Islam in the Ottoman Empire
Islam was the official religion of the Ottoman Empire. The highest position in Islam, "caliphate", was claimed by the sultan, after the defeat of the Mamluks which was established as Ottoman Caliphate. The Sultan was to be a devout Muslim and was given the literal authority of the Caliph. Additionally, Sunni clerics had tremendous influence over government and their authority was central to the regulation of the economy. Despite all this, the Sultan also had a right to decree, enforcing a code called Kanun (law) in Turkish. Additionally, there was a supreme clerical position called the Sheykhulislam ("Sheykh of Islam" in Arabic). Minorities, particularly Christians and Jews but also some others, were mandated to pay the jizya, the poll tax as mandated by traditional Islam.
Demographics of the Ottoman Empire
Estimates in some eighteen sources show that the Muslims constituted about 35% of the total Balkan population during the first half of the 19th century, while in the second half of the century the proportion grew to 43%. According to thirty three sources the proportion of Turks in the European provinces during the 19th century ranges from 11 to 24 percent; of Greeks from 9 to 16 percent; of Bulgarians from 24 to 39 percent. The Turks made up two thirds of the Muslims in the Danube Vilayet and most of them in the Adrianople Vilayet and Salonika Vilayet. In the more western vilayets the Muslims were a majority, which consisted usually of Slavs and Albanians. In the Ioannina Vilayet the Orthodox Christians were dominant, a majority of whom were ethnically Albanian according to Ottoman officials and were also three fourths of the Muslims. In 1867 Salaheddin Bey estimated 595,000 Circassian newcomers in the European part and 400,000 Armenians in European part. Practically all of the Circassians began migrating to Anatolia after the Russian military advances in the last quarter of the century.