Well then Himmler really blew it, didn't he, since the division was a total flop as a combat unit. Maybe it was recruited less for their ruthlessness and more for their PR value since Turkey was neutral and Great Britain had large Muslim populations in their empire? Just like the PR reasons why there were Dutch Units in the SS and Belgian Units in the SS and Ukranian and Italian and French Units of the SS.
Actually, the
Handschar division was not a total flop. Against partisans, it was a reasonably effective unit, but it never rose to the level of its sister division,
Prinz Eugen. When the Germans withdrew from Bosnia under Soviet pressure in late 1944, the Bosnian Muslims started to desert. A handful remained with the unit and, reinforced with more German troops, put up a very tough fight against the Russians in the last months of the war (nearly all of the Knight's Crosses awarded to the division were in this latter period). I highly recommed Depre's book on the division ("Himmler's Bosnian Division").
You are also incorrect to assert that the western European volunteers were just for PR. On the contrary, they recruited hundreds of thousands of western Europeans who put up a superb fight on the eastern front. The Norwegian, Finnish, Danish, Walloon, Dutch and French SS divisions all compiled superb combat records, and suffered terribly in the process. They were hardly the stuff of PR units for mere show.
The only strictly PR units set up by the Waffen-SS were the Indian Legion and British Freikorps. The former was disbanded, and the decent recruits sent to join the Indian National Army in Burma. The latter was largely destroyed in the fighting for Berlin when attached to the 11th SS division Nordland.
It was an OK line combat unit but a great unit for rounding up partisians/unarmed non-muslim civilians for concentration camps (which is why it was created).