As one of the steps to resolve the Eastern Question, the Berlin Treaty stipulated the administration of the Ottoman province of Bosnia by the Austria Hungary, while sovereignty belonged to the Ottoman Sultan. Although the Austrian officials violated and worked to get rid of the provisions specifying Ottoman legal sovereignty in Bosnia, this was the first instance after the withdrawal of the Ottoman Empire from the Balkans where Muslim population was not expelled, but was protected by the new administration. In spite of that, one of the main consequences of the Habsburg occupation was the migration of Muslims to the Ottoman Empire. The reasons for the migratory movements varied, and so did the official attitude towards immigration in the policies of Sultan Abdulhamid II and the Young Turk regime. The motivation for migration ranged from religious reasons, propaganda, to economic and political circumstances. The specific understanding of Islam and the claim that practicing religion within a non-Muslim state was difficult or impossible was most often declared as the argument for migration. But insofar as migration was instigated by particular political circumstances (Austrian occupation, conscription and annexation), it could as well be defined as an act of protest. While the Bosnian religious authorities advocated against emigration, their Ottoman counterparts contended in many cases that Muslims from the lost Ottoman lands should migrate and settle in the Ottoman Empire, both seeing strength in numbers. The Ottoman archival documentation, Bosnian manuscripts and journals and newspapers from this period reveal the many levels of the migration issue. In Bosnia, the Ottoman Empire continued to exist in many aspects: claim of Ottoman sovereignty was an important leverage in negotiations with the occupying forces, while migration represented the final exit option. Marking the last Ottoman century, migration became a relevant element in imperial population policies in Anatolia and the Balkans, international diplomacy, Ottoman pan-Islamic political tendencies, and increasingly, nationalism.