Bosnia continued legally under the royal House of Berislavić, and fell finally in 1527 with the fall of its capital Jajce.

A significant number of Bosnians converted to Islam after the conquest by the Ottoman Empire in the second half of the 15th century, giving it a unique character within the Balkan region.

This conversion appears to have been not sudden but a gradual process based on various rules imposed by the Ottomans — it took more than a hundred years for the number of Muslims to become the majority religion.

[2] The general view among scholars is that the Islamization of the Bosnian population was not the result of violent methods of conversions but was, for the most part, peaceful and voluntary.

[10] The Ottoman Sultans attempted to implement various economic and military reforms in the early 19th century in order to address the grave issues mostly caused by the border wars.

The Ottoman rule also saw many architectural investments in Bosnia and the creation and development of many new cities including Sarajevo and Mostar.

The Sephardic Jews were persecuted in and expelled from Catholic Spain at the end of the 15th century, and many resettled in the Ottoman Empire because of its tolerance towards other religions (especially towards People of the Book), mainly in and around Istanbul.

Dhimmis were not required to join the army, but they paid a special tax called jizya (glavarina in Bosnia).

During Ottoman rule, many children of Christian parents, regardless of whether Orthodox or Catholic, were separated from their families and raised to be members of the Janissary Corps (this practice was known as the devşirme system, 'devşirmek' meaning 'to gather' or 'to recruit').

Owing to their education (for they were taught arts, science, maths, poetry, literature and many of the languages spoken in the Ottoman Empire, such as Arabic, Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian, Greek and Turkish), Janissaries could easily work their way up to a becoming governors or even Grand Viziers.