The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

Should Ottoman statesmen of Bosnia (Sanjak of Bosnia, Bosnia Eyalet) be called "Bosniaks" (ethnicity) or "Ottoman Bosnian (Muslims)"? Edit-war diff.--Zoupan 04:33, 20 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• User:Sabahudin9 insists on Bosniaks; he says that calling them something else than Bosniaks is Serbianization and robbing the Bosniaks of their heritage, "Bosnian Muslim" is offensive, Islamophobic propaganda and part of Serbian nationalism--Zoupan 04:33, 20 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• User:Zoupan (request initiator) insists on distinguishing Bosniaks (a modern ethnic group) from Ottoman-era Bosnian Muslims - in categorization (Category:Ottoman Bosnian Muslims instead of Category:Bosniaks of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Category:Ottoman people of Bosniak descent, Category:Bosnia and Herzegovina Muslims) and using Ottoman Bosnian (Sanjak of Bosnia, Bosnia Eyalet) instead of Bosniak.--Zoupan 04:33, 20 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

"Bosnian Muslim" and Bosniak are one in the same. The term "Bosnian Muslim" is dated and offensive. The correct term is Bosniak. Serbs are known for denying the term Bosniak, an attempt to deny Bosniaks of an identity. Bosnian Serbs aren't called "Bosnian Christians". Bosnian Croats are not "Bosnian Catholics". Bosniaks are not "Bosnian Muslims". Yugoslavia is dead and gone, my friend.--Sabahudin9 (talk) 06:28, 20 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Again, the Ottoman Empire (and Ottoman Bosnia) and Yugoslavia are not one and the same; the nomenclature and periodization distinguishes Ottoman Bosnian Muslims (Muslim Millet) with Bosniaks (modern ethnic group and nation). This is not denying the Bosniaks of an identity. Note:--Zoupan 08:59, 20 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• Jocelyne Cesari (30 October 2014). The Oxford Handbook of European Islam. OUP Oxford. p. 433. ISBN 978-0-19-102641-6. The evolution of Bosnian Muslims into a modern nation of Bosniaks...
• Lyubov Grigorova Mincheva; Ted Robert Gurr (3 January 2013). Crime-Terror Alliances and the State: Ethnonationalist and Islamist Challenges to Regional Security. Routledge. p. 77. ISBN 978-1-135-13210-1.
• J. Rgen Nielsen; Jørgen S. Nielsen (9 December 2011). Religion, Ethnicity and Contested Nationhood in the Former Ottoman Space. BRILL. p. 251. ISBN 90-04-21133-0.
• Denis Basic (2009). The Roots of the Religious, Ethnic, and National Identity of the Bosnian-Herzegovinan Muslims. ProQuest. p. 331. ISBN 978-1-109-12463-7.

Sabahudin9 (talk · contribs) moved Category:Ottoman Bosnian Muslims to Category:Ottoman Bosniaks, without a discussion.--Zoupan 09:22, 20 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Being an outsider, I want to share an interesting observation which puzzled me. During the civil war, the western press classified the factions as Serb, Croat and Muslim. But this is not logical. While first two are classified on ethnicity basis, the last is classified on religion basis. I see some similarity with the discussion above.Nedim Ardoğa (talk) 20:25, 20 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment:
  1. Ethnicity: If the question is related to the ethnicity of the Ottoman statesmen of Bosnia, then both proposed alternatives are wrong because they could misidentify all Muslim Bosnians with newly established Bosniak ethnicity, wich would be wrong. Note: the ethnicity rarely played an important role in case of the Ottoman statesmen of Bosnia, so it would be wrong to emphasize it in the oppening, per WP:OPENPARAGRAPH anyway. In the rest of the text it is necessary to follow the reliable sources.
  2. Demonym: If the question is related to the place/region of birth and religion the Ottoman statesmen of Bosnia, then again both proposed alternatives are wrong. There is a simple term Bosnians instead.--Antidiskriminator (talk) 13:25, 22 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

To contend that anyone in the 16th-century Balkans had a sense of ethnic identity is to demonstrate a great deal of ignorance on the topic. Surtsicna (talk) 19:39, 22 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

To avoid future edit wars and conflicts about this issue it might be a good idea to expand wikipedia guidelines with something like: "People of Balkans (why only Balkans?) did not have a sense of ethnic identity until XY century (19th, 20th or 21st century, depending on the case), so it is not allowed to attribute any ethnic identity to pre-XY century Balkan people." What do you think Surtsicna?--Antidiskriminator (talk) 19:56, 22 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

There is really no reason to single out South Slavs. I believe the matter is already well-covered by existing guidelines and policies. You have mentioned WP:OPENPARAGRAPH, for example. Serious historians/biographers would never entertain such notions anyway, so I suppose WP:RS would count as well. Surtsicna (talk) 20:16, 22 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Why do you believe such thing? The existing guidelines and policies, including those we mentioned, do not even mention pre-xyz century ethnic identity of people. WP:OPENPARAGRAPH deals only with opening paragraph while WP:RS deals with reliability of the sources. Why wouldn't some explicit policy/guideline expansion clarify this? Are you Surtsicna concerned it would be hard to gain consensus for such guideline amendment? --Antidiskriminator (talk) 20:38, 22 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

My concern is that garnering consensus for something so trivial would turn into an epic hassle. Since (I dare say) there is no reliable source confirming how Damat Ibrahim Pasha identified in terms of ethnicity (and ethnicity being a social construct rather than a biological fact), WP:V already covers the exclusion of such nonsense. Surtsicna (talk)

• Support Bosniak — agree that these are one and the same. The article about Bosniaks clearly identifies them as Muslim and as for the time period, I don't see how "Bosniak" is "newly established" or too "modern" of an ethnic group to apply to Ottomans. Unless the Bosniak article is wrong; the term goes back to the 1400s. Ethnic groups don't develop overnight; in anthropology, the term "modern ethnic group" seems to refer to at minimum 500 years-1,000 years (as opposed to the term "ancient ethnic group"). —Мандичка^YO 😜 02:01, 25 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@"Ethnic groups don't develop overnight" – Bosniak ethnicity is derived from their Ottoman Bosnian Muslim heritage. Note nomenclature and periodization. Category:Ottoman Bosnian Muslims is under Bosniak history, Bosniaks of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Ottoman period in the history of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bosnia and Herzegovina Muslims, Ottoman people by ethnic or national origin – instead of using the first four categories in biographies there is one. Also note Devşirme and Rum Millet.--Zoupan 22:18, 31 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• Support Bosniak from following the discussions above and briefly reading over the topic, I believe Bosniak fairly covers this ethnic group. Fraulein451 (talk)
• Oppose both per Antindiskriminator Applying modern concepts of ethnicity to the 16th century is messy business, and shouldn't be done without strong sourcing to indicate the individual identified as a member of that ethnic group. Just leave the ethnicity option in the infoboxes blank.Bosstopher (talk) 20:29, 6 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose both for this article regardless Just reading our article, it says: "According to Turkish sources, he was "Bosnian or Croatian"" - so calling him merely Bosnian is opposed to our sources, regardless. --GRuban (talk) 19:39, 25 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]