160 honored by the glory of islam
eight hundred prey, half deer, half rabbits.^79 One of his hunting trips took him
to the forbidding, emerald green island of Samothraki (Samothrace).^80 Meh-
med IV wanted to go up the steepest mountain, but his retainers told him they
would suffer death rather than allow it because the mountain was impossible to
climb. This tale of the sultan’s almost reckless bravery prepares the reader for
his future exploits on the path of ghaza. After the successful campaign, which
led to the conversion of the Cretan landscape, Mehmed IV was prepared to turn
his attention to waging ghaza in central Europe.
Conquest and Conversion on Crete
Taking Candia converted much of its religious geography by marking its land-
scape as Muslim-inhabited and Muslim-ruled. Not only did Christians become
Muslims over time, but churches were transformed into mosques.^81 Minarets
became the most prominent and visible sign of the citadel’s transformation.
First the great cross was taken down from the wall. Then the fourteen churches
and monasteries found within the citadel of Candia, which were Maltese, papal,
Spanish, and Venetian, became Friday mosques; bell towers were capped with
spires, and galleries transformed into minarets were added for muezzins, the
fi rst being the litterateur Evliya Çelebi, to call the faithful to prayer.^82 The great-
est church and monastery, San Francisco, apparently bigger than Hagia Sophia
and more spacious than the Suleimaniye, was named for Sultan Mehmed IV;
the others were named for Hatice Turhan, the only woman so honored; Grand
Vizier Fazıl Ahmed Pasha, the conqueror of Candia; Sultan Ibrahim, who had
launched the initial invasion; and the rest for the military commanders and pal-
ace offi cials. Seventy-four other churches were converted into smaller mosques
for daily use.^83 According to Silahdar, these places, formerly “fi lled with poly-
theism and error,” became “illuminated by the light of Islam” as they were
“purifi ed of idols,” sprinkled with rose water and musk, and mahfi l (royal gal-
lery), mihrab (prayer niche), and minaret were put in place.^84 This is language
similar to that used in the construction of the Valide Sultan Mosque in Istan-
bul, completed a few years earlier. The citadel of Candia had been full of monk
cells. To replace them with mosques, the soldiers fi rst destroyed the “idols” and
“images” they found so that “those ancient abodes of idols became, like the
luminous heart of the believer, free of the fi lth of polytheism; and those abodes
of graven images darkened by the gloom of infi delity became, like the heart of
the people of fi rm belief, purifi ed and stripped of the marks of error.”^85
In his writ in response to his victorious grand vizier, the sultan praisedthe conversion of churches into mosques: “Those Muslim warriors fi ghting on