Bosniaks

The Bosniaks are a South Slavic ethnic group and nation native to Bosnia and Herzegovina and constitute the largest ethnic group in Bosnia and Herzegovina, followed by Serbs and Croats. They share a common ancestry, culture, history and language emanating from the Bosnian historical region; and traditionally and predominantly adhere to Sunni Islam for which reason they are often also referred to as Bosnian Muslims although this is an imprecise ethnic descriptor today. The Bosniaks constitute significant native communities in Serbia, Montenegro, Croatia and Kosovo as well. Largely due to displacement stemming from the Bosnian War and Genocide in the 1990s, they also form a significant diaspora with several Bosniak communities across Europe, the Americas and Oceania.

A distinct native community of Bosnian Muslims began to form after the Islamisation of the Christian multi-confessional Slavic-speaking population in Bosnia and Herzegovina and neighbouring regions at the end of the 15th and, mainly, in the 16th century, following the Ottoman conquest of Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia. During Ottoman rule, the social and cultural life of the population in Bosnia and Herzegovina was structured along religious lines, and the Bosniak name was applied to the population primarily as a territorial designation in a time when ethnic or national self-identification was absent among the population regardless of religion. Despite an initially steep increase upwards to three-fourths of the Bosnian population at its height, wars and plagues would later throughout Ottoman rule decimate the Bosnian Muslim population who, in contrast to their rural Christian counterparts, lived in more densely populated urban centres and were obligated to partake in Ottoman military campaigns. In the late 17th century, a large influx of Muslim immigrants from neighbouring western lands outside Bosnia and Herzegovina came to make up around half of the total Bosnian Muslim population. Significant migrations occurred during the 19th century as well, from present-day Serbia and Montenegro.