Ottoman Kosovo

[1] During the Great Turkish War (1683–99), in October 1689, a small Habsburg force under Margrave Ludwig of Baden breached the Ottoman Empire and reached as far as Kosovo, following their earlier capture of Belgrade.

The Ottoman offensive was accompanied by savage reprisals and looting, prompting many Serbs – including Arsenije III, Patriarch of the Serbian Orthodox Church – to flee along with the Austrians.

Kosovo's population from these three groups had begun taking steps to fill the power vacuum created by then-weakening Ottoman central authority in the region.

A process of Islamisation began shortly after the beginning of Ottoman rule but it took a considerable amount of time – at least a century – and was concentrated at first on the towns.

The Ottomans appeared to have a more deliberate approach to converting the Roman Catholic population of whom were mostly Albanians as compared to adherents of Eastern Orthodoxy who were mostly Serbs, as they viewed the former less favorably due to its allegiance to Rome, a competing regional power.

Some historians believe that there was probably a pre-existing population of Catholic Albanians in Metohia who mostly converted to Islam, but remained strictly a minority in a still largely Serb-inhabited region.