When the world first started hearing the term "ethnic cleansing"
coming out of the Balkan countries that made up the former
Yugoslavia, once they recovered from the shock of understanding
what that reality meant their next reaction was probably
surprise. Where had such a large community of European Muslims
come from and what was the basis for the amount of hatred being
directed towards them? To properly understand that you would
have to travel back close to five hundred years to when the
Ottoman Empire was carving its way through the Balkan states in
an attempt to follow the Danube River all the way into Europe.
Like all wars where religion is a factor, the ones between the
Christian defenders of the various Balkan countries and the
Muslim Turkish invaders were pursued with a certain amount of
fanaticism on both sides. While some countries were able to
mount a fair resistance and even repulse their would-be
conquerors, others weren't so lucky. While the Ottoman Empire
would have tolerated other religions unde