Based on sources from 16th to 18th centuries, this paper shows that the adherence to Islam in the Carpathian-Balkan area was based on social, legal and personal, rarely theological reasons in relation to the stages of the Ottoman conquest of the Balkans and Central Europe. Following the Ottoman occupation, the transition to Islam had allowed the Balkan nobles to preserve their lives, freedom and fortune, to prevent the sale of war captives to the markets of slaves, to save the lives of Christians sentenced to death, to ensure the survival of people of extreme poverty, to pave the way for slaves and war captives to their future freedom and to save the lives and property of Romanian boyars who were refugees in the Ottoman Empire.