hunting for converts 189
(the event occurs deep in the forest) longing of the Christian. The most effi ca-
cious Sufi way of communication enables the sultan whose court was cracking
down on some forms of Sufi practice to ensure his will. The dream connects
the sultan to the divine plan and allows him to fulfi ll God’s design.
This is a remarkable turn in the narrative. It leavens a tense moment whenthe Christian man refuses the offer of the representative of the dynasty and
religion. Remember that his resistance to the will of the sultan is the second
moment of shock in the narrative, the fi rst being the sultan’s initial surprise at
seeing a live birth. Until he reveals the dreams he had had, the commoner ruins
the moment and the mood. One might be tempted to argue that this narrative is
less about conversion than the munifi cence of the sovereign. Abdi Pasha, how-
ever, could have chosen any act of giving to represent the sultan’s munifi cence
and generosity. He could have written that the sultan said “Be a Muslim” and
the man converted. Instead, the dream motif is a critical device that allows Abdi
Pasha to emphasize the sultan’s magnanimity and his role as God’s representa-
tive on Earth executing God’s will. Sunni Muslims who are not Sufi s also em-
phasize the importance of dreams, and offer a prayer asking for moral guidance
to be delivered during sleep. The drover dreamed of Muhammad or spiritual
guidance; the sultan is the manifestation of that guiding to the right path. In this
period, the idiom for expressing magnanimity is bringing another to the correct
interpretation of Islam through religious conversion. Tension resolved, the story
ends with an illustration of the sultan’s benevolence and magnanimity.
For the sultan, the royal way of telling about conversion links huntingwith fulfi llment of the divine plan. In this narrative, Mehmed IV becomes not
only the representative of the dynasty and religion, but also the agent of reli-
gious change. That this sultan wanted to be surrounded by converts and “holy
cows” is not surprising considering that the following year both the Jewish
messiah Shabbatai Tzevi and the Kurdish savior Seyyid Mehmed would also
be given gatekeeper positions at his palace, and gatekeepers tended to support
the Kadızadelis.
The converted drover was only one of hundreds of Christians who con-verted at the feet of the sultan during the second half of Mehmed IV’s reign.
An Englishman who resided in Istanbul during the 1 670s as the chaplain to the
British ambassador recorded in his diary the circumcision festivities of Princes
Mustafa and Ahmed in Edirne in 1 675. John Covel wrote that during this fes-
tival, which came in the wake of successful campaigns in central and eastern
Europe,
I saw many 1 00es of them (there being about 2,000 in all the
1 3 nights) cut, and the Turkes would be so farre from hindring your