How did the donmeh ascend to the top of ottoman society?

Well, thanks to devshirme the Ottoman power structure outside of the sultan was Islamized Europeans. They grabbed em young but not all those folks forgot where they came from. And in any case, thanks to sufism, that islamization process was heavily syncretised. Seems like a systemic blind spot.

>>906218
It was a way to integrate all the population groups into the empire and it did seem to work till nationalism became a thing.