulgarians during the occupation of Rumelia, it is stated that in the years when the war continued, around 4,770 Turks were massacred in the villages around Tırnova, and 2,120 Turkish houses were burned. The Daily Telegraph newspaper also corroborated this information. According to the paper; "We saw about 3,000 bodies around the Yeni Zağra station, they were all Turkish. It was said that dogs and pigs gnawed spoiled corpses...it was a horrible sight..." The Governor of Plovdiv also reports that all Muslims: men, women and children, were shut in the mosque in the Serhadli and surrounding villages by the Bulgarians, and all of them were massacred by having their throats cut. The Russians and Bulgarians who occupied Plovdiv on 15 January 1878, plundered the city completely, raped Muslim women and massacred many. Meanwhile, the Bulgarians brutally massacred and tortured the Ottoman soldiers they captured, such as by cutting off their noses, arms and ears. Even after the war was over, it is reported that from 1879 to 1890, in the former Ottoman Rumelia Eyalet, the Bulgarians continued to systematically "destroy" the Turkish people in the region. In these years, local administrations stood idly by as Muslims were assaulted, and as armed Bulgarians, who took advantage of this situation, began to commit rape against Muslim-Turkish women and girls on a massive scale. Serbian–Ottoman Wars (1876–78) On the eve of the outbreak of a second round of hostilities between Serbia and the Ottoman Empire in 1877, a notable Muslim population existed in the districts of Niš, Pirot, Vranje, Leskovac, Prokuplje and Kuršumlija. The rural parts of Toplica, Kosanica, Pusta Reka and Jablanica valleys and adjoining semi-mountainous interior was inhabited by compact Muslim Albanian population while Serbs in those areas lived near the river mouths and mountain slopes and both peoples inhabited other regions of the South Morava river basin. The Muslim population of most of the area was composed out of ethnic Gheg Albanians and with Turks located in urban centres. Part of the Turks were of Albanian origin. The Muslims in the cities of Niš and Pirot were Turkish-speaking; Vranje and Leskovac were Turkish- and Albanian-speaking; Prokuplje and Kuršumlija were Albanian-speaking. There was also a minority of Circassian refugees settled by the Ottomans during the 1860s, near the then border around the environs of Niš. Estimates vary on the size of the Muslim population on the eve of the war within these areas ranging from as high as 200,000 to as low as 131,000. Estimates as to the number of the Albanian or Muslim refugees that left the region for the Ottoman Empire due to the war range from 49 to 130,000, while Serbian claims can be as low as 30,000 Albanian refugees. The departure of the Albanian population from these regions was done in a manner that today would be characterized as ethnic cleansing. Hostilities between Serbian and Ottoman forces broke out on 15 December 1877, after a Russian request for Serbia to enter the Russo-Turkish war. The Serbian military had two objectives: capturing Niš and breaking the Niš-Sofia Ottoman lines of communication. Serbian forces entered the wider Toplica and Morava valleys capturing urban centres such as Niš, Kuršumlija, Prokuplije, Leskovac, and Vranje and their surrounding rural and mountainous districts. In these regions, the Albanian population depending on the area they resided had fled into nearby mountains, leaving livestock, property and other belongings behind. Some Albanians returned and submitted to Serbian authorities, while others continued their flight southward toward Ottoman Kosovo. Serbian forces also encountered heavy Albanian resistance in certain areas which slowed their advance into these regions resulting in having to take villages one by one that became vacant. A small Albanian population remained the Medveđa area, where their descendants still reside today. The retreat of these refugees toward Ottoman Kosovo was halted at the Goljak Mountains when an armistice was declared. The Albanian population was resettled in Lab area and other parts of northern Kosovo alongside the new Ottoman-Serbian border. Most Albanian refugees were resettled in over 30 large rural settlements in central and southeastern Kosovo and in urban centres that increased their populations substantially. Tensions between Albanian refugees and local Kosovo Albanians arose over resources, as the Ottoman Empire found it difficult to accommodate to their needs and meager conditions. Bosnia In 1875, a conflict between Muslims and Christians broke out in Bosnia. After the Ottoman Empire signed the treaty at the 1878 Berlin Congress, Bosnia was occupied by Austria-Hungary. From 1878 until 1918, between 130,000 and 150,000 Bosnian Muslims departed Bosnia to areas under Ottoman control, some to the Balkans, others to Anatolia, the Levant and Maghreb. Today, these Bosnian populations in the Arab world have become assimilated although they have retained memories of their origins and some bear the ethnonym Bosniak (rendered in Arabic as Bushnak) as a surname. Circassia The Russo-Circassian War was the 101-year-long military conflict between Circassia and Russia. Circassia was de jure part of the Ottoman Empire but de facto independent. The conflict started in 1763, when the Russian Empire attempted to establish hostile forts in Circassian territory and quickly annex