Honored by the Glory of Islam. Conversion and Conquest in Ottoman Europe

islamizing istanbul 95

decisions at court in 1 660, attitudes toward Jews contributed to a major geo-

graphic and cultural transformation of Istanbul Jewry.

The policy stood in stark contrast to centuries of practice concerning

Ottoman treatment of Jews. In accordance with a fatwa issued for the unusual

situation, “old” synagogues and their properties destroyed in the fi re were ap-

propriated by the state treasury. This policy contradicted earlier Islamic and

Ottoman practice; prior to this time only “new” churches or synagogues were

razed or appropriated. In some circumstances Jews had been given prefer-

ential treatment regarding the construction of new houses of worship in Is-

tanbul.^69 In this case Eminönü, the fi rst area to be Islamized, contained the

foundations of an abandoned imperial mosque. Jews who lived there were not

able to offer resistance because their economic and political clout was wan-

ing, and the valide sultan did not want Jews residing in proximity to her and

other members of the dynasty. The imperial complex, which included a Friday

mosque, royal mausoleum, fountain, water conduits and channels, school,

and the complex of stores that make up the Egyptian Market, was built at the

center of the neighborhood. A turn-of-the-eighteenth-century writer adds that

the valide sultan not only converted the neighborhood by building a mosque,

but also surrounded the new house of prayer with homes for Muslims. She

turned a former Jewish apartment into a palatial home in which the preachers

and teachers from the mosque complex Hadith school could reside, provid-

ing another example of how this dynasty converted Jewish space into Muslim

space.^70

Islamizing the urban landscape in Istanbul was linked to the sultan’s mil-

itary zeal and conquest and conversion of territories abroad. During public

celebrations, oil lamps tied to ropes strung between the minarets of the Valide

Sultan Mosque in Eminönü were lit, and sometimes colored water added a

multihued effect, illuminating the name and seal of the sultan and also the

names of cities and principal victories that were the reason for the festival.^71

Thus the mosque was both a place that the sultan and valide sultan could view

from the palace, in the throbbing heartbeat of the city, and at the same time a

monument from which the sultan could be viewed representationally in the

form of his illuminated name and seal, which soared high over the heads of

the milling crowds, and visiting dignitaries, viewable throughout the penin-

sula of Istanbul and across the Golden Horn in Galata, and connected to his

successful military conquests. Previously, Istanbul and other major cities in

the empire were illuminated and decorated for seven days and seven nights

to share the joy of glad tidings, whether the birth of a prince or a military

conquest.^72 This was accomplished by lighting the minarets of all mosques

and shooting fi reworks from boats in the Golden Horn decked out in lights,