There are many things that we simply don't know about these cases. However, we do know that the share of Muslim households in the Sancak of Bosnia (that included some parts of present-day Serbia and Montenegro as well) was about 46.3% in 1520s. The most predominant guess (but still only a guess) is that this quick rate of conversion was due to the weak organization of the church(es) in medieval Bosnia. It seems that this grand rate of conversion caused the Ottoman government to give some extraordinary privileges to the Bosnians (devşirme being applied on Bosnian Muslims and not Bosnian Christians, as well as the institution of the ocaklık tımarları). The case of Bulgaria, where about 33%-50% of inhabitants were of Bogomilist inclination in the time of the Ottoman conquest, seems to confirm this, as the conversion to Islam there was much higher than in the territories of strongly organized Greek or Serbian churches.

As for Albania, the situation is much less clear. Albanian sancaks had significantly lower figures of Muslim households than Bosnia in 1520s. However, it seems that there was no period of intensive conversion; rather it seems that the conversion was continuous. Probably the Bektashis and the phenomenon of syncretism (baptising new-born Muslim children in local churches was a commonplace in some parts) played their role. Nota bene, syncretism was well present in Bosnia as well.