ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that the "conversion of space" in the principalities to an exclusively Greek Orthodox landscape created a liminal experience for those crossing the Danube from one bank to the other. It explores individual conversions to Islam in the context of the principalities. The chapter focuses on possible explanations for their reversion to Christianity, supplementing their stories with additional information about other former Muslims in the seventeenth-century Danubian principalities. As a result, the boyar converts to Islam had to leave the Danubian principalities, coupling their religious shift with a spatial transition to the Islamic space south of the Danube. Thus, the emphasis on the uniform Greek Orthodoxy of the Danubian principalities both in the sense of the religious identity of the landscape and the ruling, landholding class allowed for the movement of individuals between otherwise clear religious, territorial and –jurisdictional boundaries.
