[Keme]

"They understood that the Balkans, unlike the Levant, Egypt, and North Africa, would stay Christian under Turkish rule."

With all due respect, that's a ridiculous statement. You're comparing 400 years under the decaying Ottomans with a free & strong Europe (& Russia) behind you to 1400 years of muslim rule including islam at its most vigorous "golden age"?

[steve-b]

On the contrary, it's precisely because the Orthodox religious establishment knew that Islam was no longer what it had been during the 6th-7th centuries that they were willing to take their chances with the Turks rather than knuckle under in their ongoing battle with the Vatican.

[Tokhtamish]

With all due respect the Ottoman Empire that twice besieged Vienna was not in the least decaying until the Industrial Revolution.

By 1000 Egypt and the Levant were Muslim. But aside from the Bozniaks Islam took no root in the Balkans.