Conversion to Islam in the Ottoman Empire

This article provides an overview of religious conversion in the early modern Ottoman Empire through an examination of a variety of sources including captivity and travel narratives, and state documents including petitions and imperial registers. It explores the interconnected institutional, societal and personal factors that led individuals to change their belief system and in doing so, often enter a new community and life. Focusing on conversion as a broadly social rather than spiritual process it considers the motivational role of economic, socio-psychological and coercive criteria, particularly the role that vocational, social and family networks and acculturation played in facilitating conversion.