148 honored by the glory of islamdefense works and citadels were conquered, the Ottoman side immediately
killed all ordinary enemy troops found within and read the call to prayer (33a).
Commanders and other leading defenders, however, sometimes were brought
before the presence of the grand vizier and converted to Islam. For example,
after conquering one fortress, eleven leading men, former “accursed ones,”
displaying on their foreheads the sign that they were “guided to the path of the
all-merciful and all-compassionate,” became “honored by the glory of Islam”
before Fazıl Ahmed Pasha (37a). Following the successful conquest of Yanık
and the signing of a peace treaty with the Habsburgs, the grand vizier returned
to Edirne from the battlefront and the sultan returned from Belgrade, arriving
in Istanbul with great ceremony and a grand procession (48b–49a).
Ghazi Sultan Mehmed Khan had both successfully campaigned against
the enemy in only two years and brought about a favorable peace. This con-
trasted favorably with over a century earlier when it had taken Suleiman I
eighteen years of war and negotiations to arrive at a suitable settlement (50a).
Mehmed IV thus carried out God’s order to “act upon his religious zeal” and
wage jihad, “sending in all directions braves and famous brave commanders
who forbade to themselves what is forbidden or the least comfort or rest, bat-
tled with heart and soul, and sacrifi ced their lives as martyrs.”^41 The brave com-
manders included “the hero” Fazıl Ahmed Pasha (30a). Because Mehmed IV
exerted the appropriate zeal, unlike his father, historians claimed that affairs of
religion, empire, and sultanate were successful (50a).
When Mehmed IV was in his twenties and had commanded his grand vizier
to complete the conquest of Candia in 1 666, he again displayed a historical con-sciousness. As he had when he invited Abdi Pasha to accompany him to Edirne
to serve as the sultan’s chronicler in his new residence, he had Abdi Pasha read
him narratives of the jihads of sixteenth-century sultans, including Selim I’s de-
feat of the fi rst Safavid Shah Ismail at Chaldiran in 151 4, Suleiman I’s conquest of
the citadel of Rhodes from Venice, and the same sultan’s taking of Belgrade from
the Habsburgs.^42 Belgrade was a gateway to Vienna, “the Bulwark of Germany,
and consequently of all Christendom,” the city to which Suleiman I traveled
while en route to an attempted conquest of the Habsburg capital.^43 Having Abdi
Pasha read him these military exploits demonstrates Mehmed IV’s interest in
great land and sea victories of previous ghazi sultans over the three main Otto-
man enemies in the previous century and his sensitivity to how he wanted to be
remembered in the future. He participated in several campaigns and cheered on
the troops at others. Long lost to the silences of history, he made a mark through
his personal desire to combine piety with presence on the battlefi eld.
Christians in central and western Europe got the message. Prints of Me-
hmed IV made between 1 663 and 1 683 present him before burning citadels