96 honored by the glory of islamin addition to exploding models of citadels and cannons made of gunpowder.
By illuminating the mosque, the royal household fi nally had a central loca-
tion for making the news known. The conquest of one urban space was then
used as a billboard posting the name of other conquests in faraway places
in central and eastern Europe and the Mediterranean. Putting the sultan’s
name up in lights was a means of making him present when he was not.
Another connection to foreign military conquests was visible every day inside
the mosque: one of the columns was brought by a pasha who conquered ter-
ritory in Crete.^73Fazıl Ahmed Pasha and the Islamization of Christian Space
Hatice Turhan transformed a predominantly Jewish neighborhood and com-
mercial district into an area that housed Muslim holy space and international
trade. These acts benefi ted the dynasty’s image and fi nancial strength. Yet not all
in the targeted audience of Muslims were pleased. After all, owners of Muslim
endowments had also lost many properties to the confi scations. As the Shariah
court records narrate, they demanded compensation for losses incurred when
the valide sultan seized the property (such as stores and Jewish apartments)
that they had owned in Eminönü.^74 For example, Ali Çelebi had possessed a
Jewish apartment in Eminönü that burned in the fi re, but because the land was
located near the site of the valide sultan’s proposed “Mosque of Justice,” he lost
possession of it.^75 Mehmed Cemal Efendi son of Mahmud was the trustee of an
endowment in Istanbul who had owned stores near the new mosque but had
to relinquish the properties to make way for the mosque complex.^76 These arebut two examples. Who would stand up for the interests of Muslims similar to
these men? Alienating Muslim men of means was no way to boost confi dence
in the sultan, his mother, or the dynasty.
A second phase of Islamization in the city, this time of Christian places,owed more to the new grand vizier, Fazıl Ahmed Pasha, than to the valide sultan.
The new grand vizier was receptive to the complaints of Muslims who had lost
property. He discovered that policy toward Christians was markedly different
from that concerning Jews. One year and several months after the fi re, Grand
Vizier Köprülü Mehmed Pasha passed away.^77 He was succeeded in offi ce by his
black-bearded, shortsighted, and overweight son, a former governor who was
considered a generation after his death to have been “excessively conceited and
ill-tempered,” yet not “bloodthirsty” like his father.^78 He was one who fought
the infi del on the path of Islam (writers use the terms “ghazi” and “mujahid”
to describe him), a pious man and former madrasa professor who had studied