The reason may be ...

[pars]

Dear all:
What is the exact meaning of the words in bold? It is from Willem Floor, German Sources on Safavid Persia, p. 536:

Otherwise the Turks have made little attempt to get these lands and rather preferred to let them alone and were satisfied with slaves and serfs as many as they want and in total they get 8,000 of them annually. The reason may be not so much that the religion of Mohammad cannot be observed there, because the land has nothing better than pork meat and wine, both of which are forbidden by the Koran, but rather because the air is so unhealthy, there is not much grain, and there are no particular fortifications.

Thanks very much.

 

[jutfrank]

The fact that it is not a good place for Muslims to live is not the main reason ...

 

[Lycidas]

Dear all:
What is the exact meaning of the words in bold? It is from Willem Floor, German Sources on Safavid Persia, p. 536:

Otherwise the Turks have made little attempt to get these lands and rather preferred to let them alone and were satisfied with slaves and serfs as many as they want and in total they get 8,000 of them annually. The reason may be not so much that the religion of Mohammad cannot be observed there, because the land has nothing better than pork meat and wine, both of which are forbidden by the Koran, but rather because the air is so unhealthy, there is not much grain, and there are no particular fortifications.

"Not . . . but . . ." is a correlative construction. "Not so much . . ." is a lead-up to "but rather . . ." The reason may be not so much X but rather Y.

People might easily suppose that the reason for the Turks' making little attempt to get these lands is "that the religion of Mohammad cannot be observed there."

But the reason may be not so much that. Rather, it may be that (i) "the air is so unhealthy," (ii) "there is not much grain," and (iii) "there are no particular fortifications."