Circassia, followed by the Circassian refusal of the annexation; only ending 101 years later when the last resistance army of Circassia was defeated on 21 May 1864, making it exhausting and casualty heavy for the Russian Empire as well as being the single longest war Russia ever waged in history. The end of the war saw the Circassian genocide take place in which Imperial Russia aimed to systematically destroy the Circassian people where several war crimes were committed by the Russian forces and up to 1.5 million Circassians were killed or expelled to the Middle East, especially modern-day Turkey. South Caucasus The area around Kars was ceded to Russia. This resulted in a large number of Muslims leaving and settling in remaining Ottoman lands. Batum and its surrounding area was also ceded to Russia causing many local Georgian Muslims to migrate to the west "as a result of persecution, or fear of persecution, by Christian Russians." Most of them settled around the Anatolian Black Sea coast. Impact on Europe According to Mark Levene, the Victorian public in the 1870s paid much more attention to the massacres and expulsions of Christians than to massacres and expulsions of Muslims, even if they were on a greater scale. He further suggests that such massacres were even favoured by some circles. He also argues that the dominant powers, by supporting "nation-statism" at the Congress of Berlin, legitimized "the primary instrument of Balkan nation-building": ethnic cleansing. ==Balkan Wars==

, 1913 In 1912 Bulgaria, Serbia, Greece, and Montenegro declared war on the Ottomans. The Ottomans quickly lost territory. According to Geert-Hinrich Ahrens, "the invading armies and Christian insurgents committed a wide range of atrocities upon the Muslim population." During this war hundreds of thousands of the Turks and Pomaks fled their villages and became refugees. The total number of refugees is estimated to be between 400,000 and 813,000. The death toll is estimated to be between 632,000 and 1,500,000 Ottoman Muslim civilians killed. The intense influx of refugees from the region and the news of the massacres caused a deep shock in the Ottoman mainland. This further increased the hatred of minorities already present in Ottoman society. The situation became a factor that exacerbated the Ottoman genocides in World War I, which took place approximately two years after the end of the First Balkan War. A large number of Pomaks in the Rhodopes were forcibly converted to Orthodoxy but later allowed to reconvert, most of them did. The Report of the International Commission on the Balkan Wars reported that in many districts the Moslem villages were systematically burned by their Christian neighbors. In Monastir 80% of the Muslim villages were burned by the Serbian and Greek army according to a British report. While in Giannitsa the Muslim quarter was burned alongside many Muslim villages in the Salonica province by the Greek army. During the war, the Bulgarian army committed numerous atrocities, including mass murder, mass rape, torture, theft, and plundering against Turks and Muslims on a massive scale. Doiran The Carnegie Report on the Balkan Wars states the following: "The Bulgarian army marched on to Doiran; on its departure looting and slaughter began. I saw an old man of eighty lying in the street with his head split open, and the dead body of a boy of thirteen. About thirty Muslims were killed that day in the streets,--I believe by the Bulgarian bands. On Wednesday evening, an order was issued that no Muslim might leave his house day or night until further notice. Many of the Bulgarian prisoners captured during the war had female ears and fingers decorated with earrings and rings in their pockets. In the town of Kirmi, which consisted of 25 villages and whose population of around 12,000 was almost entirely Muslim-Turkish, the Bulgarians burned the houses and started to oppress the people. Those who could escape fled, and most of those who could not escape were killed by the Bulgarians. In the Çakal township, which consisted of 15 villages, belongings were looted and the people migrated to Komotini. However, although they were able to return to their homes, after their teachers, imams, headmen and other notables were massacred, those who remained were forced to reintegrate. According to information received from the town of Tutrakan, all Muslim-Turks in Tutrakan were waiting for the day when they will be "martyred" at the hands of the Bulgarians and "make several sacrifices every day." It is also reported that there was no house left in Maksutlar village of Tutrakan that was not plundered or a young Turkish Muslim girl left that was not raped by the Bulgarians. The Bulgarians treated the Ottoman prisoners they captured during the war no differently than they treated civilians. For example, they brutally massacred 3,000 Ottoman prisoners they captured in Stara Zagora. Oklanli It is reported that, in the village of Oklanli (or Lagahanli), the Bulgarian troops locked up Turkish women in houses, raped them over a period of 10 days, then burned them alive. ==World War I and the Turkish War of Independence==

