converting the jewish prophet and jewish physicians 137In the late seventeenth century the sultan’s Jewish privy physicians felt
pressure to convert to Islam because they had their hand on the pulse of the
sultan; they had to fi guratively “don the cloak of Islam” before being permitted
to continue in that offi ce. Despite being “unequalled” in professional skill, the
physician Hayatizade was pressured to convert to Islam in order to continue
serving as Mehmed IV’s physician. According to this palace view, the Jewish
physician had to become a Muslim in order to “clean” himself of the “fi lth”
of infi delity and “distinguish” himself from the Jews. Even if more Jews had
received the best education in Italian medical colleges, Hatice Turhan’s insist-
ence on conversion mitigated any educational edge Jewish physicians had over
others. In contrast to the mid-sixteenth century, when Jews such as Joseph Nasi
rose to the highest medical post in the empire and played an active role at the
Ottoman court while remaining practicing Jews, and even convinced Suleiman
I to intervene with the pope on behalf of Portuguese Jews who were Ottoman
subjects imprisoned in Ancona, the leading physicians at court in the mid- to
late seventeenth century, such as Hayatizade and Nuh Efendi, had to be con-
verted Jews.^52 While their declining opportunities for medical education mayhave decreased the pool of skilled Jewish physicians, the fact that some Jews
continued to rise to the top illustrates that this generalization is not entirely
valid.
The political position of Jews had become so weak that none could inter-vene to change the decision to banish them from much of the peninsula of
Istanbul following the fi re and construction of the Valide Sultan Mosque and
the compulsory conversion of physicians. Those Jews who remained best po-
sitioned in the palace, such as Hayatizade, were involved in their own struggle
to retain their posts. Hayatizade eventually lost that battle in 1691 and died a
Muslim imprisoned in the infamous Yedikule, located on the Marmara along
the seaside wall of the imperial capital.^53 One Ottoman historian claimed that
Hayatizade was dismissed because he did not take proper care of Mehmed IV’s
successor, Suleiman II.^54 Another wrote that Muslim physicians engineered
his downfall when Mehmed IV died. They approached the sheikhulislam, who
was Vani Mehmed Efendi’s son-in-law Feyzullah Efendi, and stated, “Until now
we had doubts about whether the chief physician was truly a Muslim; now we
know he is a [practicing] Jew.”^55 The physician had lived for over two decades as
a Muslim by that point, but for his rivals, who claimed he did not fast or pray,
this did not suffi ce to prove his sincerity as a Muslim. The son of a Jewish tailor
who learned medicine from Jewish doctors was quickly replaced by a madrasa-
trained Muslim.
Elite Jews in the Ottoman Empire were not able to recover the formerly
privileged economic and political position that they lost during this period.^56