98 honored by the glory of islam
the same promise as the others, a group of seven men with Italian names pur-
chased the land of the thirteenth-century Italian Franciscan church of Saint
Francis, called by Muslims the “ornamented church,” and the main church
of the Catholics of Galata, along with the property of neighboring Saint Anne
Church and a bell tower.^84
But many of these properties would face the same fate as Jewish proper-ties. According to Rycaut, “And as it happened in the great and notable Fires
of Galata fi rst, and then of Constantinople, in the year 1 660, that many of the
Christian Churches and Chappels were brought to Ashes; and afterwards by
the Piety and Zeal of Christians scarce reedifi ed, before by publick order they
were thrown down again into their former heaps, being judged contrary to
the Turkish Law, to permit Churches again to be restored, of which no more
remained than the meer foundation.”^85
This western European perspective is verifi ed and explained by an im-perial decree of 1 662, copied into the register of the main Shariah court of
Istanbul:
After some churches of the infi dels, polytheists, and those who go
astray burned in the abode of the exalted caliph, the protected city
of Constantinople, during the great confl agration of Saturday, Dhu
al-Qa‘da 1 6, 1 070 [ July 24, 1 660] the state treasury seized them since
according to canonical law they were not to be restored [to their prior
condition]. Subsequently, when some [churches] among them were
purchased for the known price in order not to establish them [again
as churches], in truth they built and constructed every single church
in order to be registered. When it became evident that they engaged
in infi delity, polytheism, and error as before within every single one
of them, an exalted decree was issued that in accordance with noble
canonical law, every one of them was to be razed and destroyed and
the land and walls that were ordered to be demolished be surveyed,
then investigated and recorded. In compliance with the decree, the
glory of his peers, Mustafa Çavuş, and magistrate Mustafa Efendi,
who follows the true path of canonical law, were appointed to the
aforementioned matter and sent [to investigate it] by the most excel-
lent of honored men, the treasurer of the European provinces [no
name provided] pasha, may all sultanic goodness never cease in
perpetuity with divine providence. He, together with Master Ahmed
Halife and Frenk Ali Halife of the privy architects, investigated every
single burned church. The following is a copy of the register that
he recorded and wrote down after they made their investigations