Caucasus Campaign The historian Uğur Ümit Üngör noted that during the Russian invasion of Ottoman lands, "many atrocities were carried out against the local Turks and Kurds by the Russian army and Armenian volunteers." Due to clashes with irregular Kurdish forces and being in an area that saw prior Armenian massacres, the majority of Russian commanders were biased against Muslims, including Kurds, with General Vladimir Liakhov ordering the killing of every Muslim native. According to Boris Shakhovskoi the Armenian nationalists wanted to exterminate the Muslims in the occupied regions. Hilmar Kaiser writes that "In December 1914, the Ottoman Third Army launched an offensive, hoping to take the Russians by surprise. The attack failed, however, and the army was almost annihilated. During their retreat, irregular units and fleeing Muslim civilians began plundering and massacring Armenian villages. The atrocities were motivated by the lack of supplies and a desire for revenge." Armenian cities were targeted despite having "remained loyal." After the formation of the Provisional Government in 1917, some 30,000–40,000 Muslims were killed by irregular Armenian units as retribution. and 20,000 dead in Kars in the spring of 1918. Akçam also makes mention of a study of the Vilayet of Erzurum which sets the number of massacred Muslims as 25,000 in the spring of 1918, however, providing the examination of Armenian historian Vahakn Dadrian who claims from the wartime records of the Ottoman Third Army that "altogether some 5,000–5,500 victims are involved." Akçam writes of a Turkish source that describes the number of Muslim deaths during the winter and spring of 1919 in Kars as 6,500, whereas on 22 March 1920, Kâzım Karabekir put the number at 2,000 in certain villages and regions in Kars. Halil Bey in a 1919 letter to Karabekir claimed 24 villages in Iğdır had been razed. Franco-Turkish War Cilicia was occupied by the British after World War I, who were later replaced by the French. The French Armenian Legion armed returning Armenian refugees of the Armenian genocide to the region and assisting them. Eventually the Turks responded with resistance against the French occupation, battles took place in Marash, Aintab, and Urfa. Most of these cities were destroyed during the process with large civilian suffering. The French left the area together with the Armenians after 1920. The retribution for the Armenian Genocide served as justification for armed Armenians. Also, during the Franco-Turkish War the Kaç Kaç incident occurred, which refers to the escape of 40,000 Turks from the city of Adana into more mountainous regions because of the Franco-Armenian occupation of 20 July 1920. During the escape, French airplanes bombed the fleeing Turkish population and the Belemedik hospital. Greco-Turkish War . After the Greek landing and the following occupation of Western Anatolia during the Greco-Turkish War (1919–1922), Turkish resistance activity was answered with terror against the local Muslims. Killings, rapes, and village-burnings took place as the Greek Army advanced. However, as reported in a British intelligence report at the time, in general "the [Turkish] inhabitants of the occupied zone have in most cases accepted the advent of Greek rule without demur and in some cases undoubtedly prefer it to the [Turkish] Nationalist regime, which seems to have been founded on terrorism". British military personnel observed that the Greek Army near Uşak was warmly welcomed by the Muslim population for "being freed from the license and oppression of the [Turkish] Nationalist troops"; there were "occasional cases of misconduct" by the Greek troops against the Muslim population, and the perpetrators were prosecuted by the Greek authorities, while the "worst miscreants" were "a handful of Armenians recruited by the Greek army", who were then sent back to Constantinople. During the Greek occupation, Greek troops and local Greeks, Armenian and Circassian groups committed the Yalova Peninsula Massacres in early 1921 against the local Muslim population. These resulted, according to some sources, in the deaths of around 300 of the local Muslim populace, as well about 27 villages. The precise number of casualties is not exactly known. Statements gathered by Ottoman official reveal a relatively low number of casualties: based on the Ottoman enquiry to which 177 survivors responded, only 35 were reported as killed, wounded or beaten or missing. This is also in accordance with Toynbee's accounts that one to two murders were enough to drive out the population. Another source estimates that barely 1,500 Muslims out of 7,000 survived in the environment of Yalova. The Greeks advanced all the way to Central Anatolia. After the Turkish attack in 1922 the Greeks retreated and Norman M. Naimark notes that "the Greek retreat was even more devastating for the local population than the occupation". During the retreat, towns and villages were burned as part of a scorched earth policy, accompanied with massacres and rapes. During this war, a part of Western Anatolia was destroyed, large towns such as Manisa, Salihli together with many villages being burned. 3,000 houses in Alaşehir. The Inter-Allied commission, consisting of British, French, American and Italian officers found that "there is a systematic plan of destruction of Turkish villages and extinction of the Muslim population." According to Marjorie Housepian, 4,000 Muslims were executed in Izmir under Greek occupation. During the war, in East Thrace, which was ceded to Greece with the Treaty of Sèvres, around 90,000 Turkish villagers fled to Bulgaria and Istanbul from the Greeks. . The peace that followed the Greco–Turkish War resulted in a population exchange between Greece and Turkey. As a result, the Muslim population of Greece with the exception of Western Thrace, and partially, the Muslim Cham Albanians, was relocated to Turkey. ==Total number of casualties==

