Ottoman rule was relatively non-persecuting compared with Christian reconquests

Evidence

If we define toleration as the absence, not of discrimination, but of persecution, then the Ottoman record until the late nineteenth century is excellent. The well-known preference of the fifteenthcentury Greeks for Muslim rather than Frankish rule was not without its reasons. The confrontation of Christendom and Islam has sometimes been compared with the Cold War. The comparison is valid at many points, but we must remember in making it that the main movement of refugees in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries was from Europe to Turkey and not the other way. When Ottoman rule in the Balkans ended, the Balkan peoples resumed their national existence, with their own religions and languages and national cultures intact. After the Christian conquest, no Muslims remained in Spain or Sicily, and no speakers of Arabic. — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 641

Categorization

Category: Contrarian or Surprising Claims

• XREF: Reverses a common Western historiography framing; connects to the reader’s reading interests in subaltern and Islamic history.
• SEED: An essay angle: comparing which side of the early-modern Europe-Islam divide actually produced refugees, as a corrective to reflexive Cold-War-style framing.

Related

• Ottoman treatment of subject peoples compared favorably with Christian reconquest practices (similarity 0.95)
• Ottoman society was relatively tolerant toward Jews and Christians (similarity 0.89)
• Christians preferred Ottoman tolerance over Catholic persecution (similarity 0.83)
• The Ottoman Turks were culturally closer to Byzantium than the Western Christians were (similarity 0.83)
• Christian communities sometimes preferred Muslim rule to Latin Christian dominion. (similarity 0.79)
• Orthodox Christians preferred Ottoman rule because it shielded them from Latin interference. (similarity 0.79)
• Ottoman rule did not eradicate or even shrink Balkan Christianity (similarity 0.79)
• Contemporaries overestimated Ottoman strength even as the empire was declining (similarity 0.79)
• Ottoman decline in the face of foreign threat produced genuine brutality toward subject peoples (similarity 0.78)
• Orthodox clergy preferred Ottoman rule over Latin rule during the fall of Constantinople. (similarity 0.78)
• Ottoman interest in Europe only began once Europe seemed dangerous (similarity 0.78)