Citatiation from JANKO LAVRIN. "THE SLAVONIC REVIEW" University College, Nottingham
"Under the Turkish rule the Bogomilism of Bosnia gradually dissolved. Isolated as it was, since by then most of the kindred sects in the West had been more or less suppressed, it was bound to decay and lose its power of resistance. A considerable portion of its adepts-particularly the nobles-embraced Mohammedanism. They did this all the more willingly because the Moslems were the only people who treated them tolerantly. Besides, as Mohammedans they could preserve various privileges over their Christian compatriots. Yet having adopted the Mohammedan religion, they kept their own Slavonic (i.e., Serbo-Croatian) language. Several Turkish viziers, generals, scholars and poets were natives of Bosnia and Hercegovina. The main language of the formidable corps of Janissaries was probably " Bosnian," and even the Sublime Porte used it for a time for diplomatic purposes. The present Mohammedan population of Bosnia is however strongly intermixed with the actual Turkish immigrants (officials, soldiers, artisans, etc.), who have blended with their Slav- co-religionists. Other Bogomils returned either to Catholicism, or to the Eastern Church. Such a transition was the easier owing to the already mentioned compromises, as well as to the fact that they had always called themselves Christians. The name " Bogomil," therefore, which had been little used, hardly survived in Bosnia. We find it in surprisingly few instances. One of them is, by the way, a didactic poem against smoking, written in 1688 by a Mohammedan Bosnian poet, Hassan Kaimija, in which there is the following passage:
I mi smo ga pili
I u smradu bili,
Kao Bogomili
" We, too, used to smoke it (the Bosnians say to drink tobacco '),.
and to abide in stench, like the Bogomils." Cf. Serbo-Kroatische Dicht utngen bosnischer Moslems. Sarajevo"