The forced mass displacement of Muslims out of the Balkans during the era of territorial contraction of the Ottoman Empire has become a topic of recent scholarly interest only in the 21st century. Death toll According to historian Justin McCarthy, between 1821 and 1922, from the beginning of the Greek War of Independence to the end of the Ottoman Empire, five million Muslims were driven from their lands and another five and a half million died, some of them killed in wars and others perishing as refugees from starvation, disease and other hardships. However, McCarthy's work has faced harsh criticism by many scholars, who have characterized his views as indefensibly biased towards Turkey and defending Turkish atrocities against Armenians, as well as engaging in genocide denial. In reference to McCarthy's previous book on Ottoman Anatolian demographics, Speros Vryonis writes: "On the whole, the book is marred by defective methodology and... The statistical numbers of Muslims and Christians in Ottoman Anatolia still await their demographer". According to Karl Kaser, "estimations speak about 5 million casualties and the same number of displaced persons" in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Frederick F. Anscombe also referenced McCarthy's conclusions, saying "traumatic waves occurred in 1875–1878 and 1912–1923, but in all, between 1821 and 1922, 5.5 million Muslims died and 5 million became refugees in conflicts with Christian forces in the Balkans, Crimea and Caucasus." The historian Mark Biondich estimates that the number of emigrants and displaced from 1878 to 1912 reaches up to two million, and "when one adds those who were killed or expelled between 1912 and 1923, the number of Muslim casualties from the Balkan far exceeds three million." Settlement of refugees The Ottoman authorities and charities provided some help to the immigrants and sometimes settled them in certain locations. In Turkey most of the Balkan refugees settled in Western Turkey and Thrace. The Caucasians, in addition to these areas also settled in Central Anatolia and around the Black Sea coast. Eastern Anatolia was not largely settled with the exception of some Circassian and Karapapak villages. There were also completely new villages founded by refugees, for example in uninhabited forested areas. Many people of the 1924 exchange were settled in former Greek villages along the Aegean coast. Outside of Turkey, Circassians were settled along the Hedjaz Railway and some Cretan Muslims at Syria's coast. Academic debate McCarthy is often viewed as a scholar on the Turkish side of the debate over Balkan Muslim death figures, who also supports the Turkish State's revisionist history which denies the Armenian Genocide. Michael Mann states that even if those figures were reduced "by as much as 50 percent, they still would horrify". Scholarly critics of McCarthy acknowledge that his research on Muslim civilian casualties and refugee numbers (19th and early 20th centuries) has brought forth a valuable perspective, previously neglected in the Christian West, that millions of Muslims also suffered and died during those years. Donald W. Bleacher, though acknowledging that McCarthy is pro-Turkish nonetheless has called his scholarly study Death and Exile on Muslim civilian casualties and refugee numbers "a necessary corrective" challenging the West's model of all victims being Christians and all perpetrators as being Muslims. ==Destruction of Muslim heritage==

Muslim heritage was extensively targeted during the persecutions. During their long rule the Ottomans had built numerous mosques, madrasas, caravanserais, bath-houses and other types of building. According to current research, around 20,000 buildings of all sizes have been documented in official Ottoman registers. Most of the Ottoman era mosques of the Balkans have been destroyed; the ones still standing often had their minarets destroyed. Before the Habsburg conquest, Osijek had 8–10 mosques, none of which remain today. During the Balkan wars there were cases of desecration, destruction of mosques and Muslim cemeteries. Of the 166 madrasas in the Ottoman Balkans in the 17th century, only eight remain and five of them are near Edirne. It is estimated that 95–98% were destroyed. The same is also valid for other types of buildings, such as markethalls, caravanserais and baths. From a chain of caravanserais across the Balkans only one is preserved while there are vague ruins of four others. There were in the area of Negroponte in 1521: 34 large and small mosques, six hamams, ten schools, and 6 dervish convents. Today only the ruin of one hamam remains. ==Commemoration==

Memorials • The Iğdır Genocide Memorial and Museum in Iğdır remembers the Muslim victims of World War I. • A monument erected in Anaklia, Georgia on 21 May 2012 commemorates the expulsion of the Circassians. == Gallery ==

File:Mübadil GENCER Ailesi-(1923).jpg|A Cretan Muslim family sent to Turkey after the population exchange in 1923. File:SoykırımAnıtMüze3.jpg|A mass grave excavation in the town of Yeşilyayla, Erzurum File:IgdirGenocideMuseum.jpg|Iğdır Genocide Memorial and Museum == See also ==