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

176 honored by the glory of islam

of infi del space. The light of Islam is said to replace the darkness of infi del-

ity. According to Kurdish Preacher Mustafa’s account of the Ottoman recon-

quest of Bozca Island, the candle of Islam illuminated every corner of the

churches.^51 A common way authors of conquest books expressed the success-

ful completion of ghaza and jihad was to note that churches were converted

to mosques and the Muslim call to prayer chanted from bell towers, drowning

out church bells. Often this conversion of places was articulated on the very

fi rst folio of the manuscript, such as in the work of Vecihi Hasan Çelebi.^52 A

typical example is the prose of Mehmed Halife, who writes that the Ottoman

forces “cleaned and purifi ed the citadel [Varat/Várad in Hungary] fi lled with

infi delity and error; their churches and temples became masjids and mosques;

places where church bells had rung became places where God was exalted and

God’s unity declared as the fi ve daily prayers were called from them, and they

became the place of Friday prayers.”^53 In addition, Ottoman troops damaged

the fourteenth-century statues of saint kings, including Saint Stephan holding

a golden apple in his hand, considered the talismans protecting the town, and

later transported them to Belgrade, where the remains were converted into

cannons.^54 When describing the conquest of Uyvar, the same author writes,

“Praise God that now in this marvelous city, which for so many years has been

fi lled with infi delity and error, the call to prayer is chanted; in place of the

wicked sound of the church bell is the felicitous call to prayer of the righteous;

the infi dels’ churches and monk cells were converted into the masjids and

madrasas of the men of religion.”^55

Such imagery is common in Ottoman writing. The sixteenth-century his-

torian Sa‘deddin described the conquest of Constantinople in the following

terms:

The evil-voiced clash of the bells of the shameless misbelievers was

substituted [with] the Muslim call to prayer, the sweet fi ve-times

repeated chant of the Faith of glorious rites, and the ears of the peo-

ple of the Holy War were fi lled with the melody of the call to prayer.

The churches which were within the city were emptied of their vile

idols, and cleansed from their fi lthy and idolatrous impurities; and

by the defacement of their images, and the erection of the Islamic

prayer niches and pulpits, many monasteries and chapels became

the envy of the Gardens of Paradise. The temples of the misbelievers

were turned into the mosques of the pious, and the rays of the light

of Islam drove away the hosts of darkness from that place so long

the abode of the despicable infi dels, and the streaks of the dawn of

the Faith dispelled the lurid blackness of oppression, for the word,