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

110 honored by the glory of islam

charismatic preaching and incredible impromptu Qur’anic exposition had

caught the attention of Fazıl Ahmed Pasha when the latter was governor in the

remote and sometimes snowbound northeastern Anatolian city of Erzurum.

The grand vizier deserves credit for bringing the preacher, who had been rail-

ing against practices at Sufi lodges and tombs there, to the attention of the

sultan, which in turn had a large role to play in the sovereign’s turn to piety.

Kurdish Preacher Mustafa clearly articulates the importance of the role

of the mediator in conversion and the chain reaction of religious change set

in motion when the grand vizier met the preacher. After Fazıl Ahmed Pasha

arrived at his post in Erzurum he “observed the power of Vani Efendi’s excel-

lent virtues. Seeing his perfect piety, asceticism, and abstention from sin, he

sent him to the sultan where he became glorifi ed, honored and a pillar of the

religion.” The author asks, “[Had] that virtuous [ fazıl] one of the age and glory

of the world not seen the scholar and perfect one’s perception, who would have

known the value and worth of the four sacred books [Torah, Psalms, Gospel,

and Qur’an],” and how could “the sultan’s heart been inspired by the blessing

and favor of the lord and manifestation of the light of the divine and look of

divine favor?” As a result, God made Mehmed IV “the lover of men of excellent,

perfect virtue.”^10

During Mehmed IV’s reign many of those virtuous men were not Ot-

tomans properly speaking, but provincials, not the products of palace or even

capital schools. Like the Kadızadeli Kurdish Preacher Mustafa, who was among

the palace preachers, and many other members of the movement, Vani Meh-

med Efendi was most likely Kurdish since Ottoman historians referred to the

Kurdish-speaking preacher as being “among the religious scholars of Kurdis-

tan.”^11 He had migrated to Erzurum from Van, a city known for its Kurdish

population. He thus came from a far less cosmopolitan city than the imperial

capital to which the new grand vizier took him.^12 By 1 664 at the latest he had

arrived in Istanbul en route to Edirne, where he took up the post of spiritual

guide and preacher to Mehmed IV.^13 In 1 665 he became the fi rst preacher in

the new imperial showcase mosque of the valide sultan in Eminönü. It was a

suitable appointment; according to Rycaut, Vani Mehmed Efendi persuaded

the grand vizier that the fi res in Istanbul and Galata, which paved the way for

the completion of the mosque, the plague, and the empire’s lack of military

success against Christians, also on the mind of many Muslims in Istanbul,

were “so many parts of Divine Judgments thrown on the Musselmen or Be-

lievers, in vengeance of their too much Licence given to the Christian Reli-

gion, permitting Wine to be sold within the Walls of Constantinople, which

polluted the Imperial City, and ensnared the faithful by temptation to what

was unlawful.”